Written by Jim the Realtor

May 26, 2011

Are you an investor who wants a rental survey before purchasing the next income property?  Or are you thinking of leasing a home in an area where you’re not familar with local rents?

Check out these websites: 

www.rentometer.com or

www.finestexpert.com

A couple of tests came out fairly accurate, and they map the other rentals nearby!  Finestexpert.com also does a financial analysis, and has for-sale comps too.

9 Comments

  1. ucgal

    Great tools.
    Thanks.

  2. casanova

    I wonder if interest rates will significantly go up after the Fed stops buying the treasuries end of June.
    Is this the time to go and get a loan now with low interest rates or wait for end of June and buy probably at lower prices if rates really do go up as many are expecting?
    Any ideas?

  3. Daniel(theotherone)

    QE3 is already baked in.

  4. casanova

    I have no doubt that QE3 will come, but before that happens the Dow will test 7000 again and then the environment will be ready to accept QE3.

  5. Jack

    Fantastick sites. Thanks.

  6. osidebuyer

    wow, don’t know how I missed these. For the rentometer, I wonder where are they pulling all that rental data from?

    thanks!

  7. Max Rockbin

    I was hopeful but both of these sites/tools are just gimmcrackery.

    There were major errors on every single property I looked at on “finestexpert.com” Really pretty sad. You’re not going to find out anything here you couldn’t improve upon just by looking at the MLS.

    rentometer is just plain silly. Giving a $600 range for fair rents on a 1 br in a given zipcode? Making no distinction between an old duplex and a new high-rise converted from condos? Where’s the utility in that?

    ANYONE who has a genuine interest in this kind of cash flow/rent info would be best served by spending 30 minutes on Craigslist where you can see actual current rents for properties that are actually comparable.

  8. osidebuyer

    Max, wouldn’t the $600 range account for the variation in quality? I tested it with a rental I own in Atlanta and it gave me some valuable data about places nearby that would take much more effort to glean from craigslist (which I also do). I suspect you got some results that were not very favorable to your rental properties?

    BTW, I really like your photos / videos / VR tours, have you found that they help to command a more premium rate? how bout the carbon neutral stuff?

  9. Max Rockbin

    I just don’t know how useful it is to see that a 1 br in your neighborhood might be between $600 – $1200 (or more). I think they get their info from online ads like craigslist. Those ads are biased towards larger/newer properties. Smaller, older rentals don’t list nearly as often. That distorts the numbers.
    (My properties actually come above the middle of the range – in the green).

    I started putting up the videos about a month ago because of this blog. Jim the Realtor suggested it and it’s been a terrific thing. I get a great response from it. Big pictures and lots of them (and the video tours) really help with people from out of town (about half of my renters). Carbon neutrality is more marginal. I don’t know if that really helps or not. Can’t hurt and it’s not too expensive.

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Jim Klinge
Klinge Realty Group

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