DOJ in Proposed Settlement with Greystar to End Algorithmic Pricing Participation

The U.S. Department of Justice filed a proposed settlement to resolve claims against Greystar Management Services LLC as part of an ongoing enforcement against anticompetitive practices in rental markets across the country.

Greystar, a residential property manager headquartered in Charleston, South Carolina, also considered the largest landlord in the U.S., manages a reported 950,000 rental units across the nation.

Greystar and other landlords, including five co-defendants, allegedly shared competitively sensitive data to generate pricing recommendations using RealPage’s algorithms, which also included anticompetitive rules that aligned competitors’ pricing.

Greystar and other landlords also discussed competitively sensitive topics that included including pricing strategies, rents, and selected parameters for RealPage’s software, according to the DOJ.

If approved by the court, the proposed consent decree would require Greystar to:

• Refrain from using any anticompetitive algorithm that generates pricing recommendations using competitors’ competitively sensitive data or that incorporates certain anticompetitive features;
• Refrain from sharing competitively sensitive information with competitors;
• Accept a court-appointed monitor if it uses a third-party pricing algorithm that is not certified under the terms of the consent decree;
• Refrain from attending or participating in RealPage-hosted meetings of competing landlords;
• Cooperate with the monopolization claims against RealPage.