In development. This page describes a program we are building, not one you can join yet. Details below are provisional and will change before launch.
Most owners price fairly. Almost none of them can prove it, which means the ones who do the work get no credit for it and the conversation about rent stays a matter of opinion. Certification is a public, checkable record that a specific unit's asking rent came from a dated market estimate, along with exactly where in that estimate it sits.
A certification badge only means something if the thing it claims is narrow, specific, and independently checkable. Broad claims about a landlord being good are unverifiable, and a badge that makes them is worth nothing.
So this program certifies one thing: that a unit's asking rent was set from a dated market estimate, and where in that estimate's range the number sits. That is it. It is not a claim about how a landlord treats people, whether they maintain the building, or whether they comply with the law. Every certification page says so in plain language, and publishes the actual numbers so you can judge for yourself.
The second column matters more than the first. A badge is only as credible as the limits it admits to.
Certification is granted per unit, never per landlord. An owner with twelve units may have three certified and nine not, and nothing about the certified three implies anything about the other nine. This is deliberate: it keeps the claim honest and it means one problem at one property does not silently vouch for an entire portfolio.
Rather than a pass or fail stamp, the certification page shows exactly where your asking rent sits inside the estimate range. Move the number below and watch what gets published.
Enter the estimate and range from a report, then your intended asking rent. This is what a visitor to your certification page would see.
There are three reasons this is better than a simple badge. It is a statement of fact rather than a judgment, so we are not endorsing anyone. It cannot be gamed by pricing at the top of a wide range, because the position is visible to whoever is looking. And it applies gentle pressure toward the middle of the range without anyone having to enforce anything.
The badge is not the product. The page it links to is. A badge that does not resolve to a live record is just an image anyone could copy.
2-bedroom unit · Dorchester, MA 02125
The first is automatic and free. The second adds commitments and a verification step, and is the one that carries real weight. Names are provisional.
Free · automatic · per unit
Issued the moment you finish a report and enter your asking rent. No application, no review, no waiting. Everything in it is machine-checked, which is why it can be instant.
Paid · annual · per unit
Everything in Level 1, plus a set of process commitments you agree to contractually, plus confirmation from the tenant at lease signing. This is the badge that means something to a renter.
These are process commitments, not outcome claims. Every one of them is something you control and can demonstrate.
Screening criteria published before applications open. Income multiples, credit thresholds, references. Decided once, stated up front, available to every applicant.
All-in move-in costs disclosed in the listing. Deposits, fees, parking, pet charges. No costs that appear for the first time at signing.
Rent set before applicant screening begins. The number comes from the unit and is recorded before you know who is applying for it.
Screening criteria applied uniformly. The same standard for every applicant, with any exception documented and applied consistently.
Renewal increases explained with data. If the rent goes up, the tenant gets a written reason and the analysis behind it, not just a number.
No pricing tool that pools competitor data. This unit's rent is not set using software that ingests nonpublic rents, occupancy, or lease dates from other landlords. See our Data Sourcing Policy.
Notice what is absent. There is no commitment about non-discrimination, because that is a legal standard rather than a process, and certifying it would be both unverifiable and irresponsible. The third and fourth commitments are how the program addresses the same concern in a way that can actually be checked: set the price from the unit before you meet the applicant, and apply one standard to everyone.
Steps one through four are Level 1 and take a few minutes. Steps five through seven are Level 2.
Certification is built on a specific report for a specific unit, so this is where it starts. The report has to be current: within 90 days if you are listing the unit, within 12 months if you are renewing an existing tenant.
The threshold for a badge is the point estimate, not the top of the range. That is a deliberate choice: a badge you earn by pricing at the ceiling of a wide range would be trivial to get and worth nothing to show.
Do not price below market purely to qualify. Certification is meant to document a sound pricing decision, not to push anyone into a bad one. If the right number for your unit is above the estimate for a reason your report did not capture, price it there and skip the badge.
Automatic and immediate. There is no review queue because there is nothing to review: every condition is checked against records we already hold.
A badge in a drawer does nothing. The point is that a prospective tenant reads it during the decision, and that it answers the question they were already quietly asking about your number.
Level 2 adds the process attestations listed above. They are contractual rather than aspirational, which means agreeing to them and then not doing them is grounds for revocation.
At lease signing you send the tenant a short confirmation link. They verify the rent, the unit's basic details, and that the screening criteria were available before they applied.
This is what separates Level 2 from an honour system. Everything at Level 1 rests on what you told us about the unit. Tenant confirmation is an independent check from the one person actually standing in it.
Markets move, so certifications expire. A badge from two years ago tells a prospective tenant nothing useful about today's number, and letting one imply otherwise would undermine the whole thing.
A badge nobody can lose is a sticker. These are the grounds for suspension or revocation, and revocations appear on the public record.
Advertising the unit above the certified rent. Caught by comparing the certification against public listings. You get a window to correct or explain before anything is pulled.
Charging fees that were not disclosed. An asking rent of $2,975 plus an undisclosed mandatory fee is a different number, and certifying the first while charging the second defeats the point.
Materially inaccurate unit attributes. Overstating square footage or amenities inflates the estimate and therefore the ceiling you certified against. Tenant confirmation is how this surfaces.
Breaking a Level 2 commitment. Screening criteria published after applications opened, or a price adjusted once you knew who was applying.
Using the badge on an uncertified unit. Certification is per unit. Reusing a badge across a portfolio is misrepresentation and ends certification for the whole portfolio.
Letting it expire and leaving it up. Expired badges must come down. The verification page will show expired status regardless.
It means you agree to charge at or below what the market says the unit is worth. In most cases that is not a sacrifice: pricing above market usually costs more in vacancy than it earns in rent. Our pricing guide has a calculator that works out where that line falls for your unit.
Then price where you believe is right and do not certify that unit. Certification is voluntary and it is not a judgment on prices that fall outside it. If you think a specific input is wrong, the report's appendix shows every one, and we would rather hear about it than have you work around it.
The certification page states in plain language what was and was not checked, and it explicitly says nothing about conduct, compliance, or property condition. It is scoped per unit for the same reason. That said, this is a public statement attached to your property, and you should read the terms before you use it.
No, and the sixth Level 2 commitment is specifically about not using that kind of tool. The concern with those products is that they pool nonpublic data from competing landlords. Inktrue does not accept executed rents, occupancy, or lease dates from landlords for use in pricing anyone else's units. Our Data Sourcing Policy sets out the detail.
Not for Level 1. For Level 2, tenant confirmation at signing is required, and a tenant who declines simply means that unit stays at Level 1. Nothing about their decision affects their tenancy.
Not yet scheduled. We are building it alongside the beta and would rather launch it slowly and correctly than quickly. If you want to hear when it opens, start a report and we will be in touch.
Certification is built on a report, so the first step is the same either way. Run one on a unit, see where your current rent sits against the estimate, and you will already have most of what certification asks for.
Start a free reportThis page describes a program in development. Requirements, tier names, pricing, and terms are provisional and will change before launch, and nothing here is an offer or a commitment to certify any property. Certification, when available, will attest only to the pricing process described above. It is not a determination of legal compliance and is not legal advice. Fair housing, screening, and rent regulation requirements vary by jurisdiction; consult qualified counsel about the rules that apply to your properties.