What Is Zumper Average Rent Tool? How Can It Help Real Estate Investors?

What is Zumper average rent tool, and how can it help real estate investors, renters, agents, and property managers streamline their daily tasks?

As a real estate investor who owns rental property, you’re always looking to lease your property to qualified tenants as fast as possible to avoid high vacancy turnovers. Luckily, there are now many real estate platforms and sites that will help you increase your exposure, so that your property can be seen by prospective renters.

One of these websites is Zumper. Today, we look at what this platform is, its features, such as Zumper average rent tool, and what the site can do for both landlords and renters.

What Is Zumper?

Zumper is an apartment finder platform that serves both renters and landlords. Its founders’ main aim was to develop the best place to buy an investment property. They wanted to create a smooth, transparent, and efficient renting process for both property owners and tenants. It was the first end-to-end real estate platform where tenants could search for rental properties and rent apartments.

Think of the typical property leasing process. You are required to fill out a lot of paperwork, which subsequently consumes a lot of your time. Zumper shortens and simplifies this entire process. As a landlord, the app prequalifies all prospective tenants for you by running both Experian credit checks and taking the tenants through background screening.

As a landlord, once you get an application from an interested tenant, you can already see whether they’re qualified or not. You can then decide whether to continue with the leasing process. 

As you can already see, Zumper covers every step of the investment property leasing process, from helping a potential tenant search for and find apartments to taking the landlord through the property leasing process.

Related: 4 Real Estate Marketing Strategies to Find Tenants Quickly

How does Zumper work?

Zumper for Landlords

Zumper saves a lot of time for landlords by streamlining the tenant screening process. As a landlord, you only receive applications from serious renters who meet some of the minimum requirements.

So, what does the actual process look like?

First, renters find your apartment through the Zumper app or through Zumper syndicates, such as Realtor.com or PadMapper. If they’re interested in leasing your apartment, they can check whether your rental is available by clicking the Check Availability button that’s next to the listing. Here, they can send you a message to inquire about your Zumper listing.

Remember, we mentioned that Zumper runs an Experian credit report on all potential renters. If the property is available, Zumper sends you the credit report for you to go through. You’re also sent the tenant’s full application.

As for the screening costs, the fee can be charged to either the landlord or the applicant. Some landlords on Zumper set up a mandatory application charge so that they can include the screening costs. The screening process involves a nationwide check for past criminal history and evictions. If you’ve set up the application charge, the applicant pays it to you directly on Zumper through a credit card.

Once the application is satisfactory and you’d like to move forward with the leasing process, Zumper can help you arrange for an apartment showing. They’ll walk with you until you’ve signed with the tenant.

Zumper for Renters

Even if you’ll be using the platform as a landlord, it’s also beneficial to learn how the app works for renters. Most renters will find the Zumper app different from other real estate platforms since they can search for rental properties, message landlords, issue their applications, and buy investment properties all on one platform. 

To start searching for an apartment, the renter enters their city or state of choice on the app. The search results show all available apartments in the city or nearby. They can then toggle to change the search results from a map list to a regular list. They can also filter to only show units that meet certain criteria. The filters include:

• Property type
• Rental rate maximums and minimums
• Number of bedrooms
• Number of bathrooms
• Square footage
• Building and apartment amenities
• Authorization of pets

If the renter doesn’t find any apartments of their liking but wants to keep their search preferences, they can save the search to get notified once apartments that meet their criteria become available. 

Once the renter finds an apartment on Zumper that meets their requirements and arouses their interest, they can simply tap the listing to see more details about it. The details include interior and exterior photos and also how the monthly rent compares to other units within the same building. Other details include city and neighborhood information, such as average apartment rent, walk score, and many more.

If the details satisfy the renter, they can click on the Check Availability button. This will open a box that allows them to send the landlord or property agent a quick message inquiring about the property. To make things easier for them, the message is pre-written. But they can also edit it to their liking.

Once the renter has submitted the inquiry, Zumper will request for them to complete a credit check via Experian. Completing the credit check will streamline the process further if the apartment is available.

How Do Zumper Credit Reports Work?

Renters on Zumper have an option of letting Experian run credit checks and save the report for them to use when applying for an apartment. This process doesn’t affect their credit scores in any way as it’s meant to give landlords an idea of how fiscally responsible the applicant is.

Since the credit report is saved on Zumper, tenants can use it on multiple applications. Typically, this is the Zumper credit report process:

• The user creates an account by linking their Facebook profile. Alternatively, they can enter their full name and create a password.
• The user enters other details including date of birth, security number, and current address. They also have to choose three security questions.
• Experian then runs the credit report, displays the report, then saves it so the tenant can include it in any other Zumper application.

Zumper shows the landlords the credit report along with the rest of the application details. Other application information includes what the tenant does for a living, where they’ve lived before, their financial details, and a few references.

Once a tenant has saved their credit report, they can use the Instant Apply feature on any applicable listings. The Instant Apply feature guarantees the tenant that the landlord, agent, or property manager will view the application.

Is There a Zumper Average Rent Tool?

