Your coffee has a rating. Your rideshare driver has a rating. The person who controls your home? Crickets. That’s backwards.
I’ve rented enough to know the real reviews happen in whispers on stairwells. The moment you meet the current tenant, you learn everything - how fast repairs get done, who pops by unannounced, how often the rent “mysteriously” climbs.
I wanted a Glassdoor for landlords but assumed lawyers would nuke it. So I had my AI research agent pull the legal play-by-play - and surprise: in the U.S., this is buildable if you use your brain instead of your feelings.
Plain English version:
- There’s a U.S. law that says the platform isn’t the author of your review. That helps a lot.
- Some states have “anti-SLAPP” rules - translation: if a bully files a junk lawsuit to shut you up, a judge can toss it and make them pay.
- Anonymous speech isn’t a free pass, but courts usually require real evidence before unmasking someone. Subpoenas will come. Many can be resisted. Some can’t.
How I’d ship it - day one, one city, U.S.-only:
- Facts over rage. Every review answers simple prompts: what broke, when, how you asked, how long it took, outcome. Opinions allowed, but only on top of those facts.
- Private verification. You prove you rented - redacted lease fragment or a building-portal token - but your name never appears. Verified reviews get more reach.
- No doxxing, no threats, no crime accusations without receipts. That stuff gets pulled fast.
- Landlord right of reply. Short, documented, visible. If you’ve got repair logs, show them.
- One complaints inbox. Acknowledge within 2 days, investigate, keep an audit trail. Minimal logs so there’s less to hand over if a court forces it.
- Radical transparency. Quarterly stats on removals, notices, and subpoenas.
The catch: this is America-first. Don’t launch in London first and expect a hug. Politics could still mess with that protective U.S. law. You will eat takedown letters for breakfast. That’s the job.
My take: build it. Start small, keep receipts, geoblock the messy regions at launch, and let truth plus process do the heavy lifting. Good landlords will shine. Bad ones will hate sunlight. 🏠
Would you use this? Tenants - what 3 fields would make a review actually useful? Landlords - what reply tools would feel fair without turning it into a shouting match?