Competitor Vacancy Excel Agent
Property managers manually visit 25-30 competitor websites every two weeks, copy vacancy data into Excel, calculate days on market, and flag price changes. They also have no systematic way to identify self-managed landlords on Zillow as prospects.
A bi-weekly dashboard and Excel workbook show all competitor vacancies sorted by price within bedroom groups, with days listed and days on market as separate metrics. Self-managed Zillow listings appear as a separate lead list after deduplication. Summary statistics by property manager help teams position their own units competitively.
Manual competitor tracking costs $1,000 per month and takes hours every two weeks.
Property managers in Corvallis, Albany, and Philomath spend significant time and money visiting 25-30 competitor websites every other week, copying vacancy data into spreadsheets, calculating days on market, and flagging price changes.
$1,000 per month paid to contractors for bi-weekly competitor tracking
Hours every two weeks visiting competitor sites, copying data, and calculating metrics by hand
No systematic way to identify self-managed landlords on Zillow as prospects for management agreements
Automated scraping replaces bi-weekly website visits and surfaces new sales leads.
Automated bi-weekly scraping replaces the $1,000-per-month manual tracking service entirely
Identifies Zillow listings not managed by tracked competitors, creating a qualified prospect list for management agreements
Dashboard and Excel export match the existing bi-weekly summary format, so your team uses it immediately without retraining
This agent scrapes 25-30 competitor property manager websites plus Zillow rental listings every two weeks, deduplicates properties by manager name and address, and delivers a filterable dashboard with summary statistics and Excel export. The result is a $1,000-per-month cost elimination plus a new lead list of self-managed properties ready for outreach.
How the agent works.
The agent runs automatically every two weeks, scrapes competitor sites and Zillow, deduplicates results, and delivers a dashboard plus Excel workbook for your team meeting.
The agent visits 25-30 property manager websites you provide, extracts address, rent, bedrooms, bathrooms, property type, listed date, and move-in date from each listing. Many sites use AppFolio embeds that load via JavaScript, so the agent renders the page fully before extracting data.
The agent searches Zillow for rental listings in Corvallis, Albany, Philomath, and Lebanon, extracting the same fields as competitor sites so results can be compared directly.
The agent matches Zillow listings against tracked competitors using two layers: fuzzy matching on property manager name (e.g., 'Pinion Property Management' matches 'Pinion Property Mgmt LLC'), and address normalization (e.g., '123 Main St #5' matches '123 Main Street Apt 5'). Matched listings are filtered out.
For each property, the agent calculates days listed (how long it has been advertised, never resets) and days on market (zero for pre-leasing units with future move-in dates, starts counting once available). Both metrics appear as separate columns.
The agent builds a filterable web dashboard sorted by price ascending within bedroom groups, with summary statistics by property manager. It also generates a multi-tab Excel workbook with detailed properties, summary stats, and price-change log.
The agent emails you when the report is ready, with a link to the dashboard and a button to download Excel directly. The email includes key counts: total vacancies tracked, new self-managed leads from Zillow, and price decreases this period.
Competitor property manager website URLs +
25-30 direct vacancy page URLs you provide (some property managers have multiple pages per location)
Zillow rental listings +
Public rental listings in Corvallis, Albany, Philomath, and Lebanon
Property details from each listing +
Address, rent, bedrooms, bathrooms, property type, listed date, available/move-in date
JavaScript rendering of competitor sites +
Many competitor sites embed AppFolio vacancy widgets that load via JavaScript. The agent renders pages fully before extracting data.
Address normalization +
Splits addresses into street and unit components, normalizes variations ('Apt 5' vs '#5' vs 'Unit 5') so matching works reliably
Property manager name fuzzy matching +
Matches Zillow listings against tracked competitors using fuzzy similarity (e.g., 'Pinion Property Management' matches 'Pinion Property Mgmt LLC') to identify duplicates
Days listed and days on market calculation +
Tracks how long each property has been advertised (days listed, never resets) separately from how long it has been available (days on market, zero for pre-leasing)
Deduplication across sources +
Removes Zillow listings that match tracked competitors by manager name or address, leaving only self-managed properties as sales leads
Summary statistics aggregation +
Calculates per-property-manager averages (price per bedroom, days on market) and period totals (vacancies by city and bedroom count)
Web dashboard +
Filterable view sorted by price ascending within bedroom groups, with city, bedroom count, property type, source, and price-range filters. Shows days listed and days on market as separate columns. Pre-leasing units flagged with move-in date.
Summary statistics panel +
Per-property-manager table showing average price per bedroom, average days on market, and count of addresses. Period-level totals by city and bedroom count.
Multi-tab Excel workbook +
Tab 1: detailed properties sorted by price within bedroom groups. Tab 2: summary statistics matching the dashboard panel. Tab 3: price-change log showing rent decreases between periods.
Self-managed lead list +
Zillow listings that do not match any tracked competitor by manager name or address, labeled 'Direct from Zillow' and ready for outreach
Bi-weekly email notification +
Summary email with key counts (total vacancies, new self-managed leads, price decreases), link to dashboard, and Excel download button
Is this for you?