Details surrounding Zumper’s average rent tool are quite scanty. However, it does provide rental data for various cities in the US on landing pages. This is a great option for users looking for a rent estimate.

For many people across the world, rent is their greatest monthly expense. Zumper uses this feature to empower renters in the US before making the vital decision on where to live. But investors can also use this to make sure that the rent they charge is competitive. Zumper publicizes up-to-date median asking prices for apartments at city, neighborhood, and metro area levels.

When compiling its monthly rent reports, Zumper claims to collect data from over a million active listings for all cities individually to calculate the median asking price. The figures are sourced from listings posted on Zumper’s Landlord platform by landlords and property managers. It also pulls data from third-party listings on the Multiple Listing Services (MLS).

How does Zumper ensure the rent data is credible and reliable?

On its website, Zumper says that its team verifies each listing so that the inventory is extremely accurate. This is also to ensure that it offers the best rental property search experience for its users. 

The data also factors in any new trends and excludes inactive listings that may have already been occupied or are no longer available. 

Related: How to Find Average Rent in Area of Your Choice

What Can Zumper Do for Real Estate Investors?

Now that we’ve looked at what Zumper average rent tool is and some of its features, what can the platform actually do for real estate investors?

Provide Exposure

Zumper platform attracts well over 15 million visitors every month and also generates 6 million leads per month. On top of that, Zumper distributes your rental listing to other listing platforms such as Facebook Marketplace, WalkScore, and PadMapper.

In 2020, Zumper claimed that six out of 10 renters in the US used its platform.

Marketing Tools

Listing your rental property on Zumper is generally fast and easy. It can connect landlords to interested and qualified tenants in just a matter of minutes. Besides the property photos and details, you can also include YouTube videos that enhance your listing in a big way.

Zumper’s premium package includes additional features such as 3D tours and 2D diagrammatic floor plans. Adding this to your ad will undoubtedly increase your chances of being seen online. 

Property Management Tools

Zumper’s free package comes with basic property management features. Landlords and property managers can create a rental listing, advertise it, contact prospective tenants, screen applicants, generate and sign digital lease agreements, and even collect rental payments. 

There are also extra property management features, such as search boost and property pricing. However, you have to upgrade to the Instarent package to access these extra features.

Related: 18 Property Management Basics Every Manager Should Know

Free Rent Collection

Zumper’s AutoPay feature allows real estate investors to collect rental payments for free. You can also collect other charges, such as security deposits, late fees, pet fees, and utilities, using the platform.

Zumper allows you to create rent payment schedules, monitor pending payments, and also get an insight into the past and expected payments. Luckily, you don’t have to worry about sending payment reminders to your tenants since Zumper handles that for you.

What Can’t Zumper Do for Real Estate Investors?

While Zumper average rent tool has many advantages for real estate investors, there are some downsides. One common downside that many Zumper average rent tool users want to see improved is the accuracy of its data. For example, not every listing will give the property’s actual address. Some users have found the property to be streets away from the listed address.

Zumper has also been accused of renter bias. While the platform claims to stand for inclusivity, there have been reports that Zumper systematically weeds out low-income earners. Its search feature may allow renters to filter the results to include low-income housing, but many users have found its algorithm to screen out low-income tenants.

This is where Mashvisor comes in. Before we can look at why Mashvisor is a better alternative, make sure to book a demo to find out more about how the tool can work for you.

Mashvisor: Zumper Average Rent Tool Alternative

For starters, Mashvisor is an online real estate platform that seeks to help investors find lucrative and profitable real estate investment opportunities for both traditional and short-term rental strategies. In addition, Mashvisor provides investors with accurate and reliable data to help them make smart investment decisions.

Mashvisor uses predictive analytics to show you future trends and expected outcomes based on historical data. Predictive analytics allow you to estimate a property’s performance in any city in the US.

When looking for a property on the Mashvisor platform, you’ll see data related to the property’s estimated rate of return on investment, including metrics such as cash on cash return and cap rate. You also see other important metrics, such as price to rent ratio.

One of the most outstanding features of this platform is that it provides performance data for both traditional and short-term rental strategies. This way, you can choose an ideal strategy to match your investment goals.

Mashvisor also stands out from Zumper due to the Rental Calculator. This tool provides you with the crucial numbers you need before deciding whether you should invest in a certain rental property. In simple terms, our rent calculator helps you determine whether a certain investment property is profitable or not. 

How accurate is Mashvisor data?

Mashvisor pulls its data from reputable and reliable sources. For example, short-term rental data is pulled from the Airbnb platform and other short-term rental listing sites. This way, you’re assured that the data you get reflects the actual situation on the ground.

On top of that, our algorithms are regularly tested to ensure that the projections and estimates are realistic. 

Should You Get Zumper Average Rent Tool?

With so many monthly visitors and leads, Zumper average rent tool looks like a good real estate platform. It may be a good site to begin your search for investment properties. But if you want more accurate and more detailed information, Mashvisor data and tools perform where Zumper falls short. Sign up with us today and start your 7-day free trial.