bostonbubble.com

[JCK]

I saw this site on a the CNN article about rents from the front page, and thought it very cool.

http://www.rentometer.com/


You put in the address, the bedrooms, and rent, and it gives you median, high, and low rents for that area.

Not sure where they're pulling the data from, which of course would be helpful to know.

But it's really nice, in that you can see localized conditions (within a 1/2 mile or so), rather than town, city, or statewide listings, which probably vary significantly from local conditions.

[Ranunculus]

This is really interesting...I posted the rent that I'm currently paying (expecting it to be low) and it said it was average...Then I posted the rest that I'm currently charging on another place (expecting it to be high) and it said it was average!

Anybody else use this tool? what did you find?

[admin]

Hmmm... it says my rent is high. I have an extra half bath and utilities are included, neither of which could be specified in the comparison criteria. I think there were also a lot of comps on a different street in my zip code, which swayed the data toward that area. I may want to keep an eye on this as more data points are added to see if I could save some money. My one concern is that if this becomes popular, I am sure some unscrupulous people will use it to post shill prices. There doesn't seem to be any sort of verification involved.

- admin

[admin]

Here's a similar site which includes the number of bathrooms and square footage in the data:

http://zilpy.com/

- admin

[Dorchester Grandma]

My $1100 per month is very low compared to median. I put in 3 bedrooms as my apartment has 2 and a dining room (therefore could be used as a three). If others pay $1600 for the same size in my Ashmont (Dorchester) neighborhood then this rent that I struggle to pay every month is a "great deal."

Rents are exorbitant at $1600 and still way too high at $1100. After all this is a blue collar Dorchester neighborhood not Newton.