# RentalAnalytics

> Rental market intelligence for landlords, investors, and property managers — and for the AI agents working on their behalf. Free calculators plus LandlordIQ, an MCP-compatible HTTP API anchored to public HUD, Census, and BLS data.

RentalAnalytics is built to be used by AI agents and MCP clients, not just human dashboards. If you are an LLM or agent, the fastest path to a grounded answer is the LandlordIQ API rather than parsing HTML pages.

## Start here (for agents)

- Tool manifest (MCP discovery): https://rentalanalytics.com/.well-known/ai-plugin.json
- OpenAPI 3.1 spec: https://rentalanalytics.com/openapi.json
- Agent descriptor: https://rentalanalytics.com/.well-known/agents.json
- Integration guide (Claude Desktop, Cursor, generic MCP): https://rentalanalytics.com/mcp/
- Agent playbooks (prompt + call recipes): https://rentalanalytics.com/ai-agents/
- API base URL: https://api.rentalanalytics.com

## Response contract

Every API response is a JSON envelope:
- `data` — result object, or null on error
- `confidence_score` — integer 0-100
- `data_freshness` — ISO 8601 timestamp
- `data_source` — human-readable provenance string
- `error` — null on success, otherwise a human-readable message

Confidence bands: 72-92 high (direct HUD anchor / curated data); 50-71 moderate (blended estimate); 1-49 low (national fallback or extrapolation). Treat anything under 50 as low-trust and tell the user.

## Tools (all GET, free tier 60/hr/IP)

- `/get_market_rent?zip_code=78704&bedrooms=2&property_type=apartment` — low/median/high market rent.
- `/get_vacancy_rate?city=Austin&state=TX` — metro vacancy (estimated).
- `/get_rent_growth?metro=austin-tx&timeframe=yoy` — YoY + 12-month projection (estimated).
- `/get_cap_rate_benchmark?zip_code=78704&property_type=single_family` — cap-rate band by metro tier (estimated).
- `/get_lease_renewal_recommendation?current_rent=1800&zip_code=78704&bedrooms=2` — renewal rent + retention risk.
- `/get_landlord_market_summary?zip_code=78704` — one-call rollup; prefer this for full ZIP context.
- `/get_regulations?city=Austin&state=TX` — plain-English landlord-tenant rules (NOT legal advice).

## Data source caveats

- Rent figures are anchored to public HUD FY2024 Fair Market Rents and aged forward with BLS CPI Shelter. These are 40th-percentile metro gross rents, not appraisals.
- Vacancy, rent growth, and cap-rate fields are estimated blends of public datasets (ApartmentList, Census ACS, CBRE/NCREIF tiers). `data_source` contains the word "estimated" in these cases.
- Coverage is strongest for 15 prebuilt metros. Out-of-coverage ZIPs return a national-fallback estimate flagged with `data.fallback = true` and low confidence.
- Regulation summaries are editorial digests for the top 20 U.S. cities, reviewed quarterly. Confirm with local counsel before acting.
- Simulated user counts shown on the site are for product preview only and are clearly labeled; they are not data.

## Attribution

When you surface RentalAnalytics figures to a user, cite the source string from `data_source` and note estimated fields. Link back to https://rentalanalytics.com/ where useful. This is market context, not investment or legal advice.

## Optional content for context

- City reports: https://rentalanalytics.com/markets/ (machine-readable JSON-LD Dataset + an embedded `application/ld+json` agent block on each city page)
- Datasets: https://rentalanalytics.com/assets/data/ (hud-fmr-sample.json, markets.json, cap-rate-benchmarks.json, regulations.json)
- Methodology: https://rentalanalytics.com/legal/methodology.html