Rentometer - Their data seems to be pretty spot on.....what say you?

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I have been using rentometer pretty much as a default first stop for rental comps but I was a little skeptical about the accuracy of their data.

A few days ago, I re-checked the rental comps for a property we had listed with a PM around July 2014. It has already been leased through the PM but they have not taken it off their website yet.

What surprised me is that this particular property appeared in the rentometer results as a "current listing" with the correct address and the correct rent amount we were asking.

I don't know how often rentometer crawls and aggregates their data from wherever they get it but it seems to be often enough so that the data is not outdated.

I tried the pro-version which is free for a couple of searches and then you have to subscribe and it gives you more details including the last list date so you can see how old a listing is.

I was wondering what other users think of rentometer and what their experience has been?

[Kyle J.]

It's okay to check Rentometer as ONE of your sources, but you should have many sources (i.e. Craigslist, Zillow, local property mgmt company, etc) because not one of these sources by themselves is entirely accurate. 

Specifically, with regards to Rentometer, keep in mind that it does not even factor in how many bathrooms a home has, the condition of the home, size of the home, or even type of home (apt vs SFR). It's mainly just comparing properties with a similar number of bedrooms in a given area. Hardly an accurate way of determining "comps".

However, Rentometer can be helpful in identifying other rental properties around yours, which you can then do more research on and make your own comparisons/adjustments to determine if they are truly accurate comps.