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 rent matched the listing, and which fees it disclosed. Every result is dated and verifiable.
Published: the measured facts. Tiers are public only for the top 25%.
Every community says it’s great. We measure what happens when you ask.
Online reputation scores summarize what residents write after they move in. What happens before anyone signs, when a renter first asks, goes unrecorded. VALIS measures that moment.
Founder’s field visits in North Carolina, Texas, and California, 2026. Communities are not identified and are not rated properties.
When AI agents shortlist apartments, they need facts, not ads.
Listings say what a community wants to say. VALIS records what actually happened when someone asked, with a timestamp, in a format any agent can read and cite. Updated monthly, on a rolling two-quarter window.
A renter asks their agent
“Two bedrooms near work, under budget, from a place that actually answers.”
The agent queries VALIS
It gets measured response times, quoted versus listed rent, and fees disclosed before applying.
The renter sees the evidence
Measured facts for every match, with the date each was recorded.
// Illustrative format. Values are placeholders. { "community": "[Community name]", "market": "Raleigh–Durham, NC", "measured_at": "YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm", "tier": "[published for the top 25% only]", "sample_size": "[valid inquiries, rolling 2 quarters]", "interval_90": ["low", "high"], "measurement_period": "YYYY-Qn", "first_reply_hours": "[hours]", "quoted_vs_listed_rent": ["$ quoted", "$ listed"], "fees_disclosed": ["[fee type]"], "source": "VALIS standardized inquiry" }
An assistant can only repeat what has been published. How a community answers renters never is.
No listing or review records how long a community took to reply, or whether the quoted rent matched. VALIS creates that information by measuring it.
Listings are written by the property. Reviews come from the happiest and angriest residents. VALIS records are first-hand and independent.
Fees, specials and availability change weekly; a model’s training data is months old. Every VALIS fact carries the date it was measured.
That is why VALIS is built to be the source assistants call, not a replacement for them.
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. Follow-through counts, too. 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 every inquiry next to their ten nearest competitors. 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.
We start at home, in the Research Triangle.
Our first study covers apartment communities in Wake, Durham and Orange counties. These are the rules it runs on. Our own findings replace this section when the first results are verified.
Triangle Rental Fee Transparency
Before any inquiry is sent, we read the public websites of every eligible community in the first study to see what renters can learn about the full monthly price. The report will be our first published finding.
Preliminary VALIS census of public websites, October 2026. 444 of 537 websites reviewed so far; 42 communities had no website found. Counts will be final in the published report.
Choose a place that answers.
See how a community treats people who ask before you sign: how fast it replies, whether the quoted rent matches the listing, and which fees it tells you about up front.
The 4R Index: four dimensions, twelve indicators.
The Leasing Responsiveness Index (LRI) scores how an apartment community treats a prospective renter before a lease is signed. Like a university ranking, the dimensions and weights are public. The scoring details are not, so the index rewards real service, not test-taking.
Reply
Does anyone answer, and how fast?- Time to first substantive reply15
- Reply within 24 hours10
- Evening & weekend coverage5
Return
Do they follow through?- Follow-up received8
- Follow-up timeliness6
- Clear next step offered6
Reality
Does the answer match the listing?- Availability matches listing10
- Quoted rent matches listing10
- Unit facts consistent5
Rent
Is the real price clear before you apply?- Recurring mandatory fees disclosed10
- One-time fees disclosed8
- Concession terms stated7
2026–27 Triangle Leasing Experience Study
Apartment communities across Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill, measured monthly.
Charlotte Leasing Experience Study
The eight-county Charlotte region.
AI Visibility Index
How a community appears when renters ask AI assistants where to live.
The monthly console your leasing KPIs have been missing.
Every month, your community and its ten nearest competitors receive the same standardized inquiries. You get the result as a working console, not a PDF.
Transcript
This is VALIS Benchmark, the monthly console for apartment operators. Everything you'll see here is sample data. In sixty seconds, you see where you stand: your Leasing Responsiveness Index, how it moved against last month, last quarter, and last year, and the three fixes that matter most. Switch the view for an owner, a regional manager, or a community manager. The summary and the priorities change with the role. Twelve indicators, each held to a fixed standard. Every one is labeled core or seasonal, with who owns it, and whether it's ready to tie to a bonus. Fifteen months of trends show whether a dip is seasonal, or real. Your ten nearest competitors are measured the same way, every month. No mystery shop or survey can show you that. Diagnosis links each score to the practices behind it. And the action plan names the evidence, the owner, and the deadline. Every number traces back to a timestamped inquiry you can read. Export it to Excel, pull it through the API, or build it straight into your scorecard and your bonus plan. Ask the report a question in plain English. Every answer cites its evidence. VALIS Benchmark. See the full sample at valisleasing.com.
One set of measurements. Four ways to use it.
