digest
Short Summary
Main recommendation: Research and verify your own rental comps from people actively investing in your specific market, and only compare properties that are truly similar in type, amenities, utilities, finishes, and location. Ashley Kehr (credited in the transcript as Ashley Care) stresses that small differences in utilities, finishes, and surroundings can shift rent by hundreds of dollars, so an apples-to-apples comparison is essential. She also explains how to price a unique property when no direct comps exist.
Key Points
- Never accept rent figures from someone who does not invest in your market, such as an agent who has never leased a property, a relative, or an out-of-area investor; verify all information yourself.
- Amenities and utilities change the true comparison: in her example, a complex with a pool, gym, and most utilities included and a single-family home where the tenant pays all utilities plus lawn care and snow removal were both hypothetically priced at $1,000 to illustrate how amenities affect tenant choice.
- Finishes matter: an outdated kitchen and bath rents for less than a renovated unit, and listing photos make a comp more reliable.
- Market rent has a ceiling set by local affordability and income levels; pricing far above typical rent shrinks your pool of qualified applicants.
- Location details such as school district, walkability, parks, transit, and nearby amenities can make one comp worth more than your property.
Details Worth Noting
- Concrete instructions: Verify every comp by contacting active investors through local networking events or BiggerPockets forums, and by calling property managers and leasing agents who can give rents by bedroom count and unit description.
- Concrete instructions: For a unique property with no comps, first estimate the market rent as if the unique feature were removed, then add the going rate for that feature separately; for example, if a two-bedroom rents for $1,500 and a comparable storage garage costs $100 per month, price the unit around $1,600 while noting the convenience of an attached garage adds value.
- Concrete instructions: When a utility is included in your rent, estimate its cost by calling utility companies for average monthly billing, and average each utility over 12 months rather than a single season because winter heating can be much higher. In the duplex example, the owner charged $800 against a $650 market rent, with the $150 difference covering shared utilities.
- Concrete instructions: Before pricing, check comps for finishes such as countertops and renovated bathrooms, and skip expensive upgrades like quartz countertops if no comparable units have them and rents are already high.
- Concrete instructions: Compare school districts, walkability, parks, hospitals, restaurants, bus stops, and any unique nearby asset that makes a comp more desirable than your property.
- Concrete instructions: Once a rent is set, the speaker uses property management software to post one listing across multiple sites, screen applicants, send leases for e-signature, and collect the security deposit and first month's rent before move-in, and she sets up autopay and sends ledger reminders for late payments.
- The speaker mentions that after a set number of days of nonpayment, state eviction law may allow serving a notice to vacate, and that she works with an attorney who needs the lease, past-due report, and tenant ledger; this is her described practice, not legal advice.
- She previously used Facebook Marketplace but found the volume of unqualified inquiries ("tire kickers") too time-consuming, which is why she moved to listing software.
Bottom Line
Accurate rent pricing depends less on bed and bath counts and more on verified, genuinely comparable properties, with adjustments for utilities, amenities, finishes, and location, and on a realistic cap set by what your market can afford.
