Landlords: Learn How to Find Average Market Rents for your Area

by Troy Schuricht on October 31, 2008

  

If your in the market to buy a rental, knowing the expected rental rates should be part of your due diligence.   The following will help you find the average property rental price in your area.

  1. Read your local newspapers. As you read through the classified adds, make sure you are comparing apples to apples.  Homes with swimming pools and 4 bedrooms is not the same as a one bedroom studio.
  2. Consult your Realtor.  Hopefully your real estate team has working knowledge of rentals and can utilize the MLS to help narrow down the rental price range.  Be sure and ask for documentation of their comparable.  Use your advisors to help gather information and to give you feedback, do not rely on them to make your decisions.
  3. Go online.  Most metro areas now have online classifieds like craigslist.  This along with other sites can give you great information.  Go google…
  4. Go drive around.  As I drive to and from work I notice a number of rental signs.  If you have a location or area targeted, or you just bought a rental, beat the street.  You can learn a lot just by calling your competition.

Remember that rents collected is an important part of cash flow.

Related posts:

  1. Find Comparable Rents With Rentometer
  2. Cool Tool for Finding Market Rents – RentSlicer
  3. Real Estate Investors – Learn Where to find Portfolio Lenders
  4. Average Price of Manhattan Apartment Tops $1.2 Mln
  5. Apartment Buildings Beat Inflation With Rising Rents
Got questions about this or other real estate topics? Ask on the BiggerPockets Forums.

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{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }

1 Dan October 31, 2008 at 10:18 am

You can also use free tools like:

http://rentbits.com/rb/page/widgets.html

Reply

2 Joshua Dorkin October 31, 2008 at 10:41 am

Here are a few other resources for determining fair market rents, Troy:
http://www.biggerpockets.com/fair-market-rents.html

Reply

3 jgand December 28, 2008 at 7:39 pm

Troy, great article especially today with the market being so crazy. But renting is still alive and well as long as you can make the mortgage. If you just underprice the market you should rather well. There are many tools to use these days. Realtors and the newspaper(online also) are the best tools I’ve found.

Reply

4 ROBERT September 24, 2009 at 3:29 am

Thanks….great help !!!BIGGERPOCKETS,YOU ROCK!!

Reply

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