[tsimionescu]

The haggling part is not that relevant to whether this is price fixing or not.

If RealPage had the effect that all advertised rents in some area were 1000$ but 90% of renters actually negotiated that down to 800$, it would still be price fixing.

Conversely, if landlords in some area all independently decide not to budge from advertised prices and as a result occupancy rates are 10%, that would not be illegal price fixing. Most markets for consumers don't allow any kind of price negotiation, and yet they are not guilty of price fixing.

The key problem is that RealPage facilitates and even encourages explicit collusion between competitors, by showing the same non-public price recommendations to competing lamdlords. Whether that's successful or not and whether they try to make it contractually binding or not is ultimately irrelevant. As the FTC says, unsuccessfully trying to do price fixing is still illegal price fixing.