(The Center Square) – A proposed bill prohibiting algorithmic rent fixing via residential housing market data software faces final approval by the Seattle City Council.
Council Bill 121000 is proposed by Seattle City Councilmember Cathy Moore, with fellow councilmembers Dan Strauss and Alexis Mercedes Rinck joining as co-sponsors.
The software targeted by the bill uses a combination of public and non-public competitive information with analysis through an algorithmic tool to suggest prices, occupancy levels, and lease terms and conditions. This is primarily used by corporate landlords.
According to Moore, there has been an increase in corporate landlords utilizing new software that enables anti-competitive collusion and price setting to set higher rent floors in the last few years.
Similar prohibitions of this kind of software have already been passed by other cities including Portland, San Francisco, Minneapolis, and San Diego.
In addition, Washington State Attorney General Nick Brown’s office is involved in state court litigation, and had been one of several state plaintiffs in a federal Department of Justice suit against RealPage, which is a leading vendor of algorithmic price suggestion tools.
According to the Attorney General’s Office, 800,000 leases in Washington have been priced using this software since 2017.
The Washington State Legislature took up similar legislation during the 2025 session designed to address the issue by prohibiting both the use of these tools by landlords and their provision by vendors. However, lawmakers failed to pass Senate Bill 5469.
A central staff memo for Council Bill 121000 notes critics of these services argue that they enable anti-competitive collusion and price-setting of residential rental units that artificially inflate housing prices across the markets where they are used.
“It is already challenging for renters in the midst of Seattle’s housing crisis,” Moore said in a statement. “My bill is aimed at protecting renters from automated, computational rent-fixing that artificially inflates the price of rent.”
If passed, the City Attorney’s Office could enforce a civil penalty of up to $7,500 per violation, as well as reasonable costs and attorney’s fees. The bill would also create a new private right of action allowing people harmed by prohibited software to sue for damages of up to $7,500 per violation.
Seattle City Council central staff does not have a firm estimate on the fiscal impact of the proposed bill largely because it depends on the number of cases brought on by the city attorney’s office.
The bill was given a do-pass recommendation by the Housing and Human Services Committee on a 4-0 vote on Wednesday. It will go before the city council for a final vote on June 17.
