Dive Brief:
- The U.S. Justice Department and Pinnacle Property Management Services have reached an agreement to settle claims that it used RealPage’s algorithmic pricing software to fix rents by illegally collecting and sharing confidential pricing information, per a press release from the agency.
- The DOJ’s Antitrust Division filed the proposed consent decree with Pinnacle in the United States et al. v. RealPage et al. federal antitrust case in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina on Sept. 4. Pinnacle does not admit fault but must abide by certain requirements, and the agreement must still be approved by the court.
- The settlement is part of the DOJ’s ongoing enforcement against “algorithmic coordination, the use of competitors’ competitively sensitive data, and other anticompetitive practices in rental markets across the country that artificially increase housing costs,” per the release. Multifamily Dive reached out to Pinnacle for comment but did not get a response by publication time.
Dive Insight:
In January 2025, the U.S. and attorneys general from 10 states amended their 2024 antitrust lawsuit against RealPage to add six major landlords that allegedly participated in algorithmic pricing schemes that harmed renters.
RealPage, Cortland Management, Greystar Management Services, Blackstone’s LivCor and Willow Bridge Property Co. have already settled with the agency. Camden Property Trust is also named but has not settled.
The DOJ said that RealPage’s algorithms included anticompetitive rules that aligned pricing. Pinnacle and the other five landlords shared competitively sensitive data to generate rent recommendations and also conferred on competitively sensitive topics like pricing strategies and parameters for RealPage’s software, the agency said in the release.
Pinnacle is a subsidiary of Cushman & Wakefield, which acquired the Frisco, Texas-based residential property manager in March 2020, according to a Cushman press release.
The proposed agreement would require Pinnacle to:
- Not use any anticompetitive algorithm that “generates pricing recommendations using its competitors’ competitively sensitive data” or that has certain anticompetitive features, and “refrain from sharing competitively sensitive information with competitors.”
- Adopt a written antitrust compliance policy regarding these obligations, train all employees annually on the policy and designate a chief antitrust compliance officer responsible for implementation and enforcement.
- Accept a court-appointed monitor if the firm uses a third-party pricing algorithm that is not certified per the terms of the agreement.
- Refrain from attending RealPage-hosted meetings of competing landlords.
- Cooperate with the agency’s enforcement actions against other defendants.
This agreement with Pinnacle is an important step toward achieving affordable housing, Nicole Sarrine, deputy assistant attorney general with the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division, said in the release.
“The Antitrust Division is diligent in our work of protecting consumers in housing markets, including by putting an end to practices by corporate landlords that illegally prevent honest competition that benefits renters,” Sarrine said.
In late 2022 and early 2023, a slew of class-action lawsuits were filed against RealPage and about 50 of the largest apartment owners and operators, alleging that its software enabled landlords to collude to raise rent prices in violation of antitrust law. Those cases were centralized into In Re: RealPage, Inc., Rental Software Antitrust Litigation in April 2023.
Additional state and local cases regarding algorithmic rent-setting are also working their way through the courts.
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