The rental market below $1500 still seems very busy, with lots of calls on listings and no sooner do I show a property it is rented.  At the higher end of the market it seems a little slower, average days on the market is 59 days versus 47 days for spring 2015, and it took a little more time to rent a listing in Cinco Ranch than I expected.

I finally rented the rental I had listed in Cinco Ranch.  I made several mistakes and learned a few things about the current market.  I listed it at the same price that the previous tenants were paying under a 2 year lease thinking it should go after a month or 6 weeks, instead, we had crickets.  No showings and just a few sign calls.  Going by the rule of thumb that no showings = 10% overpriced, we reduced by $200 and waited another 2 weeks while doing some facebook marketing, etc.  It wasn't quite crickets, there were a couple of showings, but no offers.  We reevaluated the market, very few houses above $2000 seemed to be leasing and it appeared that the inventory would take 3 months to lease.  We also looked at not just the comps/sq foot, but compared spring 2015 with spring 2016 and found that prices in the Cinco Ranch area (south of Westheimer, north of Westpark, east of 99) had decreased by $300/month.

We reduced the price again by 10% and we ended up with multiple offers and rented the house with a slight increase above the asking price.

What I learned was:

- In a changing market, just using the comps to price a house could cause the landlord to be sitting with a house on the market for longer than they can stand.  It is better to rent the house at a 10% lower price but one month sooner rather than wait 3 months in the hope to get the higher price.

-Look at the closed prices over time to get a better idea of market trends using a shorter time interval.  Looking at comps over 6 months or one year tend to average in decreases in pricing.  Look at one month or 3 month periods over a couple of years to see how the market is really performing.

-Write me at joseph.gremillion@century21.com to learn the 3rd key learning.  As the great Greg F. always says:  "don't give away the candy".

(I'm not disclosing any secret client information, my wife is my client.  ;)  )    Any opinions are my own and not my broker's, company, etc.  Data is taken from Fusion, Cinco Ranch east of 99.