Measured,
not surveyed.
Reviews tell you how residents felt. VALIS records what a community actually did when a renter asked: how fast it replied, whether the quoted rent matched the listing, and which fees it disclosed. Every record carries the date it was measured and its source.
Published: the measured facts. Tiers are public only for the top 25%.
Every community says it’s great. What happens when you ask is rarely on the record.
Reviews describe life after move-in. Listings say what a community wants to say. What happens before anyone signs, when a renter first asks a question, almost never makes it into public view.
That gap matters more now that renters ask AI assistants where to live. An assistant can only repeat what has been published:
No listing or review shows how long a community took to reply, or whether the rent it quoted matched the listing.
Listings are written by the property. Reviews come mostly from the happiest and the angriest residents.
Fees, specials and availability change every week. A model’s training data can be months old.
Founder’s field visits in North Carolina, Texas and California, 2026. Communities are not identified and are not rated.
We ask the way renters ask, and record what comes back.
- Send a standardized inquiry through the channels renters use online: website forms, email and online chat.
- Record every response with timestamps, quoted prices and disclosed fees.
- Score it against published rules, the same for every community in a market.
- Publish dated records that people and their AI assistants can read and cite.
We never submit rental applications or run credit checks, and our inquiries never vary by any characteristic protected under fair housing law.
A renter asks their AI agent
“Two bedrooms near work, under budget, at a place that actually answers.”
The agent looks up VALIS
It finds how fast each community replied, whether the quoted rent matched the listing, and which fees came up before applying.
The renter sees the record
Every fact comes with the date it was measured.
Watch one inquiry become a record.
An illustrative example with invented details. Every real VALIS result is built the same way, from timestamps and the actual replies.
Transcript
VALIS. Measured, not surveyed. We measure how apartment communities answer renters. It starts with one standardized question, sent the way a real renter would ask it. An automatic thank-you arrives. It doesn't answer the question, so the clock keeps running. The real answer comes fifty-two hours later. Whether a person or an AI assistant writes it, it counts only if it answers. Every answer is checked against the listing: the rent, the availability, and the fees. Finishing the answer counts. A nudge with nothing new doesn't. At the end of the period, fixed rules turn the records into a score. No one adjusts a score by hand. The community sees its records first, and can respond, before anything is published. Operators see their own inquiries next to unnamed competitors nearby. And payment never changes a score. VALIS. Independent measurement of how apartment communities answer renters. Learn more at valisleasing.com.
Prefer to go at your own pace? Step through the same inquiry below.
Find out what AI assistants tell renters about your community.
Renters now ask ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Claude about apartments before they ever contact you. The AI Presentation Audit asks each of them the same standard renter questions about your community, compares the answers with public sources, and shows you what to fix.
- 15 standard renter questions about cost, fees, floor plans, pets, amenities, reputation and nearby options, each asked of ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Claude three times, with web search on and no chat history
- Every factual claim compared with public sources: your website, major listing sites and your published fee schedule. Each claim is marked consistent, inconsistent, possibly out of date, source conflict or not verifiable, with the source and the date we checked it
- A fee disclosure check: whether the required fees in AI answers, on your website and on listing sites match
- Area recommendations: how often the assistants mention you when a renter asks for options without naming you, and which nearby communities they name most
- Up to five recommendations, plus the full question list so you can ask the assistants yourself
Results are shown as five separate measures. There is no overall score and no ranking. If we find nothing to correct, the report says so. When public sources disagree with each other, we list them side by side as a source conflict and don’t call the assistant wrong.
Monthly monitoring asks the same questions once a month and reports which discrepancies are new, which are gone and which remain.
See a sample report →| One community | Three or more, same company | |
|---|---|---|
| Snapshot | Free | Free |
| First full report | $299 | $249 per community |
| Monthly monitoring | $99 a month, cancel anytime | $79 per community a month |
Free snapshot: one page on what two assistants say your community costs each month, with one to three findings, each with its source and date.
Introductory prices. Paid pilot, November–December 2026: 10 communities at these prices, each with a free re-test within 30 days and a 15-minute follow-up call. Orders open to everyone in January 2027.
Request a free snapshot →We diagnose and recommend. We don’t sell AI optimization or promise results, and buying an audit has no effect on how VALIS measures or publishes your community. The audit does not cover Google AI Overviews, and answers from the assistants’ official APIs may differ from what a renter sees in their apps.
How much of the real monthly cost can a renter find before applying?
We read the public website of every eligible community in a market and record which recurring and one-time fees a renter can find before applying, so the advertised rent can be compared with the full monthly cost.
