Using BiggerPockets Rent Estimator Tool

[Tyler Lee]

Hello,

I am a beginning investor looking to house hack for my first property. As such, I have been looking at small multifamily units. I am finding it hard to find accurate comps to make me feel confident when running the numbers on a property estimating the rental price per unit. More specifically, I am trying to to use tools such as the Bigger Pockets rental estimator. When I look at a property it returns a "Median Rental Price" per month, but it seems to be using SFH rental rates for this value and does not break it up per unit.

I have also noticed that my real estate agent tends to quote very aggressive rental numbers when I ask what he thinks a unit would rent for. When I cross reference with a site like RedFin's current rent versus his quote, the difference is ~800-1000. I am having a hard time believing many landlords would leave their rent $1000 below market rate.

This makes it very complicated to gauge if a duplex, triplex, or quadplex is renting far below market value or not. If anyone has any insight as to how the rental estimator works, or any general strategies for finding good estimates for what a unit's individual rental value should be, I'd really appreciate it!

Tyler