Researching Rents

Along with location, researching rents is also important when looking for the right house. Once we knew we wanted to find a house close to campus (within a five block radius), we started looking at rent prices. Because we both had lived in Provo for a few years already going to school, we had a pretty good understanding of what rents were for different apartments, but we still followed a couple tips for researching rents:

1.       When visiting homes for sale be sure to ask the current tenants what they pay for rent.

2.       Look for apartment listings in the local online classifieds. You will want to compare what similar apartments in the same area are charging for rent.

3.       And if you are really serious, you can try listing the house for rent long before you buy just to get a feel for the demand at certain rent price points.

Once you have a feel for the rents certain types of apartments can fetch, you will be armed with good information for determining if a house is a good buy. After our research in Provo, we found that about $600/month was a good asking price for a one bedroom apartment within five blocks of campus. Now, many factors go into that price, but if the apartment is nice, clean, has good amenities (like a washer/dryer included), and is close to campus $600/month is a competitive asking price. The more you know about rents in your particular area of interest the better prepared you’ll be as a landlord.