Zillow will give you a rent amount. You can also filter on "for rent" properties on the map and see active for rent properties and compare them to yours.
You can also check Craig's list to see what other people are charging for similar properties in your area.
I'll look at all of these sites and then decide what I should be charging.
Availability should go into your equation too. If there are a lot for rent you may want to reduce slightly under market value so that you rent quicker. If not much availability you might be able to go a little over market price.
Zillow will give you a rent amount. You can also filter on "for rent" properties on the map and see active for rent properties and compare them to yours.
You can also check Craig's list to see what other people are charging for similar properties in your area.
I'll look at all of these sites and then decide what I should be charging.
Availability should go into your equation too. If there are a lot for rent you may want to reduce slightly under market value so that you rent quicker. If not much availability you might be able to go a little over market price.
It's best to check multiple sources (i.e. Zillow, Rentometer, etc) as no one site is perfect and some are better than others in certain markets or with certain types of properties (SFR vs apts). This article has a list of the more commonly used sites that may be helpful to you: How to Determine Fair Market Rent.
I believe it is best practices for active landlords to do at least a weekly search on Zillow et al. in their market.
The landlord is in a far better position then any algorithm to assess the similarities and differences between units. So rentometer is limited as far as I am concerned.
My process during a weekly search is to save those units which are my comps and disregard the others (SFH's). That way they will always be saved and I can evaluate a number of things- rent, length of time before rented, price reduction.
Also- by saving them you will be alerted when they hit the market again, I have just noticed a number of top rent getters turning over in a year, ouch. With realtors/property managers- double ouch.
I have also noticed that they continue to set a higher and higher ceiling- God bless them!
@Adrian Olivera I did this recently. I printed out several rentals in the area of one of my rentals. I called two local property management companies and asked if they had anything similar ( like I was looking for a place to rent)
All of the rentals I found were significantly higher than my tenant was paying. When I showed them to her and asked her what she thought was a fair price she asked if we could raise the rent. She went about $150 higher than I was hoping for. She also feels like she got a deal because she saw places that cost more.
For websItes, I just googled rentals and used my zIp code It took jIst a few clIcks to go through the top three results. I didn‘t even bother reading what websItes they were.
Good luck.
@Adrian Olivera
Google “HUD fair market rent”
HUD comes out each year with their opinion on FMR. They do it by state, county, and MSA. It seems pretty accurate to me.
@Patrick M. Your suggestion is very helpful because it allows me to determine what my comps are. We rent fully furnished apartments for extended stay visitors who are in town for anywhere from 3 months to 9 months. This market is radically different from regular long term rentals for unfurnished apartments so none of the other methods work for us.
I've been getting the impression that renting our 2 apartments this year has been much harder than in recent years. This method of weekly checking our comps will be extremely useful to me in figuring out whether we should reduce the rent and, if so, when.