Groundwork’s Lindsay Owens on FTC’s Lawsuit Against Invitation Homes: “Exactly the right approach”

Groundwork’s Lindsay Owens on FTC’s Lawsuit Against Invitation Homes: “Exactly the right approach”

Today, the Federal Trade Commission took action against Invitation Homes, the country’s largest landlord of single-family homes, for deceptive pricing tactics, junk fees, failing to inspect homes, and unfairly withholding security deposits – resulting in a $48 million proposed settlement. Groundwork Collaborative Executive Director Lindsay Owens reacted with the following statement:

“Predatory pricing tactics are running rampant in the housing market, from deceptive junk fees by Invitation Homes to algorithmic price fixing by RealPage. Cracking down on these bad actors and putting money back in people’s pockets is exactly the right approach to increasing housing affordability for families.”

Email press@groundworkcollaborative.org to speak with one of Groundwork’s experts about reining in predatory pricing.

BACKGROUND

• Invitation Homes advertised monthly rates that were deceptive and failed to disclose mandatory junk fees that would cost more than $1,700 yearly. These fees were hugely profitable, earning the company millions and prompting the CEO to write to another executive instructing them to “juice this hog” by making a particular fee mandatory.
• The company also failed to inspect its own properties between tenants and withheld security deposits unfairly. As a result of failures to inspect their own properties, between 2018 and 2023, residents in 33,328 properties submitted at least one maintenance request within the first week of moving in. Their practice of withholding security deposits unjustifiably led to the company returning only 39.2% of consumers’ total security deposit dollars collected between 2020 and 2022, compared to the national average of 63.9%.
• The Department of Justice and eight other states sued software company RealPage for its alleged efforts to decrease competition among landlords and collude on prices in the rental housing market. It’s estimated that 30 to 60 percent of multifamily-building units are priced using RealPage in more than 40 housing markets across the country.
• In June, The American Prospect and Groundwork Collaborative launched a new special issue for June: “How Pricing Really Works,” which explores how corporations have combined their market dominance to deploy a “dizzying array of sophisticated and deceitful tricks” to hike prices on consumers.