Identifying the rental market in my area

[Will Zena]

Hi, I have been starting to gauge the rental market in my area (southwest florida). I have been checking rents on Craig's list to get an idea and have asked a local realtor as well to get his opinion. Can anyone provide other tips on how to get a grasp on rental prices in my area? Thanks

[Michael Seeker]

I've found the results shown at https://www.rentometer.com/ are generally pretty accurate.  What it doesn't give you is the demand.  As somebody who lived in SW FL the last 2 years, I can say that there are definitely areas where rentals make sense and plenty where they do not.  You're not going to cashflow on a water front property and you may have issues with seasonality and/or demand in a very tourist-driven area.

If you have an idea of where you'd like to invest and what the numbers might look like, a good way to test the waters is to put an ad on craigslist showing a potential property with the rent you'd expect to get and see what kind of interest it gets.

For my rentals in Louisville, over the past 6 years I've had anywhere from 2-3 emails a week to 30+ emails per day depending on the location, rental rate and time of year.