An algorithm could be setting your rent price. Some county officials want to change that.

Your rent could be determined by an algorithm that compares your building to similar properties — and your landlord doesn’t have to tell you.

But a new bill in the Montgomery County Council aims to change that. Sponsored by at-large council member Will Jawando, the legislation would prohibit landlords from using these algorithms to set rates — which Jawando called “collusion.”

“The actual system is rigged in some ways against renters,” Jawando said at a press conference Tuesday. “Some corporate landlords have used a high-tech workaround to avoid competition.”

In algorithmic rent-fixing, landlords rely on companies such as Real Page, which generates prices for rental housing using public and nonpublic data from apartment building owners.

The practice has been challenged. In 2024, the Department of Justice opened an investigation into Real Page over accusations of price-fixing. The two parties settled in November.

And Maryland and Washington, D.C.‘s attorneys general filed lawsuits against Real Page in January 2025 and November 2023, respectively. Both suits are pending.

Mike Semko, Real Page’s senior vice president of legal and government relations, said during a public hearing on the bill Tuesday that his company doesn’t set rent prices, it just suggests them, and that clients use them “less than 50% of the time.”

Real Page helps its customers understand “whether or not they need to lower or raise a price based on the actual supply and demand dynamics,” Semko said.

Legislation similar to Jawando’s has been introduced in the General Assembly by Dels. Vaughn Stewart and Julie Palakovich Carr, who represent Montgomery County. Their bill would ban the use of private data when setting prices with the help of an algorithm.

Jawando said his bill complements, but doesn’t rely on, the state bill, and that it goes a step further by banning companies from using both public and private data in these algorithms.

‘Not how markets are supposed to work’

Ben Winters, Director of AI and Privacy at the Consumer Federation of America, said the Justice Department investigation revealed that algorithms are setting prices with “no transparency or choice” for renters who are largely unaware of the practice.

“It’s no different than any other collusive behavior, but it is easier to hide,” Winters said. “There’s a massive power imbalance.”

Grant Samms, a community organizer with Rockville Renters United, said he’s seen his neighbors driven from their homes after unexpected rent increases, and worries that algorithmic pricing is to blame.

“This is not how markets are supposed to work,” Samms said during the public hearing. “It’s doing damage to the most vulnerable people in our community.”

Landlords and developers called the bill unnecessary.

“The county does not have a ”software problem. It has a supply problem,” said Brian Anleu, vice president for government affairs of the Apartment and Office Building Association of Metropolitan Washington.

“The best consumer protection is a consumer choice algorithm,” he said during the public hearing.

The bill is cosponsored by council members Kristin Mink and Shebra Evans, and has support from County Executive Marc Elrich and Rockville Mayor Monique Ashton.

A work session on the measure will be scheduled for a date prior to a vote.