The New Rent Reality: Lessons from the FTC’s Lawsuit Against Greystar for Property Managers
The conclusion of the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) civil action against Greystar Real Estate Partners in early December 2025 has sent a clear and resounding message across the entire multi-family housing sector: the era of opaque, tiered rental pricing is over. The settlement, which involved a substantial monetary judgment and stringent requirements for future advertising practices, serves not merely as a resolution for one of the nation’s largest property management companies, but as a detailed compliance roadmap and a stark warning for every professional managing residential leasing today.
The action, initiated in January 2025 by the FTC and the Colorado Attorney General, focused on allegations that Greystar, which manages over 946,000 units nationwide, misled prospective renters by advertising base rents without clearly disclosing mandatory, recurring fees for services like pest control, valet trash, package concierge, and utility administration. The stipulated final order, announced on December 2, 2025, required Greystar to pay a combined $24 million—$23 million to the FTC for consumer refunds and $1 million to Colorado—and fundamentally alter its advertising disclosures.
For property management professionals operating in the current economic climate, where housing affordability remains a dominant national concern, the Greystar settlement is not a footnote; it is a defining event. It signals an aggressive regulatory posture that prioritizes the renter’s right to know the true cost of housing upfront.
Broader Industry Implications and Regulatory Scrutiny Beyond One Company
The FTC’s Intent to Monitor the Entire Housing Marketplace
The rhetoric accompanying the Greystar settlement made it explicitly clear that this enforcement action was intended as a template, not an exception. Christopher Mufarrige, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, underscored this point, stating that the agency is now actively “monitoring the housing marketplace to ensure that competitors are meaningfully competing on price and that consumers receive transparent pricing.” This declaration, issued while the industry is still grappling with the ramifications of earlier antitrust actions against pricing software, indicates a dual focus: transparency in *what* is charged and fairness in *how* prices are set across the board.
The message resonates with uncommon urgency to all multi-family operators, regardless of portfolio size. Regulators are moving past the defense that advertising base rent was simply an “industrywide practice,” which was Greystar’s contention in their statement. The focus has decisively shifted to the economic well-being of renters struggling with affordability, treating undisclosed mandatory fees as a form of illegal deception under Section Five of the FTC Act. Property management operations that rely on “drip pricing”—gradually revealing mandatory costs until the prospect is heavily invested in the application process—are now squarely in the regulatory crosshairs.
The Catalyst for New Rulemaking on Rental Junk Fees
Perhaps the most significant forward-looking consequence of the Greystar action is the directive issued by FTC Chairman Andrew N. Ferguson. In a statement concurring with the settlement, he explicitly ordered agency staff to “begin the process of proposing a rule to address unfair or deceptive fees in rental housing.”
This move suggests a belief within the Commission that existing Section Five authority, while sufficient for an action like the one against Greystar, is inadequate for proactively setting clear, industry-wide standards for the entire residential leasing sector. This anticipated rule would seek to create a prescriptive structure, potentially defining precisely which fees are permissible, how they must be itemized, and what constitutes a mandatory charge that must be included in the advertised “all-in” price. This move elevates the scrutiny beyond specific deceptive acts to an attempt to regulate the structural components of rental fees going forward, aiming to prevent the proliferation of charges that consumer advocates often label as “junk fees.”
It is important to note that the FTC had already finalized a broad Rule on Unfair or Deceptive Fees in late 2024, which became effective in May 2025, but its scope was initially limited to short-term lodging (like hotels) and live event ticketing. The directive following the Greystar settlement signifies the FTC’s intent to leverage that precedent and apply similar, potentially more substantive, principles directly to the long-term residential rental market.
Essential Compliance Takeaways for Every Property Management Professional
The settlement terms imposed on Greystar—requiring the most visible, largest third-party manager in the U.S. to adjust its marketing—provide immediate, non-negotiable lessons for all property management entities heading into 2026.
The Paramount Importance of Total Cost Communication
The primary and most immediate takeaway is the mandatory shift to advertising the Total Monthly Leasing Price as the foundational figure. The FTC order requires that whenever base rent or any partial price is advertised, the total monthly leasing price, inclusive of all mandatory fees, must be displayed more prominently.
This mandates a comprehensive re-engineering of all consumer-facing platforms:
- Websites and Listing Platforms: The advertised “price” must represent the sum of base rent plus *all* recurring, non-optional charges (e.g., amenity fees, technology package fees, mandatory administrative service fees).
