About
Renting is one of the biggest decisions you'll make. You deserve better information.
The average American moves 11 times in their life. Each move means researching neighborhoods, comparing buildings, vetting landlords, and trying to assess whether a place is actually safe, well-maintained, and worth the rent. And yet the tools most people use to do that research are embarrassingly shallow — a handful of filtered photos, a star rating, and a wall of reviews written by people who were either furious or just got a free month.
Lease Lantern is being built to fix that. We're creating the most comprehensive research tool for affordable and income-based housing in the United States — combining official government data, public records, neighborhood intelligence, and contextual reviews into a single place that actually helps renters make informed decisions.
"After years managing apartment reviews, I kept seeing the same problem: the loudest voices weren't the most informed ones. Someone has a bad day and fires off a one-star review. Someone gets a free month and leaves five stars. Neither tells you whether the building passed its last inspection, whether management responds to maintenance requests, whether the neighborhood has had code violations, or whether it sits in a flood zone. Renters deserve the same quality of information that institutional investors take for granted."
— Bill Hinson, Founder, Lease Lantern
Bill Hinson is the founder of Lease Lantern. He built it after years working with apartment reviews, convinced that renters deserve the same quality of housing information that institutional investors rely on.
We started with HUD-assisted affordable housing — properties with official inspection scores, flood risk data, and management details — because that’s where the information gap is most acute and the stakes are highest. Today we track more than 67,000 affordable and income-based properties nationwide (HUD-assisted, Section 8, and LIHTC), and coverage keeps growing.
What we're building
Where we are today
Every property includes HUD inspection scores, FEMA flood zone designations, management company details, program type, and unit counts. This is the foundation. More sources — including USDA rural housing and public housing — and richer data signals are on the way.
Our data & methodology
Everything we show about a property comes from official, public sources — not from landlords paying for placement, and not from crowdsourced guesses. Where a figure isn’t available for a place, we say so rather than inventing one. Our sources include:
- HUD — physical-inspection scores (REAC/NSPIRE)
- HUD LIHTC — tax-credit property database
- HUD — annual income limits & housing authorities
- FEMA — National Flood Hazard Layer (flood zones)
- U.S. Census (ACS) — rent, income, renter share
- FBI — Crime Data Explorer (violent-crime rates)
- NCES — public-school locations & counts
- Walk Score & Foursquare — walkability & nearby amenities
Data is refreshed periodically as agencies publish updates. Found something that looks wrong? Tell us — we read every message and fix errors quickly.
Lease Lantern is free to use for renters — no account required, no paywalled data. We're building a sustainable business through advertising, affiliate partnerships, and premium tools for property managers. Our property data comes from public records and government sources, not from paying landlords — so what you see reflects reality, not who paid for placement.
If you have feedback, found an error, or just want to tell us what data would help you most — we read every message.