How to find rent comps

[Austin Bright]

What's the best way to find rent comps in DFW? Contacting a real estate agent for a CMA for each and every property can get cumbersome.

Also, I'm finding it very difficult to find a 3bd 2bd SFH (or any SFH) that will rent profitably given I'm financing through an FHA loan (3.5% down). Looking at a price range of 150-200k, I'd need rent to be ~$2000. (I'm accounting for PITI, utilities, vacancy, property management. Mtx, repairs, capex). It's easy to meet this target with a duplex, given I can rent each side for $1000-$1200. But duplexes seem rather rare.

Any advice for find good comps for SFHs? Any other investors financing through an FHA loan have this issue?

Thanks!

[Amy Fulbright]

I’ve heard of a couple of different approaches. 

1. Rentometer.com is referenced by some of the BP webinars for finding comps
2. RentCafe.com allows you to enter a city and then in the upper tabs area click on Rent Trends and see how that city compares to others overall.
   
3. Keep in mind that the months where you’ll greet highest comps are June, July, and August because that’s when everybody prefers to move. So if your lease starts in another month, your monthly rental rates won’t be as high.
   
4. Finally, the property mgmt company that I use (in NC) will set an initial rental rate for one week, and see how many quality applications they get in. If they don’t get any, they lower the price by 1% each week until they find a tenant. This approach obviously works best when you’re already close to market rates though. You obviously don’t want to spend several weeks with your property vacant while you slowly reduce the rent.