Rental tracking with Zilpy

Technology is a glorious thing. Zilpy, not to be confused with Zillow (which I have always found unreliable), is a new website that tracks rental rates and statistics across the country. It just might be the answer to the age old question of how much to ask for rent on a unit. They pull these statistics from all over the internet from sites such as backpage.com and apartmentfinder.com and use them to populate a surprisingly versatile site.

I accidentally stumbled across the site this afternoon and have been playing around with it for some time now. You can view rental units in just about in area in the country through this site. They list the asking rent price, address, amenities and even plot everything out on google maps. When searching in St. Louis City, you can also search in specific neighborhoods throughout the city. They even go so far as to track median rent rates for specific types of units currently and month over month.

The site is currently in beta, but it is already very informative. I never completely trust information from sources such as this, but it should help give you a relative look at any particular situation. At first, I assumed that this site was created by the people behind Zillow, but after a bit of digging, it seems that they aren’t officially connected. If you want to check out the site for yourself, visit zilpy.com or go directly to their St. Louis page.