The multifamily industry has been facing government pressure through a lawsuit over alleged price fixing in rents. Now a bill in the Senate, S. 3692, would “prohibit the use of algorithmic systems to artificially inflate the price or reduce the supply of leased or rented residential dwelling units in the United States.”

The bill, also titled “Preventing the Algorithmic Facilitation of Rental Housing Cartels Act of 2024,” looks to regulate the collection of “historical or contemporaneous prices, supply levels, or lease or rental contract termination and renewal dates” from at least two residential rental property orders.

The bill is an extension of something happening since an October 15, 2022, article from ProPublica that discussed RealPage’s YieldStar software. The multifamily industry has faced an expanding Department of Justice antitrust lawsuit for price fixing of rents that targeted RealPage — which has forcefully denied that its revenue management platform enabled illegal data sharing. And eventually, Greystar Real Estate Partners, Blackstone's LivCor, Willow Bridge Property Company, Camden Property Trust, Pinnacle (and its parent company Cushman & Wakefield), and Cortland, faced similar lawsuits from the DOJ.