- + Property management firms in multi-property markets - Teams that track 20+ competitor sources and need to position their own units competitively by price and availability
- + Owners who do bi-weekly or weekly market reviews - Operators who meet regularly with leasing agents and business partners to discuss pricing strategy and pre-leasing performance
- + Teams that use Excel and print reports - Organizations that prefer Microsoft Excel over cloud-based dashboards and bring printed reports to team meetings
- + Firms seeking self-managed landlord leads - Companies that want to identify and outreach to Zillow landlords who self-manage, as prospects for management agreements or lease-only services
- - Single-property or small-portfolio owners - If you manage fewer than 5 properties or track fewer than 5 competitors, manual tracking may be sufficient
- - Teams that need instant price alerts - This agent runs bi-weekly. If you need instant alerts when competitors change prices, a real-time monitoring system is more appropriate
- - Predictive pricing or revenue management - The agent surfaces competitor data; it does not recommend pricing or forecast demand. You analyze the data yourself to make pricing decisions
- - Firms that do not track competitors - If you set prices independently and do not monitor competitor vacancies or rates, this agent adds no value
Pricing and build model.
This build is scoped and priced as a custom agent. The initial build includes the web dashboard, Excel export, bi-weekly scraping, deduplication, and email notifications. Ongoing costs are minimal: approximately $20-30 per month for LLM tokens (address normalization and fuzzy matching) plus hosting on Railway.
- Initial build cost covers design, development, testing, and deployment of the full agent and dashboard
- Ongoing monthly costs: approximately $20-30 for LLM token usage (Lightweight-tier address normalization and PM name matching), plus standard Railway hosting
- Maintenance: competitor websites occasionally change their structure, requiring scraper updates. Budget for periodic maintenance as needed
- Future additions (e.g., Craigslist scraping, additional cities, real-time alerts) are separate scopes and priced independently
How much does this agent cost compared to manual competitor tracking?
This agent eliminates the $1,000 per month you currently pay contractors for bi-weekly competitor tracking. Ongoing costs are approximately $20-30 per month for LLM token usage (address normalization and property manager name matching) plus standard hosting. The initial build cost covers design, development, testing, and deployment.
What happens if a competitor website changes its structure or goes offline during a scrape?
The agent continues running and reports what it successfully collected. If some competitor sites fail to scrape in a given period, you receive the report anyway with a note listing which sources had issues. For example: '45 properties tracked from 23 sources. 2 competitor sites failed to scrape this period: [names].' You still get actionable data from the majority of your tracked competitors.
How does the agent identify self-managed landlords on Zillow as sales leads?
The agent scrapes Zillow rental listings in Corvallis, Albany, Philomath, and Lebanon, then removes any listings that match your tracked competitors using two methods: fuzzy matching on property manager name (so 'Pinion Property Management' matches 'Pinion Property Mgmt LLC') and address normalization (so '123 Main St #5' matches '123 Main Street Apt 5'). The remaining listings are self-managed properties with no professional manager attached. These appear in your report as 'Direct from Zillow' leads ready for outreach.
Can I use this dashboard on my phone or tablet, or do I need a desktop?
The dashboard is designed for desktop and print. You review the web dashboard on your computer, then download the Excel workbook to print for your bi-weekly team meetings with your leasing agent and business partner. The Excel format matches your current workflow, so your team uses it immediately without retraining.
What if I want to track a new competitor or stop tracking one?
Adding or removing a competitor from your tracking list takes approximately 30 minutes of setup work after the agent is built. You provide the direct vacancy page URL for the new competitor, and the agent includes it in the next bi-weekly run. Removing a competitor is even simpler. This is a post-build, hourly task that does not require an engineer.
Does the agent track price changes between periods?
Yes. The agent logs rent decreases between bi-weekly periods and includes a price-change log in your Excel export. You can see which competitors lowered prices and by how much, helping you adjust your own pricing strategy. The dashboard also flags individual properties with price decreases so you spot trends during your team meeting.
How does the agent handle pre-leasing properties that show a future move-in date?
Pre-leasing properties are tracked with two separate metrics. Days listed shows how long the property has been advertised (counting from first appearance). Days on market shows zero until the move-in date arrives, then starts counting. Pre-leasing units are visually flagged in the dashboard with a 'Pre-Leasing, Available [date]' badge so you can see which competitors are pre-leasing aggressively and which are not.
What if I need to add Craigslist or other rental sources to the tracking list later?
The initial build covers competitor property manager websites and Zillow. Craigslist and other sources are not included in the first phase but can be added in a future update. The same scraping and deduplication logic extends naturally to new sources, so adding them is straightforward once you decide to expand.
Parallel competitive intelligence workflow with multi-source aggregation and market-level filtering
Multi-source deduplication and entity resolution pattern for marketplace aggregation
Lead qualification and entity resolution across multiple data sources with configurable filtering
Stop paying $1,000 a month for manual competitor tracking.
This agent automates your bi-weekly market intelligence workflow, surfaces self-managed landlord leads from Zillow, and delivers the same Excel format you use today. Start with a prototype review, then move to production.