One cool feature of rental property advertising site "Zumper" is they aggregate the data from all listings within your rental's area/neighborhood and give an average that applicants can see. It is further broken down by number of bedrooms so they see what is average for 1 bed, 2 bed, 3 bed, etc.

I as a land lord can also see that and not have to do a lot of math to figure out what is average when I create a new listing, and normally I stay right around average. But this time, I decided to push for above average rent. When I listed my little house 5 days ago, the average for a 2 bed house was $550. I had been getting around $590 for it, but I went $650 to see what would happen.

Today, the average in that hood is now $650. My house got so many responses compare to others it looks like I have set the trend and become the new average, as there are no other other more expensive rentals listed there today than there were when I originally posted. I pulled up the average... I think. Not 100% sure, but I'm going to try this again with our next vacancy. When my rents show up as "average" people think they're getting a fair deal.

Maybe I should have gone $700 or $750. But, I already offered it at $650 and got $1,100 down on it today to hold it for a week....tenant to move in Jan 15th. Under 2 weeks turn time and higher rent than ever with double security deposit. Sa-weet!

With Zillow purchasing a company that will buy your home for cash, if Zillow is buying a variety of homes in that area in a short amount of time, is there an incentive to drive down prices for a short period of time and then suddenly see them bounce back after the purchase?