Could you recommend a site to lookup rental income on a property in any state ?
thanks!
I’m not sure there’s really any such thing. Would love to know about it if there is. Rental income isn’t really reported like home sales and local MLS’s don’t really have that many rental properties in their database, at least ours doesn’t.
Best way to tell is probably go over to craigslist.com and see what asking rents are in an area. You could probably discount the rents a little as some areas have a soft rental market and people are negotiable.
Rentals can be posted in MLS and that data can be used to do comps just like you can for home sales. However, there is no way to determine what a particular property is leasing for by the general public.
If you don’t have MLS access (or just want to look at public sites too) I suggest you do the following:
- Check the local paper for rental rates
- Check websites such as rentclicks.com or homerentals.net or other similar sites including realtor.com (which displays MLS info)
- Call your local property management companies. Tell them you are an investor and you are considering investing in the area and that you want to know what the current market rates are.
- Look for information on government (national/local) websites that have information on the local rental markets. I had some websites bookmarked, but for some reason can’t seem to find them.
Take all of the information that you have gathered, and then use the principals of appraisal and come up with some reasonable market rates.
Just a tip. when yu do rental comps, don’t do them on asking rents, do them on actual rents. Frequently the real estate agent can take a discount off the listed rent, but you want to know what the property really rented for.
These rents on MLS are the leases executed by agents. But private leases tend to be the same.
carlittle,
you are a wise man 
Thanks bluemoon** for the guidance.
btw, would you guys have the answer for these questions:
- is it possible to do a search on homeowners age 40 and over online/offline?
- is it possible to do a search on vacant properties online/offline?
The alternative method is drive around the neighboorhood but wonder if there’s a better way that you know
please advise.
The other way (and the easy way) is to call other people out of the paper and ask them
The number one question and the eye opener is!!
- I am looking to invest in a rental property in the area if I find tenants can I give them your name and number because I have not closed as of yet?
Then ask them questions aobut there rentals
-
vacancy rate.
-
if they have had to evict
I have even gone as far as to call and warn other landlords about tenant’s I evicted!
Then I got smart and let someone else handle that end of the business… If you are a new Landlord and just getting into the business I highly recomend networking with other landlords in the area!
HEY ROB
Call me
John
Hey,
What I do (I invest in a smallish city, around 100,000) is pick a neighborhood, one drive thru will give you an idea if is what you want, go to the tax assessor’s website, sift through for out-of-town owners and mail them a postcard stating I am an investor investing in that neighborhood and offering to solve their landlord problems. This niche works well for me.
Peace,
Richard
rhm*,
how do you sift through out of state owners?
thanks
Hey,
Somewhat tediously I pull up each street of the neighborhood and look at each address with it’s owner. I occassionally work a night shift at the hospital and am not overly busy so I do my research and data mining to keep me awake on those one to two nights a month. I have sent out postcards to about 24 owners about 2-3 times each and have had returns on about 8 properties and have a contract on one and a deal in the works (paperwork being drawn up) on a 5 property deal for about 500K. If it all works out not a bad marketing ROI.
Peace,
Richard
Richard,
Oh golly…that is sure alot of sifting data 
I guess there’s no faster way around it…If i do find out, i will keep u posted…STill brainstorming away