Lowball

Lowball is an independent Chrome extension for renters. It is not made by, affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Zillow. Asking rent is an opening position. Lowball tells you what a listing is likely to be worth, whether it is about to come down, and what to offer instead. WHAT YOU SEE, ON THE LISTING Open any rental listing on zillow.com and a panel appears on the page with: • What happens next. How long this listing has sat, how many comparable listings at the same age have already cut their price, the typical size of those cuts, and what another month sitting empty costs the owner. This is the part no advice article can give you, because it comes from listing history rather than opinion. • What to offer. A suggested opening number, where it is likely to settle, and the difference stated in dollars a year rather than a percentage, because "five percent" and "twelve hundred dollars a year" are the same fact and only one of them is legible. • Why. Every number shows its evidence: the comparable rentals used, with their rent, size and days on market; price cuts in this listing's history; how many units are open in the building; whether an owner or a property manager is listing it; and any posted specials. • A letter you can send. One click drafts a short, polite message to the landlord built around one number and the comps behind it. For managed buildings where the leasing desk cannot move base rent, it drafts a concession request instead, because a month free on a twelve month lease is worth more than most base-rent haggling. • Honest advice on fresh listings. If a listing went up days ago, opening under asking can cost you the unit. Lowball says so, and suggests applying first and asking once you are approved. • Buildings, handled properly. Apartment complexes get a number per floor plan rather than one number for the building, along with the posted specials and how many units are actually open. • Search results at a glance. Every card on a search page gets a small badge, and a panel ranks the listings on that page by how much room there looks to be. You can triage a whole page without opening anything. WHAT IT IS BUILT ON Estimates come from a model trained on active rental listings, blended with the comparable listings nearest the one you are looking at. From our own San Diego County snapshot: roughly 45 percent of listings still up after thirty days have already cut their price, with a median cut of about four percent, and listings that have sat ask a few percent more than fresh listings of the same size in the same ZIP code. The ones that sit are usually the overpriced ones. San Diego County is covered by a trained local model. Elsewhere, estimates come from a public rent index for the ZIP code, adjusted for bedrooms and size, and the panel says plainly that confidence is lower. Coverage improves in any area as more listings are seen there. Accuracy is published rather than claimed. See https://lowball.rent/accuracy. ALSO ON THE SITE • A renewal counter, for when your own lease is coming up: what comparable units rent for today, what turnover would cost your landlord, and a number to sign at. https://lowball.rent/renew • Fair rent by ZIP code across San Diego County. https://lowball.rent/rent/ WHAT LEAVES YOUR BROWSER To produce an estimate, Lowball sends that listing's facts to its own server: price, bedrooms, bathrooms, size, location, days listed, price history and posted specials. That is how the estimate is computed, and it happens for the listing you are looking at. Separately, and off by default, you can turn on sharing. With it on, the listing facts from pages you open and from search results you load are kept to improve estimates for everyone in that area. You can turn it off at any time from the panel, and you can ask for everything associated with your install to be deleted. Lowball has no accounts, asks for no name or email, and never records what you searched for or anything you typed. It does not read any site other than zillow.com. It does not sell data. Full detail, field by field, is at https://lowball.rent/privacy. WHAT IT IS NOT Lowball is not a guarantee. An estimate is an estimate, a landlord can say no, and a listing can rent for more than anyone expected. It is not legal, financial or real-estate advice. It will not tell you a number so low that nobody would take it seriously, because an offer that gets dismissed is worth nothing. Lowball is an independent product and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Zillow Group, Inc. Zillow and Zestimate are trademarks of Zillow Group, Inc. Estimates are derived from public listing data and are for information only. Confirm all fees and terms with the property. Terms: https://lowball.rent/terms Privacy: https://lowball.rent/privacy Contact: peterskotte@lowball.rent