RealPage, accused of rental price fixing, settles suit with feds



A real estate website once accused of facilitating a "housing cartel" has reached a settlement with the Department of Justice.

After a more than year-and-a-half battle, RealPage and the DOJ have come to an agreement that will limit certain features on the app that renters claimed were unfair.

'Replacing competition with coordination ... renters paid the price.'

In 2024, tenants from a popular building in Jersey City, New Jersey, took RealPage to court over allegations of landlords sharing nonpublic information on the website, including vacancy data.

The tenants said the information inflated rental prices, effectively resulting in price-fixing rent across cities due to landlords using the same algorithm to dictate their prices.

In November 2023, the attorney general of Washington, D.C., submitted a different complaint against 14 other landlords operating more than 50,000 rental units in territory.

"Effectively, RealPage is facilitating a housing cartel," said D.C.'s AG Brian Schwalb.

A DOJ suit in August 2024 seemingly tipped the scales, and now RealPage has agreed to settle on terms.

RELATED: 'Housing cartel' landlords accused of price-fixing rent rates using automated software to maximize rental profits

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According to the DOJ's Antitrust Division Assistant Attorney General Abigail Slater, RealPage was "replacing competition with coordination, and renters paid the price."

The settlement stops RealPage from coordinating pricing, Slater said in a video posted to X, and forces the app to cease using competitor data to set rents in real time. As well, RealPage can no longer generate "hyper-localized pricing that pushes rent up" and must eliminate features that discourage landlords from lowering prices.

"It means rents set by the market, not a secret algorithm," Slater remarked.

In a press release, RealPage boasted that the settlement led to no findings or admissions of liability, including no financial penalties or damages being awarded.

However, the company did reveal that it agreed to be independently monitored to confirm ongoing compliance with the new terms. Reuters reported that the monitorship will last three years and limit how RealPage collects and uses nonpublic data.

RELATED: Did rent go up? Blame AI price-fixing

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Stephen Weissman, Gibson Dunn partner and former deputy director for the Federal Trade Commission, reiterated the company's denial of any wrongdoing and blamed the spread of misinformation for alleged misconceptions on how the app operates.

"There has been a great deal of misinformation about how RealPage's software works and the value it provides for both housing providers and renters."

Weissman claimed that the company's use of "aggregated and anonymized nonpublic data" has led to lower rents and more "pro-competitive" effects.

Aiden Buzzetti, president of the Bull Moose Project, told Return that he feels the settlement ensures that "Americans who rent are not subject to illegal price-fixing practices."

Buzzetti added, “We support the Trump administration's transformative direction to hold corporations like RealPage accountable when they violate the law."

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Bill Maher urges left to stop comparing Trump to Hitler



Bill Maher urged the left to stop equating President Donald Trump with Adolf Hitler, arguing that "makes it a lot easier to justify things like assassination."

'I'm no fan of this guy but he is right, and people on the Left like him need to call for this as well.'

Maher made the comments on a Friday episode of HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher." His remarks followed the tragic assassination earlier this week of Turning Point USA Founder Charlie Kirk.

Maher mentioned Trump's recent dinner at Joe's Seafood, Prime Steak & Stone Crab in Washington, D.C., where left-wing protesters confronted him.

"Trump is the Hitler of our time! Free D.C., free Palestine!" the protesters chanted.

As they were escorted out of the building, they told diners, "You should all be ashamed that [Trump] was welcomed here. He's terrorizing communities in D.C. He's terrorizing communities all over the world, from Puerto Rico to the Philippines, to Palestine, to Venezuela."

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Maher told his audience, "This s*** has to stop, too. [Trump] went out to dinner — I wouldn't have done that — in Washington, D.C., okay. And people started to gather around him, and they were chanting, 'You're the Hitler of our time.'"

"First of all, assholes, he's not Hitler. An insult to everybody in the Holocaust, to begin with," Maher continued. "Second of all, calling somebody Hitler makes it a lot easier to justify things like assassination. Let's put a s***load of that away, shall we?"

