United States et al. v. RealPage: the federal antitrust case

analysisOn August 23, 2024 the Justice Department, with the attorneys general of North Carolina, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Minnesota, Oregon, Tennessee and Washington, sued RealPage, Inc. in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina (No. 1:24-cv-00710), alleging that it violated Sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act through a scheme to decrease competition among landlords in apartment pricing and to monopolise the market for commercial revenue management software; the case was later assigned to Judge William L. Osteen, Jr. The plaintiffs allege that RealPage contracts with competing landlords who agree to share nonpublic, competitively sensitive information about their rents and other lease terms to train and run its algorithmic pricing software, which then generates recommendations for each landlord from its own and its rivals' information, and that RealPage encourages adherence through "auto accept" functionality and pricing advisors who monitor compliance. They also allege that RealPage uses the scheme and its data to maintain a monopoly in commercial revenue management software, citing RealPage's own estimate that it controls at least 80 percent of that market. Announcing the suit, Attorney General Merrick B. Garland said that using software as the sharing mechanism does not immunise the scheme from Sherman Act liability. These are the plaintiffs' allegations, not findings; on September 30, 2026 the court held only that they were sufficiently pleaded to proceed. RealPage said in December 2024 that its revenue management software is purposely built to be legally compliant, enhances competition and is highly configurable, that customers always have total discretion to accept or reject its pricing recommendations, and that the remaining lawsuits are wholly without merit; it says customers regularly exercise that discretion and that the lawsuits are based on misinformation and baseless allegations. The United States settled its claims against RealPage by a consent Final Judgment entered on May 19, 2026, without any admission; the plaintiff states' claims continue, and on September 30, 2026 the court denied RealPage's motion to dismiss them. ^{1 2 3 4 5}

analysisOn January 7, 2025 the plaintiffs filed an amended complaint that added Illinois and Massachusetts as plaintiffs and six landlord groups as defendants: Camden Property Trust, Cortland Management, LLC, Cushman & Wakefield, Inc. with its subsidiary Pinnacle Property Management Services, LLC, Greystar Real Estate Partners, LLC, LivCor, LLC and Willow Bridge Property Company, LLC. It alleges that RealPage and the landlords violated Section 1 of the Sherman Act by agreeing to share and use landlords' competitively sensitive information, and that RealPage alone also violated Section 2. The complaint describes each landlord as a RealPage client owning, managing or providing asset management to properties in the district that use (or, for Cortland, recently used) AIRM or, in Pinnacle's case, YieldStar: Camden, a publicly traded company based in Houston; Cortland of Atlanta; Greystar of Charleston; Willow Bridge of Dallas; LivCor of Chicago; and Pinnacle of Frisco, Texas, through which Cushman & Wakefield has run its multifamily business since acquiring it in March 2020. Being a RealPage client, or using its software, is not itself the alleged violation; the allegations against the landlords rest on the claimed agreement to share data and on specific communications. Their positions have since diverged. By the court's September 30, 2026 account, the United States and the plaintiff states have entered final judgments with Cortland, Greystar and LivCor, and the United States, but not the states, has entered consent decrees with Pinnacle and Willow Bridge; Cushman & Wakefield was dismissed without prejudice and replaced by Pinnacle. The same opinion lists the remaining claims as the states' claims against RealPage and Pinnacle and all plaintiffs' claims against Camden and Willow Bridge, without explaining why the United States' claims against Willow Bridge remain after its consent decree. ^{3 6 1}

analysisAccording to the amended complaint, each AIRM and YieldStar client agrees to share with RealPage private, lease-level data updated nightly, including effective rents, discounts, lease terms and status, unit characteristics and the number of prospective renters who visited or applied. RealPage is alleged to obtain the same confidential data from landlords licensing OneSite, its property management software, and its Performance Analytics with Benchmarking and Business Intelligence products, giving it access to data on more than 16 million units although AIRM or YieldStar price about 3 million; Greystar is quoted as writing that RealPage "supplies the best set of transactional data available", which "becomes a valuable source of truth to our competitive landscape". A further product, Market Analytics, is said to compile nonpublic data from over 50,000 monthly phone calls to landlords covering over 11 million units, and AIRM's models are said to be trained on millions of leases, applications and guest cards and retrained three to four times a year. These are the plaintiffs' allegations as set out in the amended complaint. ^{1 2}

