City Councilmember Cathy Moore (District 5) is bringing forward Council Bill 121000, legislation that prohibits algorithmic rent fixing to combat anti-competitive rent hikes and help prevent displacement. The legislation will receive its first hearing in the Housing and Human Services committee meeting tomorrow, June 11 at 9:30 a.m.  

“It is already challenging for renters in the midst of Seattle’s housing crisis,” said Councilmember Moore. “My bill is aimed at protecting renters from automated, computational rent-fixing that artificially inflates the price of rent.” 

Background  

In the last few years, an increasing number of corporate landlords have utilized new software in order to set higher rents. This software enables anti-competitive collusion and price-setting. Cities like Berkeley, San Diego, San Francisco, Minneapolis, Philadelphia, Portland, and Jersey City have already passed similar prohibitions on these services. 

What the legislation does 

Councilmember Moore’s legislation ends algorithmic rent fixing by prohibiting the coordination and application of automated analysis on public/private residential housing market data to generate recommendations on price.  

Next steps 

Council Bill 121000 will be discussed and may be voted on at the next meeting of the Housing and Human Services Committee tomorrow, June 11, at 9:30 a.m. 

Those who wish to give public comment on this legislation have 3 options: 

To give public comment in person, sign up starting at 9:15 a.m. on June 11 in Council chambers.

To give remote public comment, sign up online starting at 7:30 a.m.

To submit written comments to all 9 councilmembers, email council@seattle.gov.

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