Philadelphia law bans the use software tools that collect and share data like rent prices, occupancy levels and lease end dates to suggest how landlords should price their offerings.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis suit, I hope, will be a strong test of \u2026 what can happen if firms don\u2019t heed local law.\u201d<\/p>\n
Philadelphia Councilmember Nicholas O\u2019Rourke<\/p>\n
Philadelphia City Council unanimously passed legislation<\/a> to prevent these practices in October 2024 and Mayor Cherelle Parker signed it into law shortly after. At-Large Councilmember Nicolas O\u2019Rourke led the charge to pass this legislation.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThis suit, I hope, will be a strong test of whether the ban has had its intended chilling effect,\u201d O\u2019Rourke told Technical.ly, \u201cand what can happen if firms don\u2019t heed local law.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Represented by attorney Alec Leslie, Liu filed suit against Willow Bridge and RealPage in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas on July 6, alleging that the property management firm used RealPage\u2019s software to collect rental property data from competitors and use it to recommend rent prices and occupancy levels. Leslie also represented plaintiffs in two similar cases filed the week prior: On July 2, resident Asher Grossman sued Bozzuto Management Company<\/a>, RealPage and California-based Yardi Systems, while resident Sarah Jahanbakhsh sued Greystar Management Services<\/a>, RealPage and Yardi Systems.<\/p>\n Philadelphia isn\u2019t the only place to ban these alleged practices. San Francisco was the first municipality to outlaw rent fixing<\/a>, in July 2024, and other cities and states<\/a> have since followed with similar legislation. Earlier this month, neighboring New Jersey established a law<\/a> that regulates the use of algorithmic rent-fixing tools.\u00a0<\/p>\n This is also not the first time RealPage has been sued for these practices<\/a>, alongside major property management companies. The DOJ recently filed a settlement<\/a> with Willow Bridge Property Company for using RealPage\u2019s software.<\/p>\n Neither Yardi Systems nor any of the property management companies responded to a request for comment. Leslie, the plaintiffs\u2019 attorney, also did not respond. RealPage told Technical.ly it did not comment on ongoing litigation.<\/p>\n Suits allege the tech platforms are pulling non-public data<\/p>\n All three lawsuits underway in Philly Common Pleas Court allege that the property management company in question used software tools for price coordination.\u00a0<\/p>\n Philadelphia\u2019s legislation defines price coordination as collecting information about rental prices, price changes, supply levels, occupancy rates, or lease renewal and end dates from multiple property owners or landlords. It also involves using that information to suggest prices, lease terms and other rental factors.\u00a0<\/p>\n Philadelphia\u2019s law makes it illegal for landlords to agree to not compete with each other when setting rent prices or using services or products that facilitate price coordination.\u00a0<\/p>\n RealPage, founded in 1998, sells software to property owners and property management companies. The company\u2019s platform includes tools to manage lease agreements, resident services, finances and other aspects of renting out properties.\u00a0<\/p>\n Yardi Systems, founded in 1984, offers similar products for property owners and is one of RealPage\u2019s biggest competitors.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Department of Justice sued RealPage in 2024<\/a>, alleging that the company\u2019s technology allowed landlords to share information with each other and set rent prices above market rate. RealPage settled that lawsuit the following fall, agreeing to stop using non-public data<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n The lawsuits in Philadelphia detail how RealPage and Yardi\u2019s products allegedly use information that isn\u2019t publicly available. Yardi\u2019s product Yardi Matrix pulls data from the company\u2019s property management software and from market pricing surveys conducted by the company to inform its other products, the lawsuits allege.\u00a0<\/p>\n RealPage\u2019s tools AI Revenue Management and YieldStar use landlords\u2019 data to train its machine learning model and recommend rental prices, the lawsuits allege, while another product, Lease Rent Options, generates suggestions based on competitor data that users put into the system.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cRealPage software collects non-public competitor information from numerous competing landlords,\u201d reads the lawsuit filed by Liu, \u201cand uses one or more algorithms to recommend rents and occupancy levels to various landlords within the Philadelphia market.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two years after it became law, Philadelphia\u2019s ban on using AI algorithms to set rent is being tested…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":252808,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[4736,14671,4774,69,71,70],"class_list":["post-252807","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-housing","tag-lawsuits","tag-municipal-government","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252807","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=252807"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252807\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/252808"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=252807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=252807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=252807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Three](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/realpage-screenshot-scaled.jpg\")
Screenshot of RealPage\u2019s website<\/p>\n