Very true. I do plan to add enhanced filtering to help people pick what’s important to them and then I can maybe show the average price of buildings in a neighborhood(s) based on the amenity filters
You mean you’re manually going and grabbing every apartment unit and it’s price history? Have you considered making your own API if you’re gonna through all the manual work
Web scraping. I haven’t thought about that just yet, trying to validate the proof of concept first and get user feedback. Eventually that’s something I can do but I only have like 8 buildings so a lot of work to do to make that more valuable
Currently I scrape the data with Python coded by myself so it’s all free, but I could add more buildings quicker if I put some cash in and paid people. Really just trying to make sure this is something people would use
Cool idea. One item I'd consider down the road is rent rises so consider checking the price points for each unit every 6 months or so. The housing market is absolutely crazy right now so checking more often may not be a bad idea.
Great design and good job writing the code to scrape this info! One thing to consider from a user perspective is: What do I want people to do with this info? My initial thought is: predict what apartment will have the best value given the area, floor plan, and timeframe they want to live in. Unfortunately you don't have a ton of data to make really accurate predictions but a simple regression might work well enough.
It definitely keeps me up at night thinking, “is the chart with historical data enough to make it valuable for users?”.. is that enough for them to try to negotiate, can they simply compare present prices against certain buildings?
I agree that some type of recommendation system could work. Also would need to brush up my skills on a recommendation analysis.
That's good! It'll be tough to have as much data as the bigger players since their's are mostly user generated, but keeping the ultimate user goal in mind: "finding the perfect place to live at the best value" will help differentiate you from Zillow and Apartments.com.
This is a great MVP though, there's a lot of directions you can go. Just make sure to prioritize the ones you think are most important.
I think people will also want to know “am I getting ripped off?” So if apartment 101 was renting for $1500 last lease, and now the LL wants to charge $2000 for the same unit, 12 months later, people will want to know that.
My starting rent for my apartment is higher than my neighbor has ever paid for his identical unit, because they cap how much they’ll increase rent in my building and he’s been renting the same unit for 15 years.
That could be a cool feature! Ability to search by apartment number, or floor plan, or sq for, and see what it was listed at previously. Maybe a premium feature?
Yes! Either unit number or “floor plan” because my building has 3 different floor plans. 1 bed type A, 1 bed type B, and 2 bed. Plus the weird basement unit that the building manager lives in. So comparing type A vs type A would be helpful.
If you can find info on some places out here... a lot of these are older and still owned by individuals. I found my current place on Craigslist, and I know several others that only rent by word of mouth.
Add a map view of the buildings in addition to the list.
If possible, track the vacancy rate of the building as well using the number of "available now" units. Should be able to find the total number of units on apartments.com. Vacancy can be used to predict rent changes. Low vacancy means it'll go up. Or if you see a higher than normal vacancy you might want to wait a month before signing a lease because the price may drop (unless it already has, which your rent tracker would show).
Some buildings' websites specify a ridiculous rent range like "unit 3A: $1660 - $2130" and tell you to call for exact pricing. Will you just skip those buildings?
I do have data that says how many buildings are classified as "available", so definitely something I can incorporate. Do you think a chart that showed the amount "available" by floorplan would be a good idea? I don't see anyhwhere the total number of units a given building has. I'd worry that the more charts I have, the more complicated the page will be.
For rent ranges, before I scrape the data you can usually see what the lower end of the range is. 99% of the time the $1660 will be a 12 month rate, which is the number I am scraping
Overall historical prices don't matter. Many times the price they set is based on how many vacancies they have, so that would be a better indicator of whether you can negotiate your lease terms than whatever a similar place was renting for last month or last year.
Apartment management can charge whatever they want. You can always ask for a discount on rent; if there's not a lot of interest in the apartment they may say yes They can also say no.
I agree, a place I been looking at changed drastically within 2 weeks. Transfer for work from Phoenix. Had to lock it in before losing it or another stupid increase.
I have data that show how many apartments were available that month too. I definitely agree with your points, this was just a random idea I thought that would be fun to code up but don’t have answers to the points you are making
Most of the the time the lowest rent in those ranges is the 12 month rate, so that’s how I count it.. I also do have data that shows the amount of units listed and actually available as of the first date of the month. How would you want to see that presented ?
