A Rent Zestimate is Zillow’s estimated monthly rent price, computed using a proprietary formula. It’s intended to be a starting point in determining the potential monthly rental price for a specific property. The Rent Zestimate is generated from public property data and similar local properties listed for rent. However, there may be special features, location, and market conditions our algorithms have not taken into account. Variations in rental price can also occur because of negotiating factors, special incentives, and length of lease. We encourage renters and landlords to supplement Zillow’s information by doing additional research, such as:
The Rent Range, which is related to the Rent Zestimate, shows the high and low estimates of what an apartment or home could rent for (e.g., the Rent Zestimate is $2,600 while the Rent Range is $2,000-3,200). The Rent Range can vary in magnitude depending on our historical ability to estimate similar homes. A wider range indicates less data or more volatility in the data. A smaller range means we have lots of information to help compute the Rent Zestimate and Rent Range.
The amount of information and data we have affects the Rent Zestimate accuracy. If your home facts are incomplete or incorrect, you can update your home facts, which may affect your Rent Zestimate. Remember, the Rent Zestimate is a starting point - you decide how much you charge for rent.
The amount of data significantly affects the accuracy of the Rent Zestimate. For example, the number of rental listings in a geographic area affects how much public information we have about prevailing rental prices for apartments and homes. The more rental listings, the more data we have to work with, and the more accurate the Rent Zestimate will be. Also, we use publicly available data for property attributes, and some areas publicly disclose more data than others. The more attributes we know about homes and apartments in an area (including yours), the better the Rent Zestimate. Remember that homeowners can also update their home facts if they need to be corrected, which can affect the Rent Zestimate.
Our team computes this figure by taking rental listing data and other public data and entering them into a formula, creating a proprietary algorithm. Currently, Zillow provides a Rent Zestimate for 125 million homes.
When our team developed the Rent Zestimate, they explored how apartments and homes in certain areas were similar (i.e., number of bedrooms and baths, and many other details) and then looked at the relationships between actual rent prices and those home details. These relationships form a pattern, which they used to develop a model to estimate rental prices. There may be factors relevant to rent price that the model does not consider, which is why it should be used as a starting point.
If you’ve claimed your home on Zillow and your home is off-market, you can view your home’s Rent Zestimate history on the Your Home tab. This allows you to see how your home’s Rent Zestimate has changed over time.
The information comes from publicly available data, including public property characteristic data and rent prices for similar local properties listed for rent. Zillow has done the legwork to gather this data from many public sources and has created something unique — a Rent Zestimate of an apartment, home, condo, or townhome.