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Photo by BEN STANSALL/AFP via Getty Images

X users reacted to Maher's comments.

"Gotta give credit to Bill Maher for being basically the only person in his party to acknowledge the damage Democrats have done by calling everyone they don't like Hitler," Outkick writer Ian Miller stated.

Shawn Farash wrote, "Bill Maher believes people should STOP calling Trump 'Hitler' because it leads to the justification for assassination. I'm no fan of this guy but he is right, and people on the Left like him need to call for this as well."

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Teen thugs allegedly gunned down GOP intern in DC — Pirro announces charges



Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, announced charges against two teenagers accused of fatally shooting a congressional intern.

'This killing underscores why we need the authority to prosecute these younger kids, because they’re not kids; they’re criminals.'

Eric Tarpinian-Jachym, a 21-year-old University of Massachusetts student and intern for the office of Republican Rep. Ron Estes of Kansas, was killed near D.C.’s Mount Vernon Square in June when a group of people exited a car and opened fire. Two others were injured in the attack, including a 16-year-old.

“The scene involved two rifles, one 9 millimeter, and 79 rounds on the ground,” Pirro said on Friday.

Pirro announced that two 17-year-olds had been arrested and charged with first-degree murder for the shooting. She noted that authorities are also pursuing a third suspect. The teens will be tried as adults.

“[Tarpinian-Jachym] was an innocent bystander who was caught in a violent act that was not meant for him,” Pirro stated. “His death is a stark reminder of how fragile life is and how violence too often visits us in the nation’s capital.”

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Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

Pirro stated that Tarpinian-Jachym was shot four times.

“The D.C. Council thinks that these kids need to be protected. They don’t need to be protected. They need to be made accountable,” Pirro said. “This killing underscores why we need the authority to prosecute these younger kids, because they’re not kids; they’re criminals.”

Blaze News reached out to the D.C. Council for comment.

Pirro mentioned that violent acts like this are the reason President Donald Trump has launched a law enforcement initiative in D.C. to restore order.

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Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

“Eric, you didn’t die in vain,” Tamara Tarpinian-Jachym, the victim’s mother, told the Washington Post. “If we would’ve known the city was so dangerous, we wouldn’t have let him go.”

She told the news outlet that listening to President Donald Trump gave her hope.

“Hope that my son won’t just be a statistic. And hope that these changes will mean no other innocent people will get shot,” she added.

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DC mayor and AG at odds as lawsuit challenges Trump’s anti-crime operation



Democratic leaders in Washington, D.C., seem divided on President Donald Trump's law enforcement surge aimed at cleaning up the district's streets.

D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb (D) filed a lawsuit on Thursday against the Trump administration for deploying thousands of National Guard troops to the nation's capital.

'This lawsuit is nothing more than another attempt — at the detriment of DC residents and visitors — to undermine the president's highly successful operations to stop violent crime in DC.'

"The residents and leaders of the District of Columbia have not requested any of this," the complaint reads. "None of this is lawful."

Schwalb accused Trump of "run[ning] roughshod over a fundamental tenet of American democracy — that the military should not be involved in domestic law enforcement."

"No American city should have the U.S. military — particularly out-of-state military who are not accountable to the residents and untrained in local law enforcement — policing its streets," Schwalb said. "It's D.C. today but could be any other city tomorrow. We've filed this action to put an end to this illegal federal overreach."

He further claimed that the Trump administration authorized the National Guard deployment without Mayor Muriel Bowser's (D) consent. However, Bowser recently thanked the White House for helping the city reduce crime.

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"We greatly appreciate the surge of officers that enhance what [the Metropolitan Police Department] has been able to do in this city," Bowser stated during a Wednesday news conference.

While she admitted the law enforcement surge had lowered crime, she simultaneously claimed that the presence of federal immigration agents and National Guard troops was "not working," noting that she is "devastated" by residents "living in fear."

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The White House called Schwalb's lawsuit an attempt to undermine Trump.

