Lowball 作者: peteyboywonder

Lowball is an independent browser 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.

Eight metro areas are covered by a trained model. Everywhere else in the United States, the estimate is built on the spot from similar rentals listed near the one you are viewing (same bedrooms, same home type), taken from the search results your browser has already loaded. In our tests on seven metros the model was never built for, that lands within about 8 to 12 percent of asking in most of them and 16 to 18 percent in two college towns. With no nearby listings in view, the panel shows a rough range from a public rent index and says so.

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
• Rentals and homes for sale ranked by how negotiable they look, in the metros we cover. https://lowball.rent/deals and https://lowball.rent/buy

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. With it go up to 40 nearby listings from the search results your browser already loaded (address, rent, last price change, beds, baths, size, type, days listed), which serve as the comparable rentals for that one estimate and are not kept. Lowball never requests extra pages from Zillow to collect anything.

Lowball keeps a listing-level record of each estimate — the listing's facts and a one-way listing id, with no address and no install identifier — for 12 months to check accuracy and improve estimates.

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.

The extension 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. The extension does not sell data. (The optional renting-or-buying form on lowball.rent is separate and described in the privacy policy.)

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

Official URL: https://lowball.rent. Support email: peterskotte@lowball.rent. Homepage: https://lowball.rent.

WHAT IS NEW IN 0.18.26
• Works anywhere in the US: estimates from similar rentals listed nearby, built on the spot.
• Local leverage: how many similar-age rentals nearby have already cut their price.
• Apartment buildings outside our trained areas are scored from nearby listings too.
• Listings priced per bedroom (student housing) are recognised and not lowballed.
• Stream mode: blurs street addresses, names, phone numbers and emails on Zillow on your own screen, for screen-sharing. Nothing is sent. Switch it in the popup or with Alt+Shift+S.