- Real Estate
- Renting
Gina Vaynshteyn Gina Vaynshteyn Gina is a writer and editor living in Los Angeles with her husband and two cats. She recently just bought a house, so she spends her free time googling rugs, accent wall colors, and how to keep an orange tree alive. She used to run HelloGiggles.com, and has also written for places like Health, PEOPLE, SheKnows, Racked, The Rumpus, Bustle, LA Mag, and more. Jill Harness Jill Harness
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Searching for an apartment to rent can be stressful, but we’re lucky we have so many online resources available. Can you imagine having to depend solely on newspapers to find listings? Forget filters or price comparison tools — it would be a struggle just to find postings, period. And you can’t work on all the fun rental upgrades and rental hacks until you’ve nailed down where you’ll be living!
These days, the biggest hurdle is perhaps having too much information at our fingertips. Fortunately, there’s an online rental platform (or rental app!) for just about anyone — no matter where you live or what your level of experience is. Here, we’ve compiled a list of the best rental sites that offer a wide variety of tools, filters, and intel that will make your apartment search a smoother journey.
1. Apartment Guide
Who wants to rent a place sight unseen? It’s a nerve-wracking experience for sure. But ApartmentGuide.com seeks to eliminate the unknown by providing tons of full-color images and 3D tours of your prospective home. Add to that the site’s generous and extensive list of possible filters for your search, and you’re sure to see why Apartment Guide makes our list of the best apartment rental sites.
2. For Rent
For those of you searching for rentals through large property management companies (such as apartment complexes), you’re in luck! ForRent.com offers a vast selection of options for you to browse. The site is great about including specific details about properties, like whether your furry friend is allowed to accompany you, and how far you’ll be from shopping, dining and public transportation. A rent calculator is a handy feature that allows you to determine how much rent you can afford.
3. Zillow Rentals
Zillow has the most listings and data of any other real estate site, and even has an algorithm that caters to a users’ tastes and interests, with help from browsing data. While you can use Zillow to rent, buy, or sell, we find it’s a stand-out when it comes to single-family dwellings. Additionally, the Zestimate tool lets you easily compare rentals so you can decipher what kind of deal you might be getting.
4. Trulia Rentals
Acquired by Zillow in 2014, Trulia is another of the best apartment rental sites. You can use Trulia to rent or buy a home, thanks to its useful buyer and renter guides. One of Trulia’s standout features is the site’s partnerships with crime-mapping tools like SpotCrime.com and CityProtect.com. In 2018, Trulia added a new feature that aids members of the LGBTQ+ community around potentially discriminatory housing laws.
5. Realtor
Realtor.com is one of the most trusted rental resources out there, which is why it made our list of the best apartment rental sites. Operated by the National Association of Realtors, it only accepts listings from owners and property managers. It has a wide range of filters that help you curate what you’re looking for in terms of pricing, neighborhoods, and amenities, and its listing page gives you scores of information about different neighborhoods, such as schools data and price comparisons.
6. Craigslist
Craigslist, a classic online classified ads resource, isn’t specifically for rentals, but you can find great deals here because landlords post directly to Craigslist, which usually bypasses broker fees. Plenty of landlords skip the bigger rental sites like Zillow and Zumper and instead opt for Craigslist, which means you can find gems you might not come across otherwise.
On the other hand, Craigslist isn’t as vigilant about vetting postings, so you have to be savvy about who you’re reaching out to. There are plenty of spam listings you’ll have to filter through in order to find that diamond in the rough.
7. StreetEasy
It’s hard finding an apartment in the city, and it’s especially hard in New York, where the market is extremely competitive and prices are sky high. StreetEasy, which can be used for both renting and selling, is perfect for New Yorkers with specific criteria. You can browse categories like no-fee apartments, trending homes, amenities you can or can’t live without, and more.
8. Nooklyn
Nooklyn is one of the best apartment rental sites servicing New York City. While the company is a full-service brokerage, its website acts as a neighborhood resource of sorts, advertising apartments for rent, rooms for rent, new residential buildings, and even job postings. Users can search for a new place on Nooklyn, or they can post their available sublets and more.