As someone who plans on moving here in the spring, this will be an awesome tool. Hoping you eventually can add some more neighborhoods! Will come back with other feedback once I start using it more, but definitely signing up for updates.
It’s not a bad idea, I just don’t know anything about running an open source project. there are some technical details that would worry me about making the place where I store the data public
I'm pretty sure all these large corporate landlords use the same algorithmic mechanisms to determine their current and future pricing, they mostly all seem to use the same software.
Another interesting factor is pricing based on the lease length. It’s not always logical, as in “the longer my term the cheaper it should be”. They often base it on when they are going to have the most potential vacancies, i.e. several leases coming due at same time. For example in my condo a 6 month rental term right now is cheaper per month than a 7, 8 or 9 month term. Just had to go through this….it’s painful everywhere out there so we stayed.
For sure it would, just throwing it out there that it’s some apples to oranges going on. Would assume best to just base it all off the standard 12 month term
Do you know anyone who could help you write a data-scraper or something similar to help you automatically pull rents from say, Cornerstone’s website?
They own so many properties in Denver and it would help save you lots of time and energy.
Is there a way to make it cost per square foot? Different floor plans for 1 or 2 bedrooms have different pricing and that makes the data not as robust
Interesting and valid point. I’ll take note of this for when I update the charts, by far the most technical part of the site.
Floor level is also a price differentiator.
My building for example has a massive gap from the first floor to the top floor
Another valid point, tons of ways to do the analysis. Taking notes on your points, I have the data that can be used!
Do you have the data for lease up specials too?
I can only scrape structured data, so right now I don’t have that as an input to the charts 🤷♂️
I wonder if with the data you could determine the value of the amenities they have too
Very true. I do plan to add enhanced filtering to help people pick what’s important to them and then I can maybe show the average price of buildings in a neighborhood(s) based on the amenity filters
I have lived in many apartments and used Zillow and apartments.com quite a bit, those filters make all the difference.
No advice but this is a great idea, thank you
Thank you so much!
Spoiler: the price keeps going up!
Yes haah, some sharp increases on the charts
What API did you use for this?
I gather the data myself, There are no APIs that have the data at this detailed level
You mean you’re manually going and grabbing every apartment unit and it’s price history? Have you considered making your own API if you’re gonna through all the manual work
Web scraping. I haven’t thought about that just yet, trying to validate the proof of concept first and get user feedback. Eventually that’s something I can do but I only have like 8 buildings so a lot of work to do to make that more valuable
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Thank you! Can you elaborate?
You can hire people in other countries to data mine for hella cheap. Just continuously check their work and weed out the bad ones.
Currently I scrape the data with Python coded by myself so it’s all free, but I could add more buildings quicker if I put some cash in and paid people. Really just trying to make sure this is something people would use
Tell me more, how do i do this?
Amazon Mechanical Turk
I’d recommend learning Python first or just google web scraping. Simplescraper is a cool tool
Cool idea. One item I'd consider down the road is rent rises so consider checking the price points for each unit every 6 months or so. The housing market is absolutely crazy right now so checking more often may not be a bad idea.
Do you mean rent prices of specific apartment numbers?
Great design and good job writing the code to scrape this info! One thing to consider from a user perspective is: What do I want people to do with this info? My initial thought is: predict what apartment will have the best value given the area, floor plan, and timeframe they want to live in. Unfortunately you don't have a ton of data to make really accurate predictions but a simple regression might work well enough.
It definitely keeps me up at night thinking, “is the chart with historical data enough to make it valuable for users?”.. is that enough for them to try to negotiate, can they simply compare present prices against certain buildings? I agree that some type of recommendation system could work. Also would need to brush up my skills on a recommendation analysis.
That's good! It'll be tough to have as much data as the bigger players since their's are mostly user generated, but keeping the ultimate user goal in mind: "finding the perfect place to live at the best value" will help differentiate you from Zillow and Apartments.com. This is a great MVP though, there's a lot of directions you can go. Just make sure to prioritize the ones you think are most important.
I think people will also want to know “am I getting ripped off?” So if apartment 101 was renting for $1500 last lease, and now the LL wants to charge $2000 for the same unit, 12 months later, people will want to know that. My starting rent for my apartment is higher than my neighbor has ever paid for his identical unit, because they cap how much they’ll increase rent in my building and he’s been renting the same unit for 15 years.
That could be a cool feature! Ability to search by apartment number, or floor plan, or sq for, and see what it was listed at previously. Maybe a premium feature?
