Justice Dept. Settles with Greystar to End Participation in Algorithmic Pricing
justice.gov
justice.gov
It seems to me that if the end result of exploiting a million families/individuals for cartel rents is you get told, “Don’t do it again,” but no one who did it suffers any consequences… this is going to keep happening.
The participants in this scheme should be facing jail time and a financial reset. Oppression of the vulnerable should blow up underneath any who try it. Otherwise this country is going to explode.
Edit: Plus, this only applies to markets where enough renters were participating to make price fixing viable. No idea if Houston is one of them, maybe it is maybe it isn't.
Tips:
1.) Read the lease. You probably have to notify them early that you are not renewing, or they can automatically renew you, or charge fees for not telling them. 2.) Never expect your deposit back. Consider putting your last month's rent into escrow until they refund your deposit. The NY Bank of Mellon offered this service at the time. 3.) Expect neighbors to complain if you have a dog, even if they are not loud or rambunctious, so see if you qualify to get an emotional support animal prescription to negate most legal issues. 4.) Things will break, document them in writing, use their "buildinglink" or whatever property management software they use today, but take screenshots and document it for your own records, including in email, so they can't delete it on you and say you didn't tell them. 5.) Every large landlord is a financial services business trying to extract fees out of you for everything they can think of to make a profit. They are the fast food of housing. Low labor costs, low expectations, not good for you in the long term. You should try to find a home to buy at some point to avoid enriching their shareholders.
Can't tell you how much I hate this in principle. So many people "game" the emotional support animal system that it's impossible to tell if the dog you're seeing at the mall is going to be a trained service animal or someone's 100lb "fur baby" that will try to jump on you when you get close. I can't imagine how people with fur allergies or fear of dogs deal with this stuff.
This sounds like you have a dog, who is loud, and you are causing a bother to all of your neighbors. But you aren't willing to be responsible about this situation. You probably shouldn't have a dog if you are living in an apartment building in the first place.
Why?
Large, high-energy dogs definitely need space. Smaller and lower-energy dogs can do well with at home stimulation and consistent exercise.
I also don’t know why you’re assuming any of this: 10 hours locked up in 1 bedroom.
So sad to see the high trust society we live in slowly degrade because of people doing stuff like this.
When I moved out, they exercised their unannounced walkthrough clause two weeks before the actual date, when I still had property in the unit. These photos were used as evidence that I had left things behind to keep my deposit, despite being provided photos of said items at my new place.
> pay-rent-in-installments
Why would you do that for rent, which is already spread out over a period of time? Or are they expecting you to pay the annual rent in a lump sum up front otherwise?
Whether and when this business model will change is any outsider's guess.
Now, the business of accepting debt from people that uh can't repay that debt is probably going to have to change.
As required by the Tunney Act, the proposed settlement, along with a competitive impact statement, will be published in the Federal Register. Any interested person should submit written comments concerning the proposed settlement within 60 days following the publication to Danielle Hauck, Acting Chief, Technology and Digital Platforms Section, Antitrust Division, U.S. Department of Justice, 450 Fifth Street NW, Suite 7050, Washington, DC 20530. At the conclusion of the public comment period, the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina may enter the final judgment upon finding it is in the public interest.
The better question is how strong of a case the government had. Your question implies Greystar was indisputably guilty and the government's case would be a slam dunk, but that's not readily apparent, given the novel concept of "algorithmic price fixing".
>Like if this were a class action settlement, they would have to pay back some amount of money to renters.
This settlement doesn't preclude class action lawsuits on the part of tenants.
In China these people would be in labor camps for anti-social exploitation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_law
>In China these people would be in labor camps for anti-social exploitation.
China also sends Uyghurs and other political prisoners for similarly spurious charges.
Obviously, it should not.
You may have been able to make that argument in the past, but since ~January, the US is a country of Rule by Law.
However, the damages are likely hard to calculate here - since it involves calculating and arguing about prevailing rental rates in a competitive market vs the actual market due to realpage, in a huge number of places. Greystar would have argued about every single finding you made, too.
Because of the novelty and complexity involved, Greystar could have tied this up for a decade arguing about that and appealing any results, i'm sure. On top of that, Greystar would argue all they did is share data with realpage and use realpage's results, so any loss is really attributable to realpage, not to them.
Greystar may also not have tons of money. Most of their deals are debt deals. The company is private, and while revenue is roughly known, profit isn't publicly known (AFAIK). So it's hard to say what fine they could afford. The DOJ knows, of course, just we don't know.
Finally, being a private firm that does what they do, my guess is they would play games and other things with any real fine to avoid having to pay it (bankruptcy, et al).
Overall - getting their cooperation is probably more valuable than arguing about damages for a decade and then watching greystar play games while losing the ability to go meaningfully after RealPage.
Obviously, i'm not trying to state any of this is ethically okay or that folks who were overcharged don't deserve their money back. I'm just trying to give you a dispassionate view of some of the decision making involved and why they may have chosen what they did.
Or at least, what would normally be involved. With the trump administration, who knows.
They weren't condemned for the algorithmic pricing part, they were condemned because they "participated" (subtext: along with other landlords).
The "algorithmic" part is just cartel laundering, they probably hoped that by not communicating directly with competitors, but instead having participants giving their data to "the algorithm" which would have consolidated the data and given each participant optimal pricing, they could evade charges.
I agree the title would have been much better if that point was clearer.
It's happening in more than just housing too. This also happens in food stuffs like potatoes.
If the major players in an industry all happened to share all of their data with the same consultant, and the consultant told them all what to set the price to, I imagine you'd have the same legal issue.
Deferred Prosecution Agreements: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO). 4 August 2025
Basically, these agreements and settlements let companies get away with crimes without incurring any meaningful penalties, and in many cases they are allowed to continue with their existing practices, or regulate themselves.
All capitalism does is build enclosures and engage in rent-seeking. When you see private equity taking over every aspect of your life down to local medical practices, vets and trailer parks, all they're doing is leveraging a necessity into higher prices by giving you absolutely no other choice.
Going forward you will see absolutely no criminal consequences for the company or the indiivudals responsible either because we're now openly selling pardons [2] and we have a Supreme Court that made the president a monarch with immunity from criminal prosecution.
I don't know what America becomes after this but it has changed and is fundamnetally changing and it's never going back. We're in a period like the start of the nuclear age, the Cold War and the Red Scare. Or post-9/11. There are many people here and elsewhere who distinctly remember how different life was before 9/11.
And there is zero political opposition to any of it. The Democratic Party is absolutely complicit in everything that's happening.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gangster_Capitalism
[2]: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-pardons-...
also housing is a pretty necessity so the prices can keep going up and people will continue to buy
They are supposed to compete with other landlords. If they enter an agreement to share prices and to not undercut each other, market mechanics no longer work.