How to Actually Shop Your Comps (And Stop Leaving Money on the Table)
Most comp shopping routines are stuck in 2015 — a weekly phone call, a shared spreadsheet, and a gut feeling. Here's how to build a submarket analysis process that actually informs your pricing decisions, catches shifts before they hurt you, and gives you a defensible story when ownership asks why rents moved.
Article
The Problem With How Most Teams Shop Comps Let's be honest: the average comp shop is a 20minute phone call to a leasing agent who's reading off the same availability sheet they sent you last Tuesday. You log it in a spreadsheet, notice your neighbor dropped their 1BR by $30, and then debate whether to match it or hold. That's not submarket analysis. That's a delayed reaction to someone else's decision. Effective submarket analysis is about building a forwardlooking view of supply, demand, and pricing power — so you're setting rents based on where the market is going, not where it was last week. Define Your Comp Set Surgically, Not Conveniently Most comp sets are built around proximity and similarity on paper — same unit count, same vintage, within two miles. That's a starting point, not a strategy. The real question is: who is your prospect actually crossshopping?