A leading private equity watchdog group says Attorney General Aaron Ford’s recent, first-of-its-kind settlement with RealPage could serve as a national blueprint for stopping corporate landlords from artificially driving up rent prices. Last month, Ford announced a settlement with RealPage that included $200,000 that goes towards rent relief programs and new oversight from the state. This builds on General Ford’s track record of fighting to lower housing costs by holding bad actors accountable. Ford has fought corporate landlords jacking up prices on renters and passed legislation that would have made price-fixing on essential goods such as rent illegal – Joe Lombardo vetoed that bill. 

In contrast with Ford’s record, Lombardo vetoed numerous bipartisan bills that would have uplifted Nevada families and lowered the cost of housing across the state. Now, Clark County has one of the highest eviction rates in the country. In the past year alone there have been over 45,000 evictions in Clark County, up from 30,000 evictions in 2023 when there were an average of 70 eviction cases going through eviction court daily in the county

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Nevada Current: NV’s RealPage case may signal step toward reining in private equity rental practices, watchdog says

Key points: 

• A private equity watchdog group hopes a recent settlement reached between Nevada and an apartment rental pricing software company marks the start of reining in practices nationally that critics say allows landlords to fix prices on rents.

  
  

• Nevada Democratic Attorney General Aaron Ford announced the settlement with RealPage, a real estate software firm, last month. In the settlement, RealPage denied any wrongdoing or liability of any kind, but agreed to provisions that limits the company from using nonpublic data when calculating rent recommendations for its Nevada clients.

  
  

• Nevada’s suit, which had accused the company of violating the state’s Unfair Trade Practices Act, is notable because it was the first state to settle directly with RealPage, said K Agbebiyi, the senior housing campaign coordinator at the Private Equity Stakeholder Project, a nonprofit that monitors the growing impacts of private equity ownership in the U.S. economy.

  
  

• Though the settlement will provide “immediate relief” to some tenants, more needs to be done to rein in corporate landlords and bolster renter protections, according to the nonprofit. 

  
  

• Real estate software companies, including RealPage, have been sued by several state attorneys general and the federal government in recent years for allegedly artificially inflating rent prices. 

  
  

• Under the settlement, RealPage can only use nonpublic data to generate recommended rent rates for properties if the data is anonymized, at least three months old, and aggregated across at least 10 properties.

  
  

• RealPage is also paying $200,000, which is going toward rent relief and down payment assistance programs. 

  
  

• Ford, who is running for governor, has called the settlement “a win for Nevada renters who would otherwise have been kept from the benefits of free market competition like lower rental prices and better leasing terms.” 
  
  

• Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo vetoed legislation in 2023 that would have limited the number of units corporate investors could purchase each year.
  
  

• The legislation was revived in 2025 and sought to limit investors from buying more than 100 units per year. But Lombardo killed it behind the scenes.
  
  

• Ford introduced Assembly Bill 44 in the 2025 legislation session attempting to regulate price fixing of essential goods and services, including shelter, food and medicine. It passed both chambers in a mostly party-line vote.
  
  

• Lombardo vetoed the legislation, calling it “a striking case of government overreach” and “inherently broad and open to wide interpretation, likely making enforcement subjective and inconsistent.”
  

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