bostonbubble.com

[balor123]

Hi guys,
Its a little off topic but I have a housing-related question that you may have a unique insight to. Is there any way to predict rental prices? I have flexibility in upgrading to a larger apartment and would like to time the prices. I am hoping for a Case/Schiller like index w/futures but for rents. I expect that there isn't such a thing but perhaps there is a model that can be computed from other existing derivatives.

I know that my apartment complex uses Revenue Management Software to set its rents. Given that this is a quantitative method, perhaps there is a way to game the system. Unfortunately, to do this I would not only need to know what attributes the software considers but also the values. I can perhaps get web traffic and I can sample the lease office for an idea of traffic but getting lease expiration will be difficult. Furthermore, my attempts to gather this data (by meeting w/the leasing agents for instance) may affect future rents, similar to Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.

As a starting point, I used the wayback machine to gather historical rents for my apartment complex for 2-br and 2-br+den units. The prices listed are for the cheapest floorplan, not necessarily the same one.

7/7/2006 - $2404, $2794
12/12/2006 - $2009, $2350
1/27/2007 - $1525, $1715
3/31/2007 - $1840, $1940
7/13/2007 - $2050, $2300
8/13/2007 - $1810, N/A
9/13/2007 - $1810, N/A
11/29/2007 - $2380, $2610
12/30/2007 - $2050, $2235
1/30/2008 - $2115, $2315

Current: $1850, $2050

I'm trying to decide if I should pull the trigger now or hold out for a little longer. What do you guys think? I've left out the complex name intentionally here since your web traffic might actually drive up my rent!