Rental Market Analysis Checklist

Set the radius (1-3 miles urban, 5-10 miles suburban) and the product class — Class A garden, Class B mid-rise, single-family rental, etc. Comps that don't match product type and submarket distort everything downstream. Pull a Class A lease-up as a comp for a 1990s Class B garden and your rent growth assumption is broken before you start.

Use 5-year ACS estimates from Census Reporter or Esri Tapestry for the relevant tract group: age distribution, median household income, renter share, household size. Match income against asking rent — if median renter income won't cover the standard 3x rent threshold, the comp set is mispriced for the submarket.

Identify the top 10 employers within a 30-minute drive and their headcount trend. A single large employer with announced layoffs or a closing facility is a leading indicator of vacancy 6-12 months out. LinkedIn Insights, the local economic development authority, and the metro chamber publish this.

Pick 5-8 properties matching unit mix, vintage, and product class. Yardi Matrix, CoStar, and Apartment List have curated comp tools; otherwise build manually from Zillow Rentals and Apartments.com. Document why each comp is included — sloppy comp selection is the most common reason recommendations get rejected at sign-off.

Phone-shop or web-shop each comp for current asking rents AND concessions (one month free, look-and-lease, waived admin fees). Effective rent is what matters — ignoring concessions overstates each comp's actual revenue by 4-8%. Attach the rent survey spreadsheet so the math is auditable.

Note in-unit washer/dryer, package lockers, dog wash, covered vs surface parking pricing, and pet rent. Amenity gaps drive concessions: if your subject lacks in-unit laundry in a market where 80% of comps have it, expect a $50-100 effective-rent discount baked into your renewals.

Two or more comps offering 2+ months free signals soft demand. Recent concessions (last 30 days) usually mean a delivery is hitting; sustained 6+ months means structural oversupply. Both affect renewal pricing — call out which pattern you see.

Pull from AppFolio, Yardi Voyager, or RealPage. Distinguish physical vacancy from economic vacancy — a unit listed $200 below market is occupied but underperforming. Turnover above 50% annualized burns make-ready dollars and warrants its own line in the recommendation.

Review trailing 12-month and trailing 36-month rent growth at the submarket level and compare to the metro average. A submarket lagging the metro by 200+ bps needs a story — supply pipeline, employment shift, school district change — before you assume reversion to the mean.

Pull the current assessment from the county appraisal district and any pending millage changes. Texas, Florida, and many states reassess annually with material upward pressure; a 15% assessment jump on stabilized rents wipes out NOI growth. Flag if a protest is warranted before the local deadline.

Pull Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages for the MSA and key sectors — healthcare, tech, logistics, government. Year-over-year job growth above 1.5% supports your rent growth assumption; flat or negative employment caps renewal increases regardless of what the comp asking rents say.

10-year Treasury and SOFR drive cap rates and refinance economics. If the property has a balloon maturing in the next 24 months, a 100 bps rate move materially changes the disposition-vs-refinance decision the asset manager will face — surface this in the report.

Marcus & Millichap, CBRE, JLL, and Newmark publish quarterly submarket cap rate ranges. A widening spread between asking and actual closing cap rates signals a softening market. Cite the source and quarter in the report — generic cap rate claims get challenged.

Walk the radius via Google Earth, the city's permitting portal, and the Yardi Matrix new-construction tracker. Capture unit count, product type, and projected delivery quarter. Concentrated deliveries in a 6-month window are the single biggest threat to a rent-growth thesis.

Pull 24-month permit history from the city or the Census Building Permits Survey. Compare permitted units to net household formation in the submarket. Permits exceeding household growth by more than 10-15% signal concession pressure within 12 months of delivery.

Any single project over 200 units delivering within 12 months inside a 1-mile radius gets a flag. Lease-up concessions on the new project pull pricing down across the comp set for 6-9 months — your renewals during that window need a defensive posture.

Build three scenarios: base (no concession), moderate (one month free at renewal), and stress (two months free plus a cap on increases). Run each against the operating budget. Heavy-supply submarkets often warrant defensive flat-rent renewals over chasing comp asking rents that aren't actually leasing.

Check the planning commission's agenda for the next 6 months. A nearby parcel rezoning from commercial to multifamily is both a future supply risk AND a property tax revaluation trigger. Subscribe to the planning department mailing list for the submarket so you're not finding out at the public hearing.

California cities (Oakland, LA, Berkeley), Oregon statewide, NY rent stabilization, and a growing list of MA, NJ, and MN cities cap annual increases or restrict no-cause non-renewals. A 3-7% annual cap completely changes pricing strategy. Confirm whether the cap is calendar year or anniversary year — the difference matters.

Many jurisdictions ban refusal to rent to Section 8 voucher holders, SSI/SSDI recipients, or housing-voucher applicants — CA, NY, MA, NJ, IL statewide plus many other cities. Screening criteria must be uniform; voucher status cannot be a criterion. Surface any change to the leasing team before the next batch of applications hits.

Set asking-rent ranges by floorplan, recommended renewal increase percentages, and any concession strategy. Tie each recommendation back to the comp survey and supply data — recommendations without a paper trail get pushed back at sign-off and you'll be redoing the work.

Send the draft to the asset manager and regional manager 48 hours before the sign-off meeting. Most material changes come from this round; surfacing them in writing avoids a re-review cycle and keeps the renewal timeline intact.

Capture the decision, reviewer notes, and the final report PDF. The signed-off version drives renewal letters and the operating budget — an unsigned analysis sitting in a draft folder doesn't move pricing.

Work the asset manager's notes into the report and resubmit within 5 business days. Common revisions: tightening the comp set, adding a stress scenario, or revising the rent recommendation downward when the supply pipeline is more concerning than the first draft acknowledged.