analysisThe complaint alleges that AIRM and YieldStar use rivals' nonpublic lease data to set a market range for each floor plan whose minimum acts as a hard floor; that an auto-accept function, by default limited to rent changes of 3% a day and 8% a week, applies recommendations automatically; and that guardrails such as "Revenue Protection", which cuts the target number of leases rather than prices in weak demand, "Sold-Out", which since 2022 has priced at 100% of comparables, and a "governor" restrain price cuts. It alleges that new-lease acceptance averaged 40–50% on RealPage's own definition between January 2017 and June 2023, with about 60% of final prices within 2.5% of the recommendation and more than 85% within 5%; that advisory clients commit to quote prices only through AIRM or YieldStar and to reward revenue growth; and that a single RealPage pricing advisor serves competing landlords in at least 683 zip codes in 96 metropolitan areas. LRO, by contrast, is described as relying on competitor information that users enter weekly, although a small number of LRO users subscribe to an AutoComp feature supplying competitors' rents, traffic and occupancy from RealPage's call-centre surveys. RealPage disputes these allegations and says its software is highly configurable and that customers always have total discretion to accept or reject its recommendations; the landlord defendants argue that licensees remain free to override recommendations and on average decline about half of them. ^{1 3 2}

analysisThe complaint further alleges that RealPage's "best practices" urged landlords to eliminate concessions, citing a 2023 RealPage presentation showing the share of units with concessions falling from about 30% in 2013 to under 15% in 2023; that its lease-expiration management only ever raises unit prices and, through a "market seasonality" option, draws on rivals' nonpublic data on future supply; that its True Comps tool picks comparable competitors algorithmically, yet RealPage selected comparison properties more than 100 miles away in another metropolitan area so that a client's property would not sit at the top of its market; and that a 2018 RealPage training deck for LRO clients said updating rents from competitors' LRO data could be considered price fixing, which the plaintiffs say AIRM and YieldStar do. A RealPage executive is quoted as testifying that participating landlords "likely move in unison" and that in 2020 the performance of properties and their comparison sets became "eerily similar". These allegations, drawn from documents and testimony the plaintiffs cite, have not been tested at trial. ¹

analysisThe complaint also alleges that RealPage hosts monthly user group meetings for competing landlords, separately for LRO and for YieldStar and AIRM users, where lease expirations, concessions and pricing strategy were discussed. In the chat of a May 2021 YieldStar user group meeting representatives of fifteen landlords allegedly spent about fifteen minutes sharing renewal plans and their use of concessions, a LivCor representative writing "increasing renewals and pushing new lease rents", a RealPage employee saying acceptance had grown 11% over six months and a Willow Bridge representative asking "Are we deciding as a group to remove hesitation? :)". It alleges that a Cortland employee in August 2020 emailed a user group invitee list to seek support for a change in how YieldStar calculated the number of leases needed, and that from November 2021 a LivCor revenue management executive and a Camden executive discussed Camden's "renewal philosophy" and later exchanged renewal increase limits and results. These are allegations; the complaint itself records that RealPage says the meetings were not recorded and that from late 2022, after public reporting about its software, RealPage added an antitrust compliance statement to user group presentations. ¹

analysisFor the monopolisation claims the complaint cites RealPage documents: a 2019 go-to-market plan expecting $10 million of organic growth from next-generation revenue management and a plan to retire YieldStar and LRO over time, which the plaintiffs say AIRM's 2020 launch implemented; a senior vice president calling its nonpublic leasing data a "data moat" and its chief economist in 2020 a "major competitive advantage"; an internal note in 2021 that several large landlords had refused a rival product even when offered free; a 2021 strategy presentation citing 45 of the 50 largest NMHC owners and operators as users; and a 2022 board presentation citing a 95% share of the top 50. It states that RealPage had stopped selling LRO to new clients and planned to retire it for existing clients by the end of 2024. RealPage argues that its share is below 30% once landlords' in-house and manual pricing is counted, and the court held on September 30, 2026 that the market question cannot be resolved at the pleading stage. The amended complaint adds claims under California's Unfair Competition Law, the Colorado, Connecticut and Illinois antitrust acts, the Massachusetts Consumer Protection Act, the Oregon Antitrust Law and the Tennessee Trade Practices Act; Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts, Oregon and Tennessee bring theirs against all defendants except Cortland, and Washington, before withdrawing, brought its claims against RealPage, Cushman & Wakefield, Pinnacle, Greystar and LivCor. RealPage argued that Tennessee's statute covers only tangible goods; the court declined to dismiss that claim because RealPage did not answer the states' reply that the amended statute reaches services. ^{1 2}

