CT’s New Housing Bill Makes Such Practices Illegal As of January
Attorney General William Tong says Connecticut and eight other states have reached a $7 million settlement deal with the largest landlord in the United States over an algorithmic pricing scheme that will soon be illegal in Connecticut.
Greystar Management Services manages nearly 950,000 rental units nationwide, including units in Stamford, Darien, Middletown, and Newington.
“When the largest landlord in the entire United States rigs the market with unfair and anticompetitive algorithms, it jacks up costs for everyone, everywhere,” Tong said in a news release. “(The) settlement begins to restore fairness to this broken system.”
The settlement, which still needs court approval, resolves claims against Greystar Management that it shared competitively sensitive data to generate pricing recommendations using RealPage software and its algorithms, leading to significantly higher costs to renters.
Greystar and other landlords also discussed competitively sensitive topics — including pricing strategies, rents, and selected parameters for RealPage’s software — directly with each other, according to the claim filed by Connecticut and eight other states.
In a claim against the software company in 2024, the U.S. Department of Justice said RealPage uses a pricing scheme and substantial data trove “to maintain a monopoly in the market for commercial revenue management software.”
“Americans should not have to pay more in rent because a company has found a new way to scheme with landlords to break the law,” said then-Attorney General Merrick B. Garland in a news release.
A section of Connecticut’s new housing law, which takes effect Jan. 1 after being approved during a special legislative session, makes such practices illegal.
“It shall be an unlawful practice in violation of chapter 624 of the general statutes for any person to use a revenue management device to set rental rates or occupancy levels for residential dwelling units,” section 32 of the bill reads.
The new law defines a “revenue management device” as “a device commonly known as revenue management software that uses one or more programmed or automated processes to perform calculations of nonpublic competitor data concerning local or state-wide rents or occupancy levels, for the purpose of advising a landlord.”
Under the settlement agreement, Greystar will avoid any admission of liability or wrongdoing. However, it must refrain from using any anticompetitive algorithm for pricing recommendations, refrain from sharing competitively sensitive information with competitors, and refrain from attending or participating in RealPage-hosted meetings of competing landlords, Tong said.
Greystar reached a non-monetary settlement with the Department of Justice in August. In a statement on its website at that time, the company said it believes its use of RealPage’s revenue management software complies with all applicable laws and that it is “committed to being at the forefront of innovation.” Greystar has admitted no wrongdoing, but said the settlement provides clarity for the industry at large.
Tong said the case against RealPage and the remaining five landlords — Blackstone’s LivCor, Camden Property Trust, Cushman & Wakefield and Pinnacle Property Management Services, Willow Bridge Property Company, and Cortland Management LLC — is ongoing.
“We’re continuing to press our case against RealPage and other bad actors in the industry,” Tong said, “and we will use the full weight of our law enforcement authority to give families a fair chance at an affordable home.”
Other states joining Tong in this battle include North Carolina, California, Colorado, Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Oregon, and Tennessee.