Potential rental in Tacoma

[Renata McCulloch]

Hi Tacoma,

I am looking at a property in South Tacoma that just came on the market.  Can someone tell me how much a 2 bed/1 bath apartment should rent for? Want to make sure I don't calculate this wrong.

[Kerry Smith]

@Renata McCulloch - Congrats on finding your first prospective deal! Estimating rents can be tricky, but I use a couple of different tools to help me get pretty accurate -

Here is how I estimate rents:

1. Redfin - Look right on Redfin, often times they tell you the current rents per unit

2. Rentometer - Next I pull rents from Rentometer to look at other rental comps in the area

3. Craigslist - I will do an area specific search for 2/1 apartments, and pick the 10 closest apartments that are for rent. I will then take an average of those rents to get determine average market rents.

4. If time permits - I will post an ad to Craigslist to get a feel for the level of interest on my rental. If I get 6 calls in a day, I know there is a lot of interest in the property and the price is very competitive.

I hope this helps - all the best!