9. Renthop
Renthop gives apartment hunters the standard map views and filters, but what’s unique about it is its “HopScore,” which rates every listing according to a variety of factors like value, the reputation of the management company, and more. “This website created a scoring system to score rental apartments based on their quality,” says Robert Rahmanian, principal and cofounder of REAL New York. “It’s very convenient.”
You can also use Renthop’s price comparison tool, which compares rent prices for similar homes in a neighborhood.
10. Apartments.com
Apartments.com is a go-to for many renters. It offers millions of listings, an impressive range of filters, and a trustworthy reputation. It also has a handy tool that lets you draw search area borders, as well as a keyword search for listings.
The site offers something called the Local Guide, which informs renters about specific areas, along with their latest market trends, top schools, most popular apartments, and more. Furthermore, each listing outlines not only details about the apartment itself, but characterizes the neighborhood it’s in, and what’s around in terms of schools, transportation options. It’s a great resource for people who are looking to move to a new city and need extra intel.
11. PadMapper
PadMapper is an aggregate rental listing resource, pulling postings from ForRent, PadList, and Airbnb. Its coolest feature is the interactive map, which shows you how many rentals are available in your area of interest.
12. RentCafe
RentCafe gives you listings directly from top property managers in the area, so renters don’t need to worry about vetting the authenticity of each posting. Apartment hunters can use RentCafe’s tool that shows people a unit’s real-time availability (which is useful in competitive markets, where homes can be snatched up in hours). The site even serves as a management platform —you can use for things like communicating with your apartment manager and renewing your lease.
13. Zumper
Zumper is wonderfully easy to use, as it breaks down every neighborhood within a city and then provides you information about the specific locations you’re browsing. This is helpful for apartment hunters who don’t actually live in the area and need a quick and easy download.
14. Rent.com
While Rent.com has a smaller selection in terms of listings compared to Zillow or Trulia, it does provide extra resources if you’re looking to save money. Use Rent’s Moving Center to get free moving quotes (you’d otherwise have to call moving companies one by one, and that’s a pain). Rent also has a blog that offers valuable insight on market trends.
15. Hotpads
Acquired by Zillow in 2012, Hotpads offers users a wide range of search customization in terms of neighborhoods, budgets, and apartment sizes. Hotpads also offers a “For You” section, which locates where you are and suggests properties in close proximity. The site conveniently shows you how many times the property has been viewed, plus nearby schools and unit reviews.
16. Redfin
Redfin is for more than looking at million-dollar homes on your bucket list. You can use the filters to search by zip code, price, bedrooms, and more. Plus, each listing gets a score for how walkable it is and whether it’s a good area for things like biking and using public transportation.
17. Facebook Groups
Another option for finding properties for rent is Facebook Groups. To best use Facebook Groups, search for specific groups that cover rentals in the area you want to move to. (For instance, Los Angeles LA – Housing, Rentals, Apartments, Rooms, Sublets.) In these groups, you can chat directly with people who are subletting their rooms, renting out their properties, or looking for a roommate.
18. SpareRoom
If you’re not looking to rent an entire apartment or home, SpareRoom is a great option. You can see available rooms for rent in cities like New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. There’s also an option to use it as a roommate finder if you need to fill an extra bedroom.
19. Rentable
While Rentable offers apartment listings for cities throughout the US, we’re the most excited about their college apartment search feature. The site makes it so easy to find off-campus housing adjacent to some of the biggest colleges in the US. The listings don’t just tell you how close each listing is to the school but also rate the property’s walkability, transit, and bike-friendliness so you can evaluate how easily you can get to the campus.
20. Apartment List
Easily the coolest feature of Apartment List is their “Rental Matchmaker” service, a questionnaire designed to help slim down your list of prospective apartments to the ones that are the best fit for your needs. The site also offers a helpful rental calculator and a cost of living calculator for the area to help you get an idea of how much you need to keep afloat in a specific locale.
Don’t you feel less stressed out already? Happy home searching!
