RealPage and three of the country’s large landlords will have to answer the government’s rent-pricing lawsuit. A federal court in the Middle District of North Carolina refused to dismiss the case, California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced Oct. 2, and ordered RealPage and its landlord co-defendants to respond to the complaint.

The three landlords still in the case are Camden, Pinnacle and Willow Bridge, according to Bonta’s announcement. RealPage, which makes the pricing software, remains a defendant alongside them. The ruling is procedural. It does not find that anyone broke the law; it means the case moves forward to the next stage instead of ending on a motion.

For renters in buildings run by those companies, the open question is whether software helped set their rent. The lawsuit alleges it did, and the court has decided that the allegation can be argued, not that it is true. No court has found that any renter paid an illegal price.

Camden, Pinnacle, Willow Bridge and RealPage now have to answer the states’ complaint, and each new court filing is the next date to watch.

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What the states and the Justice Department say RealPage did

The case was filed in 2024 by the U.S. Department of Justice, Bonta and a coalition of states. The nine states are California, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oregon and Tennessee, according to the National Association of Attorneys General.

The complaint alleges that RealPage collected nonpublic, competitively sensitive information from competing landlords, fed it into an algorithm and sent back recommended prices. Bonta’s office says the practice lets landlords raise prices in step with each other instead of competing. The complaint also alleges a scheme that kept a minimum price floor even when market trends pointed lower, and Bonta’s office says rents stayed the same or rose even when housing supply was high.

Bonta said in the release that RealPage “misused private and sensitive consumer data to take the competition out of the rental industry,” and called the conduct “unacceptable and illegal.” He also said “both RealPage and the large landlords that use it attempted to evade responsibility,” which is the argument the court rejected when it denied the motions to dismiss.

Who settled and who did not

Two of the landlords the states sued have already left the case. LivCor agreed to a $7 million settlement with a bipartisan coalition of attorneys general, and Greystar also settled, though the California release does not give a dollar amount for Greystar. In the settlements, the release says, the landlords agreed to stop using other landlords’ nonpublic data to set rents.

An amended complaint in 2025 brought five large property management companies into the case: Camden, Pinnacle, LivCor, Willow Bridge and Greystar. NAAG’s case page lists additional defendants, including Cortland Management, and describes the case as ongoing; the California release does not say where Cortland stands. With LivCor and Greystar out, the ones in front of the judge now are RealPage, Camden, Pinnacle and Willow Bridge.

What the lawsuit seeks, and what it does not

The relief the states and federal government want is a court order. The suit asks the court to stop RealPage and the property managers who work with it from sharing nonpublic information and coordinating to inflate rents. The California release does not mention money for renters, and it does not describe any claims process.

That is different from a class-action settlement, where renters can file a form and receive a check. This is a government antitrust case brought under the Sherman Act, according to NAAG’s summary, and the remedy discussed is a change in how landlords price units. Renters who see a notice about a separate settlement should treat it as its own matter.

The California release puts the stakes in state terms: about 17 million renters live in California, and an estimated 700,000 Californians are at risk of eviction. It gives no rent-increase percentages or dollar figures for the alleged conduct, so there is no official number for what the pricing tool added to a typical lease.

What renters can do while the case runs

The ruling is about the lawsuit, not about any renter’s lease. The case will continue in federal court, and the next filings will come from the defendants, who now have to answer the complaint. Bonta’s office posts updates on its press release page, and NAAG lists the docket number, 1:24-CV-00710, for anyone who wants to follow the filings.

Renters facing an increase at renewal can ask the landlord or property manager in writing what the new rent is based on, and keep the written offer. Whether a pricing program was used is not something the court has settled, and a landlord is not required by this ruling to say.

The companies named in the case can be identified from the building’s leasing office or the property manager’s name on the lease. If a building is run by Camden, Pinnacle or Willow Bridge, it is covered by the allegations in this lawsuit; that does not mean its rents were affected, only that the company is a defendant.

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This article was produced with AI assistance and edited for accuracy against the sources linked above.