Government investigations: Justice Department, FTC and Canada

analysisAn investigative news report of November 23, 2022, citing a source with knowledge of the matter, stated that the Justice Department's Antitrust Division had opened an investigation into whether RealPage's rent-setting software was facilitating collusion among landlords. The same source said that some department staff had raised concerns about RealPage's 2017 purchase of its largest pricing competitor, The Rainmaker Group's LRO business, but were overridden by political appointees; the department had requested additional information about that deal in 2017 and cleared it in November 2017. The report also described RealPage's User Group of more than 1,000 members, who meet privately at an annual conference and in quarterly calls, and a letter from three senators, including Amy Klobuchar, expressing concern about potential anticompetitive coordination through it. The report relied on a single unnamed source for the investigation and the internal objections, and the department declined to comment. RealPage told the reporters that it uses aggregated market data from a variety of sources in a legally compliant manner, that its software prioritises a property's own supply and demand over competitors' rents, and that it reduces the risk of collusion compared with landlords pricing manually from phone surveys of competitors. ¹

analysisA trade news report of June 6, 2024, citing another outlet's unnamed sources, stated that in March 2024 the Justice Department had opened a criminal investigation into RealPage and some of the large apartment owners and managers using its pricing software, to determine whether RealPage was facilitating price fixing, with subpoenas issued earlier that year for a federal grand jury in Washington, D.C. On May 22, 2024 the FBI executed a search warrant at the Atlanta headquarters of the landlord Cortland, which said the limited search was part of an ongoing Justice Department investigation into potential antitrust violations in the multifamily housing industry, that it was cooperating fully, and that neither it nor its employees were targets; the department declined to comment on the search, and the FBI said only that agents were conducting court-authorised activities. On December 6, 2024 RealPage announced that the Antitrust Division had notified it that it had closed its criminal investigation into pricing practices in the multifamily rental housing industry; RealPage said it had extensively cooperated, had never been identified as a target, remained steadfast in its belief that it never violated the antitrust laws and would continue to defend itself in the remaining civil lawsuits. The trade press reported that the department had not announced the closure on its website, and a newspaper report of January 8, 2025 described the probe in which Cortland's offices had been searched as defunct. No charges are recorded in the retained sources; the closure is known from RealPage's announcement and press reports, not from the department's letter. ^{2 3 4 5}

analysisRealPage disclosed that on February 23, 2015 it received a Civil Investigative Demand from the Federal Trade Commission about its compliance with the Fair Credit Reporting Act, and that on November 2, 2017 FTC staff told it they believed there was a basis for claims for monetary and injunctive relief for failing to follow reasonable procedures to assure the maximum possible accuracy of its tenant screening reports. In October 2018 RealPage settled with the FTC, paying $3.0 million and agreeing to continue to comply with the Act; it said the settlement required no change to its business practices and that it believes its practices did not, and do not, violate the FCRA or any other law. The settlement is not a court finding of a violation. ¹

analysisCanada's Competition Bureau opened an investigation into the use of revenue management software for rental housing in August 2024, after complaints that landlords could use it to collude, and in January 2025 launched a formal civil inquiry into whether RealPage Canada, Inc. and Yardi Canada, Ltd. had abused a dominant position or entered into anticompetitive collaboration, noting that RealPage offers YieldStar, AIRM and LRO in Canada. On November 10, 2025 it discontinued the inquiry, finding that the products were not sufficiently widespread in Canada to substantially harm competition and that there was insufficient evidence, at that time, that RealPage or Yardi held a dominant position in a relevant market. The Bureau said it remained concerned about the potential of revenue management software to substantially harm competition in rental housing and issued compliance guidance with its statement. ¹