The First Real Source of High-Quality Rental Data: How Dwellsy Improves Market Intelligence

Written by:

Steve Marcinuk

Date:

28 Aug 2025

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The rental market has long operated with a fundamental data problem. Property managers, investors, and researchers have struggled with incomplete, inaccurate, or outdated information about rental prices and market conditions. This data gap has created challenges across the industry, from revenue management to academic research, leaving stakeholders to make critical decisions based on unreliable information.

Jonas Bordo, CEO and Co-Founder of Dwellsy, recognized this problem during his time running operations at a major REIT. “Our rent data was just systematically not representing what we were seeing on the ground in our portfolio. It was just wrong,” Bordo explains. “That impacted not only revenue management and setting rents, but also asset management, underwriting of acquisitions, all of those kinds of related activities. We didn’t know what market rent was.”

This experience led to the creation of Dwellsy, which has developed from a rental marketplace into what Bordo describes as “the first real, live, high quality source of rent data that’s ever been available in this country.”

Building a Comprehensive Data Foundation

Dwellsy’s approach differs fundamentally from traditional data collection methods. Rather than relying on surveys or scraped information, the company built a comprehensive rental marketplace that captures real-time asking rents directly from property managers and landlords.

“What we actually wanted was asking rents. Final asking rents was kind of the gold standard for the data quality that we wanted,” Bordo notes. “But nobody had that other than very small amounts, either it was scraped or was coming in from survey data or something else, and it was just either wrong in the collection front or they were collecting the wrong data point.”

The company’s strategy required taking on what many would consider an impossible challenge for a startup. “The number of people who out of the gate were like, ‘well, you should start with one market, or you should focus on one specific subclass of properties,'” Bordo recalls. “The thing I kept coming back to is like nobody else is observing those boundaries.”

This comprehensive approach proved essential because of how renters actually search for housing. Bordo discovered that rental searches are far more diverse than industry professionals typically assume.

Strategic Partnerships Drive Growth

Dwellsy’s growth was accelerated by partnerships with property management software companies. “I’m incredibly grateful to our partners at the property management software companies who moved to get us onboarded quickly,” Bordo says, citing relationships with companies like Yardi, Entrata, and AppFolio.

The COVID-19 pandemic created an unexpected catalyst for adoption. “There was this moment where everybody was really worried about vacancy in a way they’d never been worried about it before in the early phases of COVID,” Bordo explains. “We saw an immense onboarding at that time, because people were forced to rethink everything about their platform, about everything about how they were bringing renters in.”

The value proposition was straightforward for property managers: “Here we were a free, high quality platform. There’s not really any downside to listing on the platform. The downside is you get more traffic.”

Academic Applications and Research Value

The comprehensive nature of Dwellsy’s data has opened new possibilities for academic research. The company works with universities across the country, including University of Wisconsin, UCLA, and Boston University, providing researchers with unprecedented access to rental market data.

“We have the first real, live, high quality source of rent data that’s ever been available in this country, and it’s been really fun to see what researchers have been able to do with it,” Bordo notes.

Recent research projects demonstrate the data’s versatility. UCLA researchers are currently examining how rents evolved after the Southern California fires. “They’re looking at how rents evolved after the fires in Southern California. Really interesting question like, what actually happened with rents there as a result of this enormous dislocation,” Bordo explains.

A Federal Reserve researcher highlighted the significance of this data availability: “For the first time, we’ve always had to ask people what the groceries in their pantry are worth. And that’s not a very good way to understand costs. Now, we can go to the grocery store and check prices for the first time in this category.”

Beyond Real Estate Applications

The data’s utility extends beyond traditional real estate applications. Bordo has been surprised by the diversity of clients purchasing the data, including hedge funds, banks, insurance companies, and even retailers.

“It’s really interesting that the rent data turns out to be a proxy for the condition of the American consumer,” he observes. “If you understand what’s happening with the rent, it tells you a lot about what’s going on with the consumer in that area. If rent’s going up a lot and income isn’t, well, that consumer is squeezed.”

This insight has practical applications for retail strategy. “For Target, they’re probably going to get hurt. Walmart might actually be good, people trade off from Target and start shopping at Walmart instead, because it’s perceived to be a little cheaper.”

Granular Property Intelligence

Dwellsy captures over 200 different attributes for each rental listing, creating a comprehensive picture of available inventory. This granular data enables sophisticated analysis of market trends and property features.

“This is somebody putting a listing on Dwellsy. They’re putting their best foot forward and trying to explain everything that this property has to offer in a very up to date way,” Bordo explains. “So we do know what is the character of the flooring? What’s the where do the views look? How many garage spots? What’s the pet policy?”

This detailed information enables property managers to make data-driven decisions about improvements and amenities. “If you’re a property manager, we have clients who are using the data to try to understand, like, okay, how are amenities evolving? How should we think about amenities in this area? What’s the competitive dynamic between offering a gym as an amenity versus not?”

The data can provide guidance on renovation decisions. “A current, up to date 2025 kitchen is getting $75 extra in this area, so it’s not worth it for us to make that retrofit. You can do very tactical analysis to be able to avoid all of those experiments that are costly and time consuming.”

Product Development and Market Solutions

Dwellsy has developed several products to make their data more accessible. Their Trends product helps clients understand rental market movements over time, while Comp IQ serves as a lightweight revenue management tool.

“A lot of folks are using it to try to figure out what’s the right rent for my unit,” Bordo explains regarding Comp IQ. “It’s an incredibly high quality experience that allows them, in two or three minutes, to get to a very good rent number. They don’t have to be guessing at what market rent is for their unit.”

The company is also working toward what Bordo calls “true comps,” understanding which properties renters actually consider as alternatives, rather than what industry professionals assume are competitive properties.

Navigating the AI Revolution

As artificial intelligence changes how information is accessed and distributed, Dwellsy faces strategic decisions about data sharing with large language models. Bordo draws parallels to the music industry’s response to Napster, emphasizing the importance of embracing new distribution channels rather than fighting them.

“On one hand, we see them as a source of traffic and a partner, and we want to be the authoritative source for rent data, so we want people to be able to access the authoritative answers,” he explains. “However, we can’t just give it all away. Our business depends on people wanting to buy our data.”

The company is working toward a freemium model similar to the relationship between Google and Expedia. “How do we have that kind of experience where we’re able to harness that traffic and give people an amazing experience via the LLM but still ultimately be providing the service that we’re designed to provide.”

Looking Forward

With approximately 1,500 to 2,000 users already testing Comp IQ and plans to increase traffic to the platform, Dwellsy is positioned for continued growth. The company’s focus remains on providing free, high-quality leads to property managers while expanding the volume and utility of their data offerings.

“The best quality leads, and they’re free. So I’d like more please,” Bordo notes, reflecting feedback from property managers. “We have some tools that are going to enable us to expand the lead volume, which I think will be great for everybody in the ecosystem.”

As the rental market continues to evolve and data becomes increasingly central to real estate decision-making, Dwellsy’s comprehensive approach to rental market intelligence positions the company as a critical infrastructure provider for the industry. By solving the fundamental data problem that has long affected the rental market, they’re enabling more informed decisions across the entire real estate ecosystem.