Why hasn’t Blackstone settled the DOJ’s RealPage price-fixing suit like peers Greystar and Cortland?

On August 8, 2025,  property manager Greystar settled with the US Department of Justice (DOJ) and several state Attorneys General in their ongoing lawsuit against property management software RealPage (owned by the private equity firm Thoma Bravo) and six major landlords for utilizing the software. Greystar, the largest landlord in the United States, manages almost 950,000 rental units across the country. Another private equity landlord named in the DOJ lawsuit, Cortland Management, settled with the DOJ in January 2025. In January 2025 the DOJ added six large landlordsto the suit alleging that the landlords participated in an “unlawful scheme to decrease competition among landlords in apartment pricing, harming millions of American renters.” In addition to Cortland Management and Greystar, the private equity landlord Blackstone is also named in the DOJ’s lawsuit. 

On the landlords being added by name to the lawsuit, Assistant Attorney General Doha Mekki of the Justice Department’s Antitrust division stated that, “while Americans across the country struggled to afford housing, the landlords named in today’s lawsuit shared sensitive information about rental prices and used algorithms to coordinate to keep the price of rent high.” She continued, saying that “today’s action against RealPage and six major landlords seeks to end their practice of putting profits over people and make housing more affordable for millions of people across the country.” The DOJ is joined by a bi-partisan group of state Attorneys Generals (AGs) who are serving as co-plaintiffs. These AGs represent the states of California, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oregon, Tennessee and Washington. According to the Department of Justice, the landlords added to the suit are accused of: 

• Directly communicating with competitors’ senior managers about rents, occupancy, and other competitively sensitive topics. 
• Regularly conducting “call arounds” to share, and sometimes discuss, competitively sensitive information about rents, occupancy, pricing strategies and discounts
• Participating in “user groups” hosted by RealPage in which landlords discussed how to modify the software’s pricing methodology, as well as their own pricing strategies 
• Sharing information with competitors about parameters in RealPage’s software.

Cortland Management previously made headlines when its Atlanta headquarters was the site of an FBI raid in connection with the DOJ’s investigation and lawsuit. Per the terms of the Cortland’s settlement with the DOJ and state AGs, the company agreed to: 

• Stop using sensitive data from its competitors to inform its pricing model.
• Not use third-party software or algorithms to price apartments, unless they do so under the supervision of a court-appointed monitor.
• Cease sharing or using any competitively sensitive data from other landlords and property managers to set rent prices or generate recommended rent prices.

As part of the agreement, Cortland is also required to report to the Attorney General’s Office on their efforts to comply with the judgement, pay $100,000 in attorney fees, and allow the Attorneys General to conduct inspections to ensure Cortland’s compliance with the settlement. 

According to the Department of Justice, Greystar’s proposed settlement agreement means that the landlord agrees to: 

• Refrain from using any anticompetitive algorithm that generates pricing recommendations using its 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 pursuant to the terms of the consent decree;
• Refrain from attending or participating in RealPage-hosted meetings of competing landlords; and
• Cooperate with the United States’ monopolization claims against RealPage.

“The Trump-Vance Administration is committed to promoting competition to help working class Americans pay for life’s necessities — including rent,” said Assistant Attorney General Abigail Slater of the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division. “Whether in a smoke-filled room or through an algorithm, competitors cannot share competitively sensitive information or align prices to the detriment of American consumers.”

Blackstone, by contrast, has yet to settle with the Department of Justice or release a public statement that it has stopped using the software. Headquartered in New York, Blackstone is the largest private equity firm in the world. The firm was founded in 1985 by Peter Peterson and Stephen Schwarzman, a Trump ally who served as chairman of Trump’s Strategic and Policy Forum. Blackstone is also the largest owner of apartments in the United States, owning over 230,000 units. Blackstone has been the subject of research by the Private Equity Stakeholder Project for a variety of issues including tenant mistreatment, eviction filings, and rent increases. 

RealPage has become increasingly controversial as there is a growing bi-partisan movement against the software. In addition to the DOJ lawsuit, RealPage has also been the subject of numerous public letters by prominent elected officials, proposed state legislation in 22 states, and bans in 10 major cities. RealPage also found itself the subject of criticism by lawmakers due to the corporation’s lobbying in support of a controversial moratorium on AI regulation that would have been a part of Trump’s most recent tax bill. The provision (which was struck down by a last-minute bipartisan effort), would have meant that states that passed legislation related to AI and child safety could have risked access to broadband internet. RealPage also recently drew headlines for suing the city of Berkeley for an ordinance banning the software, forcing the city to pause the ban or face expensive legal costs. 

With the mounting negative attention around RealPage, it is not surprising  that landlords including Cortland and Greystar reached settlements in which they agreed to refrain from using software such as RealPage that relies on competitors’ sensitive data. Yet private equity landlord Blackstone still has not settled with the Department of Justice over its usage of RealPage, nor has it released a public statement about ceasing their usage of software. 

With several signs that the lawsuits will continue under the Trump administration, investors should ask Blackstone what actions it is taking to mitigate the legal and reputational risk that RealPage creates.