I know who doesn’t know:
Each time I’ve heard Bob Kittle (the UT editor) talk about rental rates on KPBS over the past five or six years he has said they’re about to increase dramatically due to (insert faulty logic here). He said the number of available apartments would drop due to condo conversions when that trend was already reversing, that occupancy rates would rise when they were staying flat, etc. Kittle is much more useful as a real estate shill than as a real estate analyst. Actually, shill rather than analyst is a good way to describe Kittle and the UT overall.
I’d say ask for an average rent and then pick tenants who look like they have recession proof jobs.