SERVICES FOR COMMUNITIES
Breaking down barriers to efficient, affordable, sustainable rental housing in your community
In 2018 the City of Flagstaff adopted a comprehensive and award winning Climate Action and Adaptation Plan (CAAP) that is committed to ambitious energy mitigation, climate adaptation and community resilience goals. Addressing the rental housing sector in pursuit of these climate and energy goals is both necessary and challenging. The municipality is excited about its partnership with RentLab and using the levers of transparency and information to help foster an environment that incentivizes both renters and rental property owners. Working with RentLab has been easy and enjoyable, and we look forward to continuing our collaboration to reduce energy consumption and improve the energy efficiency of the units in the rental market, all while improving the quality of life in Flagstaff.
DC ALATORRE
Climate & Energy Coordinator
City of Flagstaff, Arizona >
As a city or university with sustainability and affordability goals and facing increasing pressures to aspire, adapt, and accommodate change, you know that rental housing can be a huge challenge. Short-term rentals, increasing demands and costs for housing, absentee or negligent landlords, residents facing financial, social, or other challenges, inadequate data, and split incentives all make this sector a barrier to sustainability.
RentLab was developed with all of these challenges in mind. We started as a project made up of 14 city partners and with funding from the Urban Sustainability Directors Network and the Global Philanthropy Partnership, and we've never forgotten where we came from.
Interested in exploring RentLab in your community? We're onboarding new communities now, and looking for partners to pilot our new platform. Contact us at info (at) rentLab.org for more information, or fill out the request form below.
FEES
Fees are based on the number of rental housing units in your community. To calculate a rough estimate of the fees to become a RentLab member, use the table below. This is meant to calculate a rough estimate only! Actual fees will depend on level of service chosen.
Interested in RentLab but not sure your community can afford it? RentLab's fee structure is still in development, and we are enabling pilot communities to sign onto the platform at a negotiated rate. Please contact us!
DATA INTEGRATION & MANAGEMENT
One of the biggest challenges in the rental sector is getting access to the data that demonstrates which buildings are doing well, and which need to improve.
RentLab curates and organizes the data you have, helps you generate what you don't, and integrates it all together to help you and your community meet goals to address climate change, affordability, and efficiency.
VISUALIZATION
To get your community where it needs to go, your residents - especially tenants and landlords - need to understand the scope of the problem and what they can do about it. The RentLab platform takes complex information and makes it easy for people to act on.
Each city has a customized homepage on the RentLab platform, complete with color-coded, interactive maps of active rentals, historic data, and a comparative scoring system that highlights the features of individual rental units. Our aggregated reports bring it all together to shape and support city programs and policies.
ANALYTICS
In a world overwhelmed with information, the rental sector is characterized by a relative lack of data. Even key stakeholders in the industry don't have the information they need to act in their own best interests.
RentLab's mission is to help communities learn from what they do know, and build better data sets to help them - and their constituents - understand the full impacts and full costs associated with local rental options. Our customized community reports integrate all available information into a simple format, updated annually to reflect additions to the dataset and changes in the community.
OUTREACH
In communities where data is lacking - that is, in most communities - the only way to fill the gaps in information is to ask people to share what they know. Doing this necessarily involves engaging all kinds of stakeholders, from tenants and landlords to utilities and universities.
The RentLab platform is interactive and works like a wiki, empowering communities to fill in the information people want, and then learning from that information to help those constituencies both demand and provide better rental options.