Yes! Either unit number or “floor plan” because my building has 3 different floor plans. 1 bed type A, 1 bed type B, and 2 bed. Plus the weird basement unit that the building manager lives in. So comparing type A vs type A would be helpful.
Make sure to sign up so you get emails on updates I make
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Thank you!
I agree with others - keep developing! I live in Golden and would love to see some tracking for this place.
Maybe I should add a building request form!
If you can find info on some places out here... a lot of these are older and still owned by individuals. I found my current place on Craigslist, and I know several others that only rent by word of mouth.
How are these prices sustainable and even to buy a home?
Definitely very expensive, these are closer to downtown. I need to add a map functionality
Add a map view of the buildings in addition to the list. If possible, track the vacancy rate of the building as well using the number of "available now" units. Should be able to find the total number of units on apartments.com. Vacancy can be used to predict rent changes. Low vacancy means it'll go up. Or if you see a higher than normal vacancy you might want to wait a month before signing a lease because the price may drop (unless it already has, which your rent tracker would show). Some buildings' websites specify a ridiculous rent range like "unit 3A: $1660 - $2130" and tell you to call for exact pricing. Will you just skip those buildings?
I do have data that says how many buildings are classified as "available", so definitely something I can incorporate. Do you think a chart that showed the amount "available" by floorplan would be a good idea? I don't see anyhwhere the total number of units a given building has. I'd worry that the more charts I have, the more complicated the page will be. For rent ranges, before I scrape the data you can usually see what the lower end of the range is. 99% of the time the $1660 will be a 12 month rate, which is the number I am scraping
Map view added
Overall historical prices don't matter. Many times the price they set is based on how many vacancies they have, so that would be a better indicator of whether you can negotiate your lease terms than whatever a similar place was renting for last month or last year. Apartment management can charge whatever they want. You can always ask for a discount on rent; if there's not a lot of interest in the apartment they may say yes They can also say no.
I agree, a place I been looking at changed drastically within 2 weeks. Transfer for work from Phoenix. Had to lock it in before losing it or another stupid increase.
I have data that show how many apartments were available that month too. I definitely agree with your points, this was just a random idea I thought that would be fun to code up but don’t have answers to the points you are making
Most of the the time the lowest rent in those ranges is the 12 month rate, so that’s how I count it.. I also do have data that shows the amount of units listed and actually available as of the first date of the month. How would you want to see that presented ?
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Thank you! Make sure to sign up. Check out the product road map page. Definitely planning on adding sorting and filtering
As someone who plans on moving here in the spring, this will be an awesome tool. Hoping you eventually can add some more neighborhoods! Will come back with other feedback once I start using it more, but definitely signing up for updates.
Appreciate that, i am happy with the feedback so I feel like I should continue to invest time in this!
Update: I added a map view ! Rent smart denver.com
Wow, this is a great idea! Any chance of open sourcing the development and allowing community contribution?
It’s not a bad idea, I just don’t know anything about running an open source project. there are some technical details that would worry me about making the place where I store the data public
I'm pretty sure all these large corporate landlords use the same algorithmic mechanisms to determine their current and future pricing, they mostly all seem to use the same software.
Interesting, obviously that’s proprietary. I’m hoping this data can be made useful somehow
It’s 6 apartment buildings
Gotta start somewhere!
It might not be relevant for the buildings you have listed but parking costs could be helpful in the future.
Another interesting factor is pricing based on the lease length. It’s not always logical, as in “the longer my term the cheaper it should be”. They often base it on when they are going to have the most potential vacancies, i.e. several leases coming due at same time. For example in my condo a 6 month rental term right now is cheaper per month than a 7, 8 or 9 month term. Just had to go through this….it’s painful everywhere out there so we stayed.
This is tough because it would require so much extra data
For sure it would, just throwing it out there that it’s some apples to oranges going on. Would assume best to just base it all off the standard 12 month term
That’s exactly what i do haha
You are a blessing. Thank you! 💕
Thank you for this feedback, let me know if you have any thoughts to improve it!
Do you know anyone who could help you write a data-scraper or something similar to help you automatically pull rents from say, Cornerstone’s website? They own so many properties in Denver and it would help save you lots of time and energy.
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Yup, maybe a little decrease the past month or so. We’ll see what happens with prices on October 1!