Welcome from Grand Rapids home of the massive lake effect snow dumps!

It mainly shows that the neighbourhood is changing rapidly downward.

What I normally do is start at market rent but aggressively reduce the price down in $25 increments every 2-4 days.- Also, make sure you are using mediums other than just Craigslist.

I'm in Grand Rapids Michigan and they are saying this place is the next Chicago.

The area is rapidly growing due to urban sprawl.

If you read diligently, study your market and talk to lots of people along the way, you will climb the learning curve rapidly.

Luckily, the university here is growing very rapidly.

Being that I would like to keep the tenants, I would never make the dramatic jump to market value, but I plan to get there incrementally (perhaps over two years).

The tenants are looking for nicely renovated houses and rents are climbing rapidly in that area thanks to good landlords like yourself.You'll have great appreciation in this area as it gets back on track.  

Next year it might be ok to raise rents further incrementally