analysisRealPage first asked for the case to be transferred under 28 U.S.C. § 1404(a), which Judge Loretta C. Biggs denied on December 20, 2024, and moved on December 3, 2024 to dismiss the original complaint for failure to state a claim; it later moved to dismiss the amended complaint, and the landlord defendants filed a joint motion to dismiss and separate motions. In a September 23, 2024 disclosure statement RealPage listed RealPage Holdings, LLC, RealPage Intermediate Holdings, Inc. and RealPage Parent, LP as its parent entities. Washington filed a notice of voluntary dismissal on February 25, 2025 and sued RealPage and landlords in its own state court in April 2025; the court's September 30, 2026 opinion states that the State of Washington is no longer a party and lists nine plaintiff states. A September 15, 2026 docket entry for a states' reply still lists Washington among the filers; the retained records do not explain the discrepancy, and the court's statement is the later and more authoritative account. ^{1 2 3 4 5}

analysisCortland was the first defendant to settle: the United States filed a stipulation and proposed final judgment with it on January 7, 2025, the day it was added to the case, and moved for entry of the consent decree on June 10, 2025, while Cortland and the plaintiff states filed a joint motion for a consent judgment and dismissal with prejudice on April 10, 2025. By the court's September 30, 2026 account, the United States and the plaintiff states have entered final judgments with Cortland and the claims against it are resolved; the retained docket pages do not show the dates of entry. On May 29, 2025 the parties stipulated to dismiss Greystar Real Estate Partners without prejudice and substitute Greystar Management Services, LLC; the court entered the United States' Final Judgment with Greystar Management Services on March 2, 2026, finding it in the public interest, and by the court's account the plaintiff states have also entered a final judgment with Greystar. ^{1 2 3 4}

analysisThe United States filed a proposed final judgment with LivCor on December 23, 2025; the court entered the consent Final Judgment between the United States and LivCor on May 19, 2026 and, on June 26, 2026, a final consent judgment and dismissal with prejudice on the joint motion of the plaintiff states and LivCor. In a March 4, 2025 disclosure statement LivCor identified BRE Apartment Holdings LLC as its parent and Blackstone Inc. as an affiliate. North Carolina Attorney General Jeff Jackson said in October 2026 that the bipartisan coalition of attorneys general had reached a $7 million settlement with LivCor, which would stop using other landlords' nonpublic data to set rents, after earlier settlements with Greystar and Cortland; according to a trade news report of the consent judgment, LivCor denies fault, liability or wrongdoing and will cooperate in the case against the remaining defendants. ^{1 4 5 6}

analysisOn March 26, 2026, on the parties' stipulation, the court dismissed Cushman & Wakefield without prejudice, Pinnacle Property Management Services having been substituted for it. The United States filed a proposed final judgment with Willow Bridge Property Company on July 6, 2026, together with a Competitive Impact Statement, and the court signed a stipulation and order on July 21, 2026; on September 4, 2026 the United States filed a proposed final judgment resolving its claims against Pinnacle. The plaintiff states have not settled with either landlord. ^{4 2}

analysisOn November 24, 2025 the United States filed a stipulation and proposed final judgment resolving its claims against RealPage, with a Competitive Impact Statement; notice was published in the Federal Register on December 5, 2025 under the Antitrust Procedures and Penalties Act. RealPage filed its certificate of compliance on December 4, 2025, the United States responded to public comments on April 30, 2026 and moved for entry on May 14, 2026, and Judge Osteen signed the Final Judgment on May 19, 2026. It terminates only the claims in the United States' complaint, leaves the United States free to pursue other claims and does not limit any non-settling state attorney general. RealPage consented without trial or adjudication of any issue of fact or law, and the judgment is not evidence against or an admission by any party. It expires seven years after entry, and the United States may move to terminate it after four. ^{1 2 3 4}

