How PropDetect estimates rent

The estimate is built from lettings comparables near the property, matched on bedroom count and property type. A two-bed flat is benchmarked against two-bed flats, not against the three-bed terraces nearby that happen to be listed, and not against an area-wide average that blends studio flats with family houses.

That sounds obvious, and it is the discipline most rent tools quietly skip. An area average is easy to compute and looks authoritative, but a landlord comparing it against their street sees the mismatch instantly, and a figure that fails that check poisons trust in everything else on the report. Every comparable behind our figure is visible: rent, size, type, distance, and whether it was let agreed or asking.

The report shows market rent and post-refurbishment rent side by side, because they answer different questions. Market rent is the median of the matched comparables: what the property would realistically let for today, in its current condition band. The post-refurbishment estimate sits above it, reflecting a renovated, well-presented property letting at the stronger end of the same evidence, and the premium between the two is stated as a percentage.

Showing one number without the other is how rent estimates mislead. A post-refurb figure presented alone reads as optimism to anyone checking asking rents; a market figure alone understates a genuinely renovated product. Both, with the gap explicit, lets you judge the assumption rather than swallow it.

Where the comparable set includes let agreed listings, properties that actually found a tenant at the advertised rent, they are weighted as stronger evidence than listings still waiting. An asking rent is a landlord's hope; a let agreed rent is a tenant's signature. The report tells you how many of the comparables behind the figure were let agreed.

The rent confidence score is computed from the evidence: how many genuinely matched comparables existed, how tightly they agreed, how far away they were, and how many were let agreed rather than asking. Few or scattered comparables produce a low score, and the report explains the driver in a sentence, "only three genuinely comparable lets were available, so the range is wide", rather than presenting a bare percentage.

When the local evidence is too thin for a bedroom-matched estimate, the system widens its basis and says so, and a weak estimate announces itself on the report without you having to expand anything.

The rent flows into gross and net yield, monthly cash flow, mortgage serviceability, the BRRR refinance case, and social housing and serviced accommodation modes where those strategies apply. Because everything downstream recalculates when you edit, a landlord who knows their achievable rent can put it in and watch the whole deal re-derive in seconds.