- Marketing Scripts and Printed Materials: Verbal quotes and brochures must reflect the total cost as the starting point for discussion, preventing any appearance of a “bait-and-switch.”
- Pre-Payment Disclosure: Crucially, before collecting *any* payment from a prospective tenant—including non-refundable application fees or deposits—the property must clearly and conspicuously provide a breakdown of all fees, specifying the amount, purpose, and mandatory status of each.
- Necessity and Proportionality: Managers must question the fundamental necessity and the monetary proportionality of every ancillary charge. Fees that appear to be administrative catch-alls or that cover costs inherently required to maintain a habitable property—costs traditionally absorbed into overhead or base rent—are now subject to intense regulatory skepticism.
- “Effective Optionality”: Scrutinize fees historically labeled as optional but which, in practice, are universally selected by tenants. The FTC views fees that are, in reality, non-optional as mandatory in substance, requiring their inclusion in the total advertised price.
- Auditable Pricing Records: There must be demonstrable, auditable records showing how, when, and why prices—both base rent and total cost—are updated, proving independence from shared competitor data.
- Staff Training: Leasing and marketing personnel must receive rigorous, recurring training on the new disclosure requirements and the severe legal ramifications of any failure to adhere to the transparent pricing mandate.
- Technology Governance: Management must vet all revenue management software and data-sharing practices to ensure they align with both the FTC’s pricing transparency enforcement and the DOJ’s antitrust restrictions on data sharing and algorithmic collaboration.
The regulatory burden of calculating the true cost of occupancy has been decisively moved from the renter back to the property operator. Any fee deemed mandatory for occupancy, however small, must be aggregated into the initial, prominently displayed price.
Reviewing and Justifying Every Ancillary Charge
Beyond mere disclosure, property managers must now undertake a rigorous, proactive audit of their entire fee structure. The settlement revealed that Greystar was charging for services such as pest control, valet trash, and package concierge, which regulators now view as potentially inseparable from the cost of leasing.
This audit should proceed on two fronts:
This comprehensive review serves as a vital layer of defense. If a fee cannot be clearly articulated as providing a specific, identifiable, and optional value to the resident, its inclusion in the fee structure, absent upfront total price disclosure, represents significant legal exposure under the current enforcement paradigm.
The Forward-Looking Regulatory Horizon for Residential Leasing
The dual enforcement and rulemaking signals from the FTC and the Department of Justice (DOJ) concerning Greystar have fundamentally reset the compliance baseline for the sector. Property management is transitioning from an environment focused on transactional compliance to one demanding demonstrable, institutional commitment to price honesty.
Anticipating the Impact of New Anti-Junk Fee Regulations
The directive to propose a new rule suggests that the upcoming regulatory framework for residential leasing will be significantly more prescriptive than the requirements imposed via the existing May 2025 *Junk Fees Rule* for other industries. While the specific scope remains to be drafted, industry observers anticipate a standard that limits fees to those directly attributable to specific, optional services or those required by statute. Broad, non-specific administrative or technology fees are likely candidates for severe restriction or outright prohibition, unless their value proposition is transparently justified in a way that satisfies the new federal standard.
Property operations must begin modeling viability under the assumption of stricter limitations on fee stacking, shifting the core business model to deliver value through a transparent base price rather than relying on cumulative mandatory add-ons that inflate the effective rent.
Maintaining Compliance in an Environment of Heightened Scrutiny
The scrutiny in the housing marketplace extends beyond just the monthly fee schedule. As noted in related antitrust matters involving Greystar and pricing software providers, regulators are keenly interested in how technology influences competition.
The DOJ settlement with RealPage (announced in late 2025) confirms this focus. That agreement specifically bars Greystar from using algorithms that generate pricing recommendations using competitors’ competitively sensitive data, such as current executed rents or specific occupancy levels, and mandates accepting a court-appointed monitor for certain third-party pricing tools.
This links directly back to the FTC’s mandate for monitoring “meaningful price competition.” For large operators especially, compliance will require more than just updating website disclosures:
The post-settlement landscape demands an institutionalized commitment to radical honesty in advertising. The short-term marketing advantage gained from deceptively low advertised rates is now vastly outweighed by the multi-million dollar risk of regulatory enforcement and the institutional cost of oversight.