Revolutionizing · Modernizing · Simplifying
Revolutionizing · Modernizing · Simplifying
$3,255 a month. That was the listed price on a three-bedroom, two-bath house in Commerce City's Second Creek Farm neighborhood, according to the Denver Gazette. Clean number. Looks like the whole story.
It was not the whole story. And that gap, the one between the number on the screen and the number that actually leaves your bank account, is the entire case here.
On November 6, 2026, the Federal Trade Commission and the attorneys general of Colorado, Arizona, Indiana and Utah announced a settlement with Progress Residential and its private equity owner, Pretium Partners. The companies agreed to pay $49.75 million. That breaks down to $48.5 million to the FTC for consumer redress and
Here is the part people miss. The FTC is calling this the largest enforcement action against a landlord in its history. Not a top-ten. The largest.
If the name does not ring a bell, that is kind of the point. These are not mom-and-pop landlords with a spare rental. Progress manages roughly 90,000 single-family rental homes across 17 states, Colorado included. Big institutional operator, the kind that buys houses in bulk and rents them back to the families who used to be the people buying those houses. That shift is a whole separate conversation about the Front Range starter-home market, but file it away.
So when a company this size has a pricing problem, it is not a rounding error. Thousands of Colorado families are inside this thing right now.
Regulators allege Progress advertised baseline rents that left out mandatory recurring charges. The big ones being a "smart home" technology fee and a utility management fee. Mandatory. Recurring. Meaning you were always going to pay them, but they did not live in the advertised price. The FTC says this cost renters tens of millions of dollars going back to at least 2021.
And the complaint does not stop at pricing. It also alleges Progress failed to inspect homes before move-in, then marketed places as "move-in ready" that actually needed serious cleaning or repair. It alleges the company improperly deducted from security deposits. And here is one that should bother everybody, it alleges Progress used form contracts that barred renters from posting negative reviews. So you move into a house that needs work, you pay fees nobody mentioned, and you are contractually gagged from warning the next person. That is the picture regulators painted.
An internal Progress report from late 2021 reportedly tallied $68.8 million in fees and penalties. The company, according to the complaint, knew about the FTC investigation starting November 2024.
But the line that sticks with me is this one. The complaint quotes Progress's then-CEO responding to the idea of refunding unrefunded fees by saying he was "not taking
Read that again. That is not a misunderstanding or a clerical slip. That is somebody doing the math on doing the right thing and deciding it costs too much.
For the record, Progress is not admitting anything. The company says the agreement contains no admission of wrongdoing and that its practices "have been transparent, fair, and consistent with industry practice." That last part is almost an accidental confession if you ask me, because "industry practice" is exactly what the FTC is going after. This follows the agency's 2024 settlement with Invitation Homes, another giant single-family operator that paid $48 million over similar hidden-fee allegations. Two of the biggest players, back to back, same playbook.
Going forward, the settlement requires Progress to advertise the true total monthly price, every mandatory recurring fee included, before you commit to rent. Which is how it should have worked the entire time. No more clean $3,255 that quietly becomes something bigger once the lease is signed.
Here is the thing, and I want to be careful because this is where people get hurt. There is no refund process yet. None. The proposed order only takes effect once a federal judge signs it. After that, if a legitimate refund program exists, the FTC says it will show up at ftc.gov/refunds.
So anybody who calls you, texts you, or emails you right now asking for a fee or your bank login to "process your Progress Residential refund" is running a scam. Full stop. The real thing, if and when it comes, lives on the FTC's own site and does not cost you a dime.
What I would do if I were a Progress tenant in Colorado. Dig up your old listing screenshots, your lease, your bank statements showing those smart home and utility management charges. Quietly build your own paper trail now so you are ready the day a refund window opens. Weiser's office put Colorado in this fight on purpose, and renters who kept receipts are the ones who will actually collect.
The advertised number is not the number. That was the whole scheme. Now it has a $49.75 million price tag attached to it.