RentScoper.com pushes data envelope, algorithm developed by bioengineer

Rentscoper.com launch

New real estate website in beta aims to improve decision making for real estate investors. RentScoper.com, founded by young entrepreneur Jeremy Elser features unique heat mapping that measures the effect of a location on a property’s value. Elser says, “The heat mapper has the ability to determine what any given property ought to rent for and can thus tell you if a property is under/over priced. This can save unfamiliar tenants from overpaying. This particular feature exists but is not currently on the website.”

The making of RentScoper.com

The story behind RentScoper.com is quite compelling. In 2005, at age 19, Elser and his brother bought their first investment property, gutted it, flipped it for a profit and quickly moved on to their second property. By the third property, Elser was devoting what he considered to be too much time to tracking and forecasting, so he wrote an algorithm to simulate future earnings based on past data and it worked so well that he made the investment software publicly available at JBooksProfessional.com.

Algorithm developed while studying the heart

Meanwhile, in Elser’s life as a bioengineer, he was working on a project to measure cells in the heart and the algorithm developed in his work on the heart led him to apply the same algorithm that powers the RentScoper.com heat map. Elser used the algorithm with his own investments after learning the most difficult part was understanding the location of a property (i.e. why is this property more expensive up the street, yet a better investment?).

After fine tuning it for his personal use, Elser is releasing it to the public with patents pending on the heat mapper, Simulator and various JBooks features. Currently, RentScoper.com is in beta in Philadelphia using Craigslist, Postlets and other public data to fuel search. Elser told AGBeat that long term, the site plans on going national, using MLS data and including residential sales.

Soon, agents will be able to buy territories and work RentScoper.com leads; “The agents contact information and a click-to-email button will appear in each property infowindow in their territory,” Elser said.

Interesting features

The young site has some interesting features with the investor in mind, from map markers changing color once viewed to minimal information in the popup rather than the paragraphs worth of description (we all know that most people would rather click on interesting properties than be bogged down).

RentScoper.com is in beta and we see that it has a lot of work in getting data, launching the monetization side, room for improvement in the user interface, but the heat mapping algorithm that quantifies the effect of a location on a property’s value separates the site from its competitors.

RentScoper.com has great potential and could push some of the bigger sites to think more outside of the box. Realtors can use the site not only for their own analysis, but to reinforce with investors their value proposition as the ultimate expert beyond the algorithm.