Charlotte region, NC and SC
Rental Fee Transparency Report
Raleigh–Durham–Chapel Hill, NC
Rental Fee Transparency Report
See how a community treats people who ask, before you sign.
How fast it replied, whether the quoted rent matched the listing, and which fees it disclosed.
Available once fact pages launchA fee you found out about too late, or a question that never got an answer. What renters tell us shapes what we measure next.
Take part in a short interview, or help us check after you move in whether what you were quoted is what you actually pay.
We’ll email you when a report covers your area.
- The basic facts are free, and always will be.
- You can also get VALIS facts through the AI assistant you already use.
- We collect only what we need, and only with your consent.
- We never share your information with apartment communities, and we never sell personally identifiable information.
The 4R Index: four dimensions, twelve indicators.
The Leasing Responsiveness Index (LRI) scores how a community treats a prospective renter before a lease is signed. The dimensions and weights are public. The scoring details are not, so communities improve the service instead of tuning their replies to the score.
Reply
Does anyone answer, and how fast?- Time to first substantive reply15
- Reply within 24 hours10
- Evening & weekend coverage5
Return
Do they finish answering the question?- Open questions closed8
- Time to complete answer6
- Clear next step offered6
Reality
Does the answer match the listing?- Availability matches listing10
- Quoted rent matches listing10
- Unit facts consistent5
Rent
Is the full price clear before you apply?- Recurring mandatory fees disclosed10
- One-time fees disclosed8
- Concession terms stated7
Indicator weights are points out of 100. A reply counts whether a person or an AI system writes it, as long as it answers the question.
Find the gap before renters do
See your weekend reply time, quote accuracy and fee disclosure next to comparable communities nearby.
Compare managers on one yardstick
Hold every management company in your portfolio, and the AI systems it uses, to the same independent measure.
Check the leasing, not just the rent roll
See how a community treats prospects before you buy it, without relying on the seller.
Scores are not for sale.
No one can pay to get a score, change one or avoid one. Paying customers are measured and published exactly like everyone else, with no preview of their results and no say in the method. Scores are computed by code from archived records under rules published in advance, and no one adjusts an individual score by hand.
We take no fee tied to a signed lease and no leasing commission. We don’t sell sponsored placements or refer renters to communities. VALIS is funded by its founder and has no revenue yet.
Later products: VALIS Benchmark, for owners comparing their management companies, and VALIS Signal, research into whether leasing quality predicts occupancy and renewals. We’ll open them after the AI Presentation Audit has paying customers. See the Benchmark sample report →
Who is building VALIS.
In the summer of 2024, Jinbo sat at his kitchen table in Shanghai sending rental inquiries to four apartment communities in North Carolina. His family had a move-in deadline, no U.S. credit history and a twelve-hour time difference. Two communities replied. Two never did, not even with an automated message. He kept wondering how often that happens to renters with fewer options. No one could tell him, because no one was publishing it. VALIS is built to.
Founder & President
Jinbo Chen
Jinbo builds evaluation systems for places people choose to stay. In Shanghai he led the working group that developed the Four Values and Four Degrees (4V4D) rating framework for boutique hotels. In 2013 he founded PUTIKE, which published the annual Putike Boutique Hotel List and turned its ratings into content and bookings. He holds an EMBA from CEIBS. He moved to Chapel Hill with his family in 2024 and founded VALIS there in February 2026.
LinkedIn ↗ His weekly column, NO REPLY ↗
Board Director
Alan Carrette
CRME · FirstService Residential
Residential real estate executive at FirstService Residential, with operating experience in large residential community management. Certified Revenue Management Executive (CRME).
“Operators manage what gets measured. An independent measure of how communities treat renters gives the whole industry a standard to manage to.”
Tech Advisor
James Li
PhD, MIT Sloan · AI Systems & Data Intelligence
Works on quantitative marketing and machine learning. At VALIS he advises on turning each measurement into data that software and AI agents can read and check.
“Most ratings ask people how they felt. VALIS measures what actually happened, then publishes it as structured data that renters and their AI agents can check and rely on.”
How to get VALIS information.
VALIS Leasing Brief
The day’s reporting on U.S. apartment leasing, rental fees, rent pricing and AI, with links to the original sources. Updated daily, by email every Friday.
Read and subscribe FREE →Reports
The Rental Fee Transparency Report, starting with the Charlotte region in December 2026, and later reports by market.
Get reports by email FREE →For AI agents and developers
Our facts are published in formats AI assistants can read and cite. Fact pages and an API are planned for measured communities.
llms.txt TXTLeasing Brief feed JSONFact page schema, draft JSONPress and research
Jinbo Chen, Founder & President
[email protected]
