Real Estate Rent Data From Your Cell Phone

How To Get And Use Real Estate Rent Data From Your Cell Phone

In the 5 Step House Rental eBook we discuss the importance of your getting boots-on-the-ground real estate rent data and information on your competitors.

Getting accurate real estate rent data is important so that you know you’re pricing your house for rent correctly and so that when your prospective tenants inevitably say,

Well, the house down the street is going for $X less than yours

You’ll already have foreseen that objection and will have a list of reasons why your house is the better rental. 

My Real-Life Real Estate Rent Data Example

The other day I was waiting for a prospective tenant to show up at a house I have for rent, and made use of that extra time to pull up the neighborhood real estate rent data on my iPhone.

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I was shocked at what I discovered.


Mind you, we practice what we preach. Before putting the house on the market for rent we followed step-by-step the market intelligence steps listed in the 5 Step House Rental eBook and determined an accurate asking rental price.

And at the time it was.

The house I had for rent was one of the largest in the neighborhood and had amenities that the competition didn’t have. So when we went on the market our asking rent was on the high side, and justifiably so.

What shocked me about the real estate rent data I pulled up was that asking rents had actually decreased by about 20% over a very short period of time. 

How To Use Rent Data

Fortunately we didn’t have to lower our rental price because the family that I showed the house that day decided that it was exactly what they were looking for and that the price was right.

I lucked out on that one, and that’s OK.

Getting real estate rent data off of the internet by using your cell phone or computer is a good first step, but it’s best if you don’t stop there.

Here’s why.

There are a lot of available homes for rent that won’t show up in your search. The common ones are FSBOs, rental homes listed by real estate agents who decide not to go on the MLS.

Often times property management companies will not put their houses for rent on the MLS, even if they belong to a realtor association.

So if you just depend on the internet for your real estate rent data it’s going to be skewed and you run the risk of pricing yourself out of the market. 

What To Do With Your Real Estate Rent Data

Here’s what I did while waiting for my prospective tenants to show up:

1. Downloaded the real estate rent data to my iPhone
2. Used a ‘closest to me’ radius search
3. Drove around the neighborhood and actually looked at the competition

Step #3 is the one that a lot of people skip, so you’ll be way ahead of your competition if you go the short extra mile.

This is the boots-on-the-ground research I mentioned earlier.

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See, reading the rental data that you download is one thing, but actually seeing the other homes of rent is something totally different.

Does it back to the street? Is the next door neighbor less than desirable? Is the yard overgrown and full of weeds – or all dirt? Does the house for rent scream short sale or pre-foreclosure?

The more you know about your competition the more prepared you’ll be for questions from prospective tenants, and the quicker you’ll be able to get a leased signed with the perfect tenant for your home for rent. 

How To Get Real Estate Rent Data From Your Cell Phone

The cell phone app that I like to use is the one from the National Association of Realtors’ site. It’s free to download and can be used with pretty much any version of a smart phone.

The Realtor app pulls real-time data off of the local MLS and includes property photos, asking rents, property specs, and contact info for the listing agent if you want to take your research one step further.

It’s best not to rely on this real estate rent data alone because there is often times a lot of rental property that is not on the MLS.

Jeffrey Roark
How To Rent My House