Studio Apartment for Rent in Metrotown

What we’d expect it to ask

$1,983 / month

8 times in ten the answer lands between $1,525 and $2,513. That is the width of what we actually know, measured against listings this model had never seen — not a margin we chose.

Asking $2,300 is $317 above that — further above than the ±9.8% we can put down to our own error. Something about it may justify that; the ad may also simply be ambitious.

What moves that number

Each line is the difference this one thing makes, holding everything else where it is. They do not add up to the rent.

Location

3 min on foot to Patterson (Expo Line), about 27 min to Waterfront.

Scored from the map pin alone — rapid transit, town centres and parks, in straight lines. It knows nothing about the street, the hill, the building or the neighbours, and buses and the SeaBus are not in it, so places served by those score lower here than they deserve.

Against the ones next to it

$2,300 is $405 above the middle of the 10 studios we are tracking in Metrotown right now ($1,895). Most of them ask between $1,790 and $1,980.

A straight count of asking prices in the area, with nothing adjusted for — unlike the estimate above, it does not care that this one is bigger or closer to a station.

What the estimate cannot see

Floor, view, condition, noise and everything inside the walls are missing from all but a handful of the advertisements we index, so none of them are priced in above. Two identical floor plans, one renovated and one not, get the same estimate from us.

The advertisement doesn’t say, and it matters:

• What floor is it on?
• Which way does it face?
• Is parking included or extra?
• Are pets allowed?
• When is it available?