Know where you stand, every month
- Your community against its ten nearest competitors
- Every inquiry, reply and fee, with timestamps
- Monthly tracking your leasing team can act on
See what AI tells renters about you
- What major AI assistants tell renters about your community
- Where their answers differ from measured facts
- Recommendations only. We do not sell optimization
Audit clients are scored on the public AI Visibility Index exactly like everyone else.
Cite facts that were measured
- Free: every community’s fact page, for renters and personal agents
- Licensed: inquiry-level detail, time series, bulk access, SLA
- No community can pay to appear or to rank
Access opens after the first study.
Read operating quality as a signal
- Research question: does leasing quality predict occupancy, renewals and NOI?
- Not yet tested. Results will be published either way
- Market and portfolio views if it holds
Validation research planned.
Paid services never change a score. Scores are computed by code from archived records under rules published in advance. Clients get no preview of their score, no early access to results and no say in the methodology, and no one can adjust an individual score by hand.
Other tools tell you what you did. VALIS shows what renters got, next to every competitor.
Surveys capture opinions. Review scores capture the loudest residents. Mystery shops cover only the communities that pay for them. Your leasing software reports its own activity. None of them can show how your community answered a renter this week compared with the ten closest competitors.
| Resident surveys | Online reputation scores | Mystery-shop firms | Leasing AI & CRM tools | VALIS | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| What is measured | Opinions of current residents | Public reviews | Staff behavior, by human shoppers | The tool’s own activity, self-reported | Observed responses to standardized inquiries |
| Who is covered | Subscribing communities | Most communities, nationally | Paying clients | The vendor’s customers | Every eligible community in the market |
| Your competitors included | Anonymized averages | Yes | Only if ordered | No | Yes, measured the same way, monthly |
| Measures replies to renters’ inquiries, not to online reviews | No | Some scores count replies to reviews, not to renters | Yes, for clients who order it | Vendor’s own logs | Yes. Standardized inquiries, timestamped |
| Captures the first inquiry, before a lease | No, asks after move-in | Rarely; most reviews come from residents | Yes, for clients who order it | Only for the vendor’s own leads | Yes, for every eligible community. Scores are not for sale |
| Readable by AI agents | No | Partly | No | No | Yes, by design |
Find the gap before renters do
See your weekend reply time, quote accuracy and fee disclosure next to the ten closest competitors, every month.
Compare managers on one yardstick
Hold every third-party manager in your portfolio to the same independent measure, community by community.
Diligence the leasing, not just the rent roll
Measure how a target community actually treats prospects before you buy it, without asking the seller.
One protocol, applied to every community.
- 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 against published factors, identical for every community in a market.
- Publish dated results, so each score is a measurement taken at a known time.
Scores are not for sale.
No community can pay for a score, pay to change one, or pay to be left out. VALIS does not broker leases or earn leasing commissions.
Scores are computed by code from archived records under fixed, published rules. Paying clients see results only when everyone does, and cannot preview or influence their own score.
Clients who buy any VALIS service, including the AI Presentation Audit, are measured and published exactly like every other community.
VALIS is funded by its founder. Revenue comes from Benchmark subscriptions and related services sold to operators and owners, and from data licensing.
Built by operators, researchers, and founders.
In the summer of 2024, Blair 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: no answer, not even an automated one. If a qualified, deadline-driven family could be ignored, what was happening to everyone else? VALIS was built to measure the answer.
Founder & President
Blair (Jinbo) Chen
Blair has spent 15 years building media and evaluation businesses in hospitality and residential. He founded PUTIKE, a boutique hotel media platform whose social ecosystem grew to more than 8 million followers, created an independent evaluation system for the category, and served on the drafting group for Shanghai’s boutique hotel standards. He holds an EMBA from CEIBS and moved to Chapel Hill in 2024 to build VALIS.
LinkedIn ↗
Board Director
Alan Carrette
CRME · FirstService Residential
Residential real estate executive with deep operating experience in large-scale residential community management. Certified Revenue Management Executive (CRME), with more than 14,000 professional connections across the industry.
“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
Background in quantitative marketing, LLMs, deep learning methods, and data-driven business strategy. Advises on AI strategy, demand intelligence, signal design, and the data foundations needed to build smarter decision systems for real estate.
“Most ratings ask people how they felt. VALIS measures what actually happened, then publishes it as structured, verifiable data that renters and their AI agents can rely on.”
For journalists and researchers.
Interview requests, data questions, and press materials.
Press contact
Blair (Jinbo) Chen, Founder & President
Interviews available in English and Mandarin.
Topics we can speak to
- How AI agents are changing apartment search
- Leasing responsiveness and the renter experience
- Rental fee transparency
- Independent measurement and ratings design
Media kit
Fact sheet PDF Founder headshot JPG Industry Brief, updated daily NEWS → Video: One inquiry, start to finish MP4 Video: Benchmark sample report MP4 Video: LRI methodology MP4
Vertical 9:16 versions are available under each video on this site. Press releases will appear here with the first study.