Rental Income numbers

[Alexandre Medrano]

Estimating rental income is something that I am struggling with when analyzing deals. Any tips on estimating rental income? 

So far i have been using rentometer and craigslist for listings of similar properties for rent in the area. The issues that I'm having is that there is not enough examples in certain areas on craigslist and rentometer doesn't take into account for square footage of the units when comparing rent prices. Rental income is a BIG factor in analyzing deals so I wanted to ask the community for any tips and advice before moving on.

[Anton Ivanov]

@Alexandre Medrano

One thing nobody here mentioned is contacting some local property managers. Even if you'll be self-managing, get some contact information for local PM companies.

Then when you're looking at a property, send them a quick email with something like - "Hey, I"m thinking about purchasing this property, how much you estimate you'll be able to rent it for?".

Don't take what they say as 100% truth, but combined with other sources, this will improve the accuracy of your estimates.