Most Rents at or Below 25th Percentile on Rentometer

[Allen Tracy]

Has anyone else seen that rents in Columbus are mostly around the 25th percentile number on Rentometer.com (if not slightly lower)?  I even played with the settings and changing it to 6 months at 0.5 miles and 3 months 0.2 miles.  It's the same with GoSection8 rental estimates.  For two of my tenants Section8 gave a value of lower than the 25th percentile on Rentometer and even slightly lower than GoSection8.com.

Whenever I run the numbers now on a potential property I use the 25th percentile number on Rentometer just in case.  Not sure if anyone else is seeing the same thing.

[Harman N.]

+1 to all the comments about using Zillow. I would also take note of how long properties have been listed. Even if you can get a certain rent amount, if it takes many months to get it rented it's no bueno. 

The other thing to keep in mind is that many Columbus neighborhoods are gentrifying, so within a small radius you can have vastly different quality rentals: from total dump to rental grade to fully rehabbed. So it's important to analyze the condition of the comps closely.