About
Rental agreements should not be signed blind.
RentersBook is a review and ratings platform for rental agreements, built so that both parties can check the record before anything gets signed.
The problem
One side of a lease has always known more than the other.
Property owners benefit financially from leasing their property. Tenants, meanwhile, frequently find themselves subject to unfavourable policies or a negative experience they had no way of anticipating, because the information that would have warned them sat with previous tenants who had no way to pass it on.
The imbalance runs the other way too. A landlord assessing an applicant sees a credit score and an income multiple, neither of which says anything about whether rent actually arrived on time, whether the lease was followed, or how the unit was left.
RentersBook compiles reviews and ratings on both, so that a rental proposal can be checked against real experience instead of guessed at. That is the whole product.
Our review standards
The rental relationship is the unit of trust.
Most review platforms only confirm that a human typed the words. RentersBook ties every review to a specific rental relationship instead, described by someone who was actually there.
Both sides, same standard
Tenants review landlords and properties. Landlords review tenants. Neither side gets a softer bar than the other.
Relationship before opinion
Every review is posted against a specific landlord, tenant or property the reviewer says they actually rented from or to. Nothing else qualifies.
Evidence over adjectives
Tenants can attach photographs to a review. A picture of an uncleared walkway is harder to dispute than a complaint about one.
Private by construction
State-of-the-art encryption protects user data. What you share with us to create an account is never shown publicly.
Search that narrows
City, property type and date range. A rating from two owners ago should not decide a lease signed today.
Moderation with a clock on it
Reported reviews are looked at within 24 hrs. Being unflattering is not grounds for removal; breaching our content rules is.
What gets rated
The scoring model, in full.
No hidden algorithm. These are the questions every reviewer answers, depending on who they are reviewing.
What tenants rate a landlord on
Tenants score the landlord on how the tenancy was actually run: repairs, access, and rent behaviour.
- Timely repairs
- Maintenance staff
- Frequent or excessive rent increase
- Conducted frequent or scheduled inspections of property
- Would you recommend to a family or friend?
What tenants rate a property on
The building itself is scored separately, so a good landlord in a poor building reads accurately.
- Quality of amenities? (Laundry room, gym, etc.)
- Snow removal
- Utility use
- Excessive noise
- Would you live here again?
What landlords rate a tenant on
Landlords score the tenancy on the things that actually decide a renewal or a reference.
- Pays / Paid rent on time
- Followed rules and regulations
- Issues with pets
- Issues with children
- Frequent or permanent guests
- Problems with tenant exiting unit
- Would you rent to this tenant again?
- Will you give a favorable reference
The team
Built by people who have been on both sides of a lease.
RentersBook was developed in collaboration between a major US real estate company and the product team at Biz4Group.
We are a small product and trust-and-safety team split between engineering, moderation and editorial. Named team profiles and company milestones are not published in our current source material, so they are deliberately omitted here rather than invented.
Replace this block with real team bios and photography when available.