William C. Smith & Co., Inc. (W.C. Smith), one of the District’s largest landlords, will pay $1.05 million and overhaul its rent-setting practices after D.C. Attorney General Brian L. Schwalb accused the company of conspiring with other landlords to inflate apartment rents using software from RealPage, Inc.

The settlement is the first to result from the District’s sweeping antitrust lawsuit filed in November 2023 against RealPage and multiple landlords.

The lawsuit alleges a wide-ranging scheme in which landlords shared confidential rental data and relied on RealPage’s pricing algorithms to drive up rents across more than 50,000 apartment units in the city. W.C. Smith owns over 9,000 of those units.

“Rents in D.C. are already sky-high, and amidst this housing affordability crisis, many

See Full Page