Average Rents

Comments(6)

• 
  rajwarrior12th October, 2004

  Finding average rents? Easy. Just open the phonebook to property management, pick up the phone and start calling the local companies. Tell them that you are a landlord with a house, mobile home, barn, etc with X number of bedrooms and X number of baths, in X area of the city/town/county that you are wanting the info. You need to know what they think it will be able to rent for and how long it will take to get it rented at that price.
  
  Most likely, the rent given will be slightly higher than average (they are trying to get your business after all), however, after calling several companies, you'll have a good idea of fair market rent.
  
  Another, less effective method, is to simply review the rental ads in the local paper and see landlords are trying to get. Give a few a call and simply ask works too.
  
  Roger

• 
  kmaples12th October, 2004

  Thanks

• 
  mots3223rd October, 2004

  Hi
  
  You should check out HUDs website. They publish fair market rents for every MSA in the U.S. each year.
  
  Ok... here's the url:
  http://www.huduser.org/datasets/fmr.html
  
  I was psyched when I found this as I am interested in investing out-of-state and this will help me get an idea of specific area rents.
  [addsig]

• 
  NewKidinTown223rd October, 2004

  mots32,
  
  I believe the HUD fair market rents at that website are quoted at the 50th percentile. In other words, they are giving you the median rent for a 2BR property.
  
  Actual rent could be higher or lower.

• 
  kmaples24th October, 2004

  Mots,
  
  Thanks for the link, I have been searching for something like this!

• 
  ray_higdon26th October, 2004

  The best question to ask to a potential tenant is "how much can you afford a month?" This will tell you one if they can afford the place but two, sometimes they estimate higher than you thought of charging and you can either split the difference or play it by ear