Rental unit rates by town?

[Dave Mosher]

I am wondering if there is a place online that will show the average monthly rent rate of an apartment, single family etc., by town and even better by neighborhood.  I am looking for my next deal and I want to make sure that I am factoring the rent correctly or at least will be in the ball park.  I looked at apartments for rent but not every town has an abundance of for rents on the market.  Thanks,

-Dave

[Mike H.]

It is getting much more difficult to comp rents in my areas these days. Not because they're all over the board or anything. But because there simply isn't very much available for rent.

When I first started, there used to be 6 to 10 houses for rent in most of the towns I buy in. Now there are times when there's only 1 or 2. I've had several listings this year where there wasn't a single listing for a home for rent in the entire town.

Its silly.

Rentometer is probably a good place to start. They have historical data. You have to subscribe to see it though. And then you have to project out some things too if you really want to be at the market rent.

Beyond that, you might be able to ask a realtor as they may have rental comps from previous listings but I believe they would only have those rental listings that were listed on mls. Any more very few landlords use mls/realtors to list their homes. Just too easy to rent and too expensive to pay a referral fee.