Editorial Guidelines

How we write, review, and update the 32,000+ city pages, 3,100+ county pages, and 51 state pages on this site.

Three content tiers

Tier 1: Hand-written editorial analysis

The top 200 cities by population receive individually-written prose authored by the NextGen Properties research team. These pages reference specific courthouses, statute citations, judge tendencies where we have direct operator experience, and acquisition-side commentary. Each one is treated as a standalone editorial piece. You can identify these pages by the "Editorially written analysis" tag in the byline.

Tier 2: Statute-aware templated prose

Cities ranked 201 and below use programmatic content generation. We wrote eight skeleton prose templates with deliberate structural variety (rent-burden lead, court-process lead, demographic narrative, score-rank framing, renter-base focus, comparative anchor, cost-timeline focus, county-context). Each city is deterministically assigned one of the eight skeletons via a hash of its city slug, and city-specific data (ACS-derived rent burden, score, median rent, renter share, county political margin, state statute citation) is injected into the placeholders. The substantive data values are real; the sentence structure repeats within a skeleton group.

Tier 3: Programmatic data display

Sub-score breakdowns, statistical tables, comparison grids, and FAQ schema are computed directly from underlying data without intermediate prose. These elements display real data with minimal narrative wrapping.

AI-assisted content disclosure

We use large language models to draft Tier 2 templated prose. The eight skeleton templates were written by our research team; the LLM substitutes data values into the placeholders and produces the per-city sentences. Each sentence references real data points from our underlying database; the LLM does not invent statistics.

For Tier 1 hand-written city pages, the editorial-team author drafts the prose with reference to current state statutes, our internal operator experience, and publicly verifiable legislative records. We use LLMs as a research tool (statute lookup, recent-news scanning) but the final language is human-edited and reviewed.

For statute citations specifically, all references should be verified by a licensed attorney before any operational decision. We aim for accuracy as of the page's last-updated date; legislatures and city councils move faster than any content-refresh cycle.

Fact-checking process

Three layers:

• Data layer: ACS values, presidential margins, population counts come from cited sources and are not editorially adjusted. Pipeline failures produce missing data, not approximated data.
• Statute layer: Bill numbers, statute citations, and effective dates referenced in Tier 1 prose are checked against the state legislature's official site at the time of writing. We acknowledge that some specific legislative claims pattern-match training data and should be re-verified by a paralegal before any high-stakes use.
• Operator-side claims: Statements about court culture, judge behavior, default-judgment frequency, and tenant-defense capacity reflect the research team's direct experience and conversations with practicing landlord-tenant attorneys. These are opinion-shaped descriptions, not statistical claims.

Update cadence

The "last updated" timestamp on each page reflects the most recent content review, not the publication date. Score recomputation runs quarterly. Tier 1 prose is reviewed when state legislatures take meaningful action or when underlying data shifts materially. Tier 2 templated prose is regenerated when underlying ACS values refresh.

Corrections

If you find an error, especially a statute citation that has been superseded or an inaccurate claim about a specific court or jurisdiction, send the correction to our contact line. We will correct verifiable errors within one business day and update the page's "last updated" timestamp.

Not legal advice

Every page on this site is research-grade market intelligence for landlords and operators. None of it is legal advice. The line between informational content and legal advice matters: this site provides the former, not the latter. Before initiating any eviction, raising rent above a state cap, or making any acquisition decision based on tenant-protection exposure, consult an attorney licensed in the relevant jurisdiction.

Contact: (949) 392-8666 · About · Methodology