"President Trump is well within his lawful authority to deploy the National Guard in Washington, D.C. to protect federal assets and assist law enforcement with specific tasks," White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson told the Daily Signal. "This lawsuit is nothing more than another attempt — at the detriment of D.C. residents and visitors — to undermine the president's highly successful operations to stop violent crime in D.C."

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Whistleblower alleges widespread manipulation of DC crime stats, fueling Oversight Committee probe



A whistleblower has reportedly come forward to confirm claims that the Metropolitan Police Department in Washington, D.C., has been manipulating crime data, a scandal that has led the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform to launch its own investigation.

In August, President Donald Trump initiated a federal surge on D.C. streets, citing high crime rates despite the MPD reporting a decline.

'The Committee has obtained credible, alarming information that MPD leadership falsified crime data to deceptively show a decline in violent crime in the District.'

While Trump faces backlash from critics for taking matters into his own hands, a scandal is unfolding regarding whether the police department manipulated the data to make it appear as though crime rates have been declining.

The D.C. Police Union has long accused the MPD of manipulating crime data. Following the union's allegations, the department placed Police Commander Michael Pulliam on paid administrative leave in May. The department is investigating the claims.

"When our members respond to the scene of a felony offense where there is a victim reporting that a felony occurred, inevitably there will be a lieutenant or a captain that will show up on that scene and direct those members to take a report for a lesser offense," Gregg Pemberton, the chairman of the D.C. Police Union, previously explained to WRC-TV.

"So instead of taking a report for a shooting or a stabbing or a carjacking, they will order that officer to take a report for a theft or an injured person to the hospital or a felony assault, which is not the same type of classification," Pemberton added.

RELATED: DC police commander under investigation for allegedly manipulating crime stats

Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

The allegations of underreported crime trace back to 2020 when MPD Sergeant Charlotte Djossou shared internal documents from two cases with WUSA.

The first case involved an alleged assault in which a man was accused of slashing a woman's face and neck with an unknown object. While the alleged attack could have been classified as an "assault with a dangerous weapon," it was instead recorded as a "simple assault." The first offense is a felony, punishable by up to 10 years in prison, while the second offense is a misdemeanor, carrying a maximum sentence of six months in jail.

The second case involved an incident where a man was accused of putting a knife to the neck of his partner. This also could have been classified as a felony assault; instead, it was reported as a misdemeanor "simple assault."

The cases were not prosecuted, according to WUSA.

"It's not OK to lie to the community about what's going on around them," Djossou told the news outlet during her 2020 interview. "That's what I saw happening."

"The commanders and the captains get promoted, and they get awards, when the crime stats are low," she remarked.

Djossou filed a lawsuit against the MPD, claiming that she had faced retaliation for disclosing the alleged underreporting to her supervisors. The lawsuit was settled in June.

Djossou stated that reporters have contacted her since, but she "can't talk to them until I retire" because she is "still a sergeant with the Metropolitan Police Department."

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The Oversight Committee announced on August 25 that it launched an investigation into allegations of manipulated crime stats, revealing that a whistleblower had come forward.

According to the whistleblower, the manipulation was "widespread," directed by "senior MPD officials," and potentially impacts all seven patrol districts.

The Oversight Committee sent a letter to the MPD the same day, requesting information to aid its investigation, including the unredacted settlement agreement between the MPD and Djossou.

The committee has requested transcribed interviews with Pulliam and the current MPD commanders for all seven districts.

"Building on President Trump's successful efforts to restore law and order in the District of Columbia, the House Oversight Committee is carrying out its constitutional duty to oversee D.C. affairs and ensure our nation's capital is safe for all Americans," Chairman Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) told Blaze News.

"The Committee has obtained credible, alarming information that MPD leadership falsified crime data to deceptively show a decline in violent crime in the District. MPD has a duty under federal law to accurately report crime to the public, and the Committee is now taking action to investigate these allegations and ensure the safety of D.C. residents and visitors is never compromised," Comer stated.

The MPD did not respond to a request for comment from WUSA.

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