Seattle rental price drops

[Lisa Toner]

I have been following rental prices on Zillow for a few months as I prepare to list my starter home for rent. It's a beautifully remodeled 3/1 in a nice part of NE Seattle. I have a price in mind, and think it is a decent/reasonable price. But, I'm a little nervous about this trend: I've noticed that many rental listings were overly ambitious with their price at first, and they've been sitting and steadily dropping their price. For example, 3 bed/2 bath houses have started out at $4000, then sit for weeks, dropping the price regularly. Many of these are professionally managed properties, so one would think they'd know better. Is this normal for Seattle? I haven't been following this particular feature long enough to know. I think it makes the listing look bad... 

[Sherief Elbassuoni]

@Lisa Toner. I typically look at the average and Mean numbers at Rentometer. I also get a look at a couple of local property management websites to see if they have rentals in the neighborhood and see if they have a similar house I can use as a comparable. Most of the time, numbers will be pretty close between rentometer and the Property management websites. If the difference is pretty big, and property management companies are way more, I pump the rentometer number a little up and use this number.

We need to remember that having a vacancy of one month, can easily eat the cash flow of many months. So for me, having a qualified and good tenant, with $100-$200 less, is way better for me than having the unit vacant for 1-2 months waiting for the renter than will pay $4000