analysisUnder the proposed Final Judgment published in December 2025, RealPage may not, subject to limited exceptions, use nonpublic data from competing properties in the runtime operation of its software; may train models only on data at least 12 months old and not from active leases, with geographic effects no finer than nationwide (statewide for its AI Demand, AI Supply I and AI Supply II models); and may not conduct market surveys for its revenue management products or facilitate discussions among landlords about pricing strategies. Within 180 days it may not offer auto-accept features that do not require users to set their own parameters, asymmetric "governor" guardrails, lease-target reductions, "Sold-out" recommendations based on other properties' data, or anything that impedes a user from rejecting a recommendation. The Justice Department's Competitive Impact Statement states that until September 30, 2024 RealPage's software used market survey data gathered from competing landlords. The proposal also appoints a monitor for three years, extendable by up to 18 months, with access to RealPage's records, staff, the code and pseudocode of its revenue management products and model-training documents, reporting annually to the United States; requires an antitrust compliance officer who attends RealPage's revenue management user meetings and an annual compliance certification by its general counsel; and, subject to RealPage reaching settlement with certain states, requires it to cooperate with the United States' case against the remaining landlord defendants, including making up to 25 employees available for voluntary interviews of up to 100 hours in total (the department's explanatory statement describes this as at least 25 employees). Subject to full, truthful and continuing cooperation, RealPage is released from the settled federal civil antitrust claims. These terms come from the proposed judgment and the department's Competitive Impact Statement published in the Federal Register; the retained records do not show whether the judgment entered on May 19, 2026 differs from the proposal. ²

analysisIn a May 2026 newspaper interview chief executive Dirk Wakeham said RealPage had agreed to a federal monitor overseeing how its algorithm works, which Wakeham said the company fully supported because it would show that the software operates in an ethical and legally compliant way, and that RealPage's recommendations are aligned with what the market needs. The newspaper noted that the settlement included no admission of guilt or fines and required RealPage to stop using nonpublic, competitively sensitive data, while Wakeham said the company can still reference publicly available asking rents. This is the company's account of the settlement; the terms themselves are set out in the judgment. ⁵

analysisOn September 30, 2026 Judge Osteen denied RealPage's motion to dismiss, denied the joint and separate motions of Camden Property Trust, Pinnacle Property Management Services and Willow Bridge Property Company, and denied the Greystar and LivCor motions as moot. The court held that the amended complaint plausibly alleges a single combination among RealPage and the landlords to contribute confidential data, rather than separate bilateral agreements, and states claims under Sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act and the related state laws; it found that a share of roughly 80%, protected by the alleged barriers, establishes a dangerous probability of monopoly power for pleading purposes. It rejected RealPage's argument that the United States' Final Judgment made the states' claims moot, noting that the judgment is time-limited and enforceable only by the United States. The ruling accepts the complaint's allegations as true for the purpose of the motions; the court stated that it was not asked to decide whether the defendants actually violated the antitrust laws. What remains are the plaintiff states' claims against RealPage and Pinnacle and all plaintiffs' claims against Camden and Willow Bridge; on October 9, 2026 RealPage, Camden, Pinnacle and Willow Bridge filed a consent motion for more time to answer the amended complaint. ^{1 2}

analysisThe opinion recounts the landlord-specific allegations. Willow Bridge executives are alleged to have valued the shared transactional data behind YieldStar, chosen AIRM over a cheaper rival partly for its market data and taken part in AIRM's beta testing, and a Willow Bridge representative is alleged to have asked at a May 2021 user group meeting "Are we deciding as a group to remove hesitation? :)". Camden, also an AIRM beta tester, is alleged to have exchanged renewal-increase plans with Greystar and LivCor in September 2020 and then raised a renewal cap "to get to the same renewal gains as LivCor". Pinnacle's revenue management director is alleged to have described YieldStar's roughly 14 million lease transactions as "a window into the market" and to have proposed a call among competing revenue managers. The court accepted these allegations as true only for the purpose of the motions. Willow Bridge characterises this as unilateral business conduct and occasional communications with peers, which the court said may prevail at trial; Camden argues that the information it exchanged was also disclosed publicly, which the court called a factual question it could not resolve; and the landlords argue that most of the communications did not involve RealPage. ²

analysisOn the market, the opinion recounts allegations that participants in the data exchange control roughly 30% to over 80% of units in the identified submarkets and 33% to 45% in metropolitan markets; that RealPage has held roughly 80% of commercial revenue management software since at least 2019 and 80% to 85% in 2023, including 95% of the fifty largest owners and operators; and that RealPage's two main rivals together hold data on fewer than 250,000 units against its 16 million, RealPage describing a rival product without such data as a "Ferrari without an engine". These are allegations accepted as true for the motions; RealPage argues that a share of 30% or less cannot show market power and that its true share is below 30% once in-house and manual pricing is counted, and the court said whether the evidence bears out the alleged market is a question for a later stage. In the same case the United States filed as exhibits a February 2, 2026 memorandum order in Kentucky's antitrust suit against RealPage and others (No. 2:25-cv-00093, E.D. Ky.) and an unsealed March 31, 2026 memorandum opinion in New Jersey's suit (No. 2:25-cv-03057, D.N.J.). ^{2 1}