Dive Brief:
- RealPage and Willow Bridge, one of the country’s largest apartment managers, face another lawsuit related to algorithmic rent-setting software, this time in Philadelphia.
- Plaintiff and tenant Yiyao Liu filed a class-action suit in the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas, alleging the two firms violated the city's rent price-fixing statute, according to the July 6 complaint.
- Under Philadelphia law, it is illegal to provide software that collects non-public competitor data and uses it to recommend rental prices, fees, terms or occupancy levels — and it is also illegal for a landlord to pay for it, per the complaint. Liu, who lived in a building managed by Willow Bridge, alleges that “RealPage provided such software, and Willow Bridge used it at its Philadelphia properties.”
Dive Insight:
In October 2024, the Philadelphia City Council unanimously passed a bill barring and penalizing anti-competitive rental practices, “including price coordination effected through algorithmic software,” per the complaint. The law took effect on Feb. 11, 2025, making Philadelphia the second U.S. municipality to enact such a measure after San Francisco, where its algorithmic rent-pricing law took effect on Oct. 14, 2024.
Philadelphia Code § 9-813 makes it unlawful to “engage in price coordination for residential rental units” in the city, “including through the sale, licensure, or provision of any service or product that involves price coordination.” The statute also makes it illegal to “use, subscribe to, or contract or pay for” such services.
Nonetheless, the complaint alleges that Willow Bridge did use RealPage’s software, which collects non-public competitor data from numerous landlords and uses “one or more algorithms to recommend rents and occupancy levels, that is, ‘price coordination.’” The lawsuit specifically cites RealPage algorithmic software products, including AIRevenue Management, YieldStar and Lease Rent Options.
A spokesperson for RealPage said the company does not comment on pending litigation. Willow Bridge did not respond to Multifamily Dive’s request for comment.
Previously, RealPage said it continues to believe that its revenue management products, and its customers’ use of them, have always been legal.
Liu is asking for a jury trial and seeks three times the amount of actual damages or statutory damages of $2,000 per violation, as well as payment for attorneys’ fees and an injunction on the firms’ use of unauthorized rent-setting software in the city.
The same day the Philadelphia lawsuit was filed, Willow Bridge agreed to settle a separate lawsuit related to its use of RealPage’s rent price-setting software. The Department of Justice filed a proposed settlement on July 6 to resolve its claims against Willow Bridge in The United States et al. v. RealPage et al. federal antitrust case, which alleges that the landlord violated the Sherman Act barring unfair monopolies.
That agreement, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina, is part of the DOJ’s ongoing enforcement against algorithmic coordination, use of competitively sensitive data and other anticompetitive practices in rental markets, according to the agency.
As more cities and states pass or propose their own algorithmic rent pricing laws, RealPage has started to go on the offensive.
On Oct. 16, 2025, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul signed into law S.7882, which amends the state’s existing antitrust law to prohibit the use of pricing algorithms to set rent prices. In response, RealPage filed a complaint on Nov. 26, 2025, arguing that the law represents a “sweeping and unconstitutional ban on lawful speech specifically intended to outlaw software developed and sold by companies like Plaintiff RealPage, Inc.”
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