FAQs - RentHub

What is RentHub?

RentHub is a data-as-a-service platform that captures detailed rental listing data using web scraping from over 100 public sources. It offers a unified dataset of rental housing in the U.S., built specifically for researchers, analysts, and data scientists.

Why is rental data difficult to collect?

Unlike for-sale real estate, rental transactions are private and unrecorded at the municipal level. Rental data is fragmented across owner sites, listing platforms, and classifieds. RentHub aggregates all this data into a standardized, research-ready format.

What’s included in RentHub’s dataset?

RentHub’s dataset includes:

• Over 1 million listings weekly
• Historical coverage from 2014 to present
• Daily tracking of ~500,000 apartment complexes
• Geographic coverage across the entire U.S.
• Full dataset refreshed bi-weekly

Each listing includes rent, square footage, bedroom/bath count, amenities, geolocation, marketing description, and time stamps (posted/scraped date).

How does RentHub handle data cleanliness?

RentHub does not simply offer raw listings. It structures the data, deduplicates it, and adds identifiers:

• Unique IDs for properties and units
• Indicators for listing duration (posted-to-delisted lifecycle)
• Fields to track amenity premiums (e.g., units with granite countertops)

The platform is optimized to support clean joins and longitudinal analysis.

How has RentHub data been used in research?

Dr. Le Jiang Le presented research on how university presence affects nearby rental markets in Southern California. Her key findings using RentHub data include:

• Proximity to a university raises asking rents by $200+, plus $120/km closer
• Units near universities are more likely to be studios/1-bedrooms, furnished, dense, and amenity-rich
• These “university rental markets” are statistically distinct from surrounding areas

The research relied on RentHub’s street-level geolocation and high temporal granularity, validating results against ACS survey data.

Can RentHub data be joined with other datasets?

Yes. RentHub is integrating Placekey, a universal spatial identifier that makes it easier to join with parcel, commercial, or demographic datasets. While parcel-level joins aren't yet supported natively, they’re on the roadmap.

What legal and ethical standards guide RentHub’s scraping?

RentHub only collects public, factual listing data—never images or content behind login walls. It follows current web-scraping legal norms, ensuring compliance and ethical standards.