A lawsuit filed on behalf of tenants accuses a group of leasing companies that control thousands of apartment units in the city including on Capitol Hill of price fixing and antitrust violations that artificially drive rents higher in core Seattle neighborhoods.

Greystar, Trammell Crow Company, Lincoln Property Co., FPI Management, Avenue5, Equity, Essex Property Trust, Thrive, Avalonbay Communities, and Security Properties have been named in the suit for their actions to allegedly control prices at buildings they manage when they “colluded and shared data through RealPage, effectively inflating the prices of multifamily residential real estate in and around downtown Seattle above competitive levels,” according to the federal suit filed Friday.

The Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro firm is seeking renters to joint the potential class action lawsuit.

UPDATE: The Seattle Times reports at least two other suits have been filed in Washington targeting the companies for the alleged violations.

The lawsuits come after an investigation by nonprofit news organization ProPublica revealed landlords using the YieldStar software from RealPage to “push the highest possible rents on tenants” across the country including in Seattle and on Capitol Hill.

“In one neighborhood in Seattle, ProPublica found, 70% of apartments were overseen by just 10 property managers, every single one of which used pricing software sold by RealPage,” ProPublica reported. While that anecdote comes from analysis of the Belltown neighborhood, the same companies control a major portion of the Capitol Hill and Central District apartment rental markets.

Meanwhile, a flurry of legal activity has followed including this proposed class action lawsuit in California.

Lawyers for the Washington suit say the price-fixing cartel targeted the central neighborhoods of Seattle, including downtown, Capitol Hill, the Central District, South Lake Union and Queen Anne, “which include most of the city’s densest neighborhoods.”

“This rigged game has all the markers of a classic antitrust,” Steve Berman, managing partner at Hagens Berman said in a statement. “A few key players in a single space agreed to act in unison with the clear understanding that all parties take part in the scheme. This kind of wink-and-nod behavior is a red flag that price control may be present in the market.”

The law firm says RealPage provided the platform and the algorithm through its software called YieldStar, “which granted the lessors unprecedented ability to ‘track your competition’s rent with precision.'” The companies using the software entered data including rents charged for each unit and each floor plan, lease terms, amenities and move dates. According to the firm, in one example, employees at Greystar “would regularly perform market surveys in which they would call competitors to get rental pricing, then submit that data to their managers.”

The Department of Justice typically sets strict guidelines for services that provide shared industry data including recency factors and aggregation intended to help thwart antitrust or price-fixing activities.

Using the data from the system to set higher rents would not necessarily be a violation but any effort to collude with competitors to set those prices most certainly would.

The firm behind the lawsuit says its analysis showed “average and median advertised rents for Seattle properties leased by the 10 defendants are consistently higher than those operated by other companies.” According to the analysis, the firms named in the suit listed 1-bedroom apartment units for about 8% more than other companies.

But the lawsuit may grow. Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro says “other large property management companies” also are using the software and additional tenants “may have rights under antitrust laws to compensation for your losses due to this scheme.”

The defendants have not yet responded in court to the federal case.

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