best reference guide for apartment rental rates

[Amy C.]

If one is not familiar with an area, what reference guides would you recommend to get accurate rental rates, besides a local realtor. Anything on-line?

Thank you!

[Paul Khazansky]

No publication will provide you a great estimate of apartment rates, since real estate is super local. On top of that, different asset classes command very different rental rates, so you are better off pulling actual comparables for a given asset class in a specific submarket. For that rent.com or hotpads.com is decent start.