Two major landlords have agreed to pay $9.3 million to settle allegations that they joined competitors in feeding private rental data into RealPage software that the District says helped drive apartment rents higher across Washington.
JBG Associates, better known as JBG Smith, will pay $8.1 million, while Mid-America Apartments (MAA) will pay $1.2 million under separate settlements announced by D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb. JBG Smith owns more than 4,500 units in the District, and MAA owns 269.
“District residents face severe housing affordability challenges, and yet some of the largest residential landlords made things worse by illegally colluding to artificially push rents even higher,” Schwalb said. “My office will continue to use the law to make sure that D.C.’s housing market is fair and competitive, that law-abiding landlords can compete on a level playing field, and that D.C. residents who want to live in the District can afford to live here.”
The settlements put millions of dollars behind a case built around what happens to competition when landlords that are supposed to compete for tenants rely on the same software, fed with information renters themselves cannot see, to help determine what those tenants should pay.
The attorney general’s office accused JBG Smith, MAA, RealPage and at least 13 other landlords of unlawfully coordinating rents through RealPage’s revenue-management technology and exchanging competitively sensitive information. Both companies deny violating the law or engaging in anticompetitive conduct, and the settlement agreements do not constitute admissions of liability.
RealPage sells revenue-management products that analyze rental-market information and recommend prices to landlords. The District contends the system was particularly consequential because participating landlords supplied nonpublic information that competitors ordinarily would not possess, allowing RealPage to generate rent recommendations across properties that were ostensibly competing with one another.
According to the attorney general’s office, more than 30% of apartments in D.C. multifamily buildings with at least five units have been priced using RealPage revenue-management software. Among large buildings with 50 or more units, the office puts the figure at approximately 60%.
The settlements do considerably more than require the landlords to write checks.
Neither of the companies nor their attorneys returned messages left by the Informer.
“Daily rent rates are criminal,” one social media user said in reply to Schwalb’s announcement about the settlement, which the attorney general posted on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Terms of the Agreement; Residents Ask: ‘What About Tenants?‘
For 10 years after the JBG Smith order is entered, the company is prohibited from promoting revenue-management software to other multifamily landlords and managers in the District. It also cannot knowingly use software that relies on competitors’ current nonpublic information to recommend rents or transmit JBG Smith’s own nonpublic information for use by competing landlords.
“They will also reform their policies to stop using anticompetitive software to set rents,” Schwalb wrote on X. “And they will refrain from encouraging others to use such software.”
JBG Smith has indicated that it has already stopped using RealPage revenue-management software in the District. If it decides to use revenue-management software again, it must notify the attorney general’s office.
MAA faces similar restrictions for eight years. Its agreement bars the use of revenue-management software that draws on nonpublic information from competing landlords, restricts sharing MAA’s own confidential rental information, and limits efforts to encourage other property owners to use such systems.
The MAA agreement allows the company to use RealPage’s LRO software under specified conditions, including operating consistently with a federal consent decree and relying solely on MAA’s own data and public information supplied by third parties.
The companies also must restrict the exchange of nonpublic rental information with other landlords and property managers. The orders address communications through phone calls, email lists, shared online documents, surveys, third-party intermediaries and online forums.
JBG Smith faces additional requirements governing meetings with competing apartment owners and managers where residential leasing or revenue management is discussed. Depending on the circumstances, the order requires safeguards that can include the presence of antitrust counsel, an antitrust policy read before the meeting, or a signed statement of antitrust compliance.
The $8.1 million JBG Smith payment is due within 30 days after the court enters the order or after the District supplies the required payment information, whichever comes later. The agreement gives the attorney general discretion to use the money for lawful purposes, including restitution, litigation costs, and administration of distributions.
The settlements also give Schwalb’s office tools to determine whether the restrictions are being followed. Under the JBG Smith agreement, the District can appoint an independent monitor if it cannot resolve compliance concerns. The monitor can examine the company’s pricing software, the information used to generate recommended rents, acceptance rates for those recommendations, and certain communications and meetings with other landlords. JBG Smith would bear the monitor’s reasonable costs.
MAA is also subject to a monitoring process if the District develops a reasonable, good-faith basis to believe the company materially breached the settlement’s restrictions.
The two agreements add to settlements the District previously reached with W.C. Smith, Avenue5 and Bell Partners in the same RealPage litigation, steadily peeling landlords away from a case aimed at the technology and information-sharing practices behind rent-setting across thousands of Washington apartments.
“These are the fourth and fifth settlements in our lawsuit against RealPage and the 14 landlords that colluded to hike D.C. rents,” Schwalb wrote on X. “We secured over $11.7 million so far and won changes to make D.C.’s housing market fairer. We won’t stop until all the defendants are held accountable.”
For renters, the case concerns the monthly price of remaining in a city where housing costs have already pushed affordability beyond the reach of many households.
After Schwalb’s announcement of the settlement posted on X, some social media users asked about what part of the funds will support the residents affected by the high prices.
“What [percent] of their revenue are these settlements? Are they even ‘punitive’ at all?” social media user Bob Smith questioned. “Have there been direct payments to all the tenants that were paying higher prices due to market rigging?”
Schwalb said his office intends to keep using antitrust law to challenge practices it believes interfere with genuine competition among landlords.
“My office will continue to use the law to make sure that DC’s housing market is fair and competitive,” Schwalb said, “and that D.C. residents who want to live in the District can afford to live here.”
