Best apartment listing sites to help you find your new home

Compare top rental sites by feature and ease of use

Whether you’re new to a city or relocating to a different neighborhood, there are over 20 different apartment listing sites to help you find, filter, and even apply for an apartment. While there is no shortage of rental apps you can use, the truth is — they all look about the same (and in fact, many of them are own by the same companies). Which one is going to score you the best apartment, make it easy for you to filter from your mobile phone, or even streamline your application process?

Read on, we’ve done the research for you.

Top 3 best apartment listing sites

We reviewed each site and rated the rental websites based on usability, intuitive navigation, search and filtering, speed, inventory, unit and neighborhood detail, mobile app experience and unique or especially helpful features. Although many of the rental listing sites had similar features, here are the three we liked the best:

Honorable mentions: Other apartment listing sites worth mentioning

Although Zillow, Apartments.com, and Zumper.com scored the highest on usability, inventory and special features, the following weren’t too shabby when it came to finding a place we liked:

How each apartment listing site compares

You’ve checked out our rankings but you want more details. No problem. Here’s our overview of each apartment rental listing site and why you might want to check it out.

Zillow

Apartment, house and condo rental listings are easy to search and navigate on Zillow and the user experience is superior to other listing sites. The default view is a map with a top filter bar and side column of rental listings.

Clicking into the unit detail, you’ll see two side-by-side panes with pictures and unit detail. Zillow makes it easy to sort by school rating, neighborhood in addition to the usual filters like price, rooms, etc. You can favorite, save searches and  request tours as with other sites. It’s integrated with school, walk and transit scores. 

Unique feature: Zillow provides extra services such as paying rent online. (Although not all apartments are supported.)

Apartments.com

Apartments.com has robust rental inventory compared to other sites. Their default view is a user-friendly map with a top navigation bar for filtering and adjusting results. Filtering is quick and easy, however its usability score is ranked lower due to a few oddities including a dropdown bar that looks to promote keywords over usability and a property review rating search feature that’s confusing.

Apartments.com includes many of the standard features such as price range, unit type, etc. but also specialty features such as apartments and housing for students, cheap apartments, income-restricted and military. Unit descriptions are very detailed and the format is easy to scan. 

Unique feature: Apartments.com offers neighborhood guides for the area, in addition to school, walk and transit scores information. 

Rent.com

Rent.com includes a default map view but their search and filter is less robust than other sites. Inventory tends to consist of large apartment complex/management companies with less representation of private landlords.

Rentpath, LLC owns Apartmentguide, Lovely and Rent.com, Rentals.com and RentalHouses.com, so you will see a lot of the same features and functionality across the rental listing websites. 

Unique feature: Some listings have 3D tour views and landlord ratings. 

HotPads

HotPads design is intuitive with a quick return and filtering of information. Basic rental unit detail is revealed when you mouse over the property map icons. Basic filter and search is included with easy filtering by commute time, travel modes (great if you bike to work!) and even rooms for rent.

You can favorite, save searches and  get alerts as with other sites and request tours.  Zillow acquired Hotpads in 2012. 

Unique feature: Extra services include application management to landlords and paying rent online. 

RentCafe

RentCafe’s default view is the standard map with filters. You can also search for neighborhoods by ZIP code, radius and polygon. Filter capability is good and descriptions of rental units are fairly detailed including integration with neighborhood information and even self storage unit companies. Rentcafe is owned by Yardi. 

Unique feature: You can apply for apartments, submit maintenance requests and renew your lease.

PadMapper

PadMapper’s default view is a map with basic searching for immediate individual listing results. Filtering is less convenient than the other sites, but generally covers the basics.

You can also search for short term rentals and compare properties. However, the details per unit as other sites and information on the neighborhood is missing. 

Unique feature: You can favorite, save rental searches and request tours.

ApartmentGuide

ApatmentGuide’s default view is the standard map with filters. You can also search by school, do a draw search, and see detailed local guide information including descriptions, average market rents, school, walk, and bike scores.

Inventory tends to consist of the larger apartment management companies with less representation of private landlords. Rentpath, LLC owns ApartmentGuide, Lovely and Rent.com, Rentals.com, and RentalHouses.com, so you will see a lot of the same features and functionality across the rental listing websites. 

Unique feature: Rental unit information is reasonably detailed, with videos and 3D tours. 

Zumper

Zumper (which also owns PadMapper) has the standard map and listing view with the filter bar above the listings. Basic filtering features are included as well as short term and long term rentals, neighborhood search and you can also draw circles on the map for detailed geographic searches.

Unit detailed information is good including floor plans and property information. Zumper includes trends information about things like schools, walk scores, and bus/rail lines.  

Unique feature: Includes information about medium rent.

Last thoughts

No matter which apartment listing site you use, you’re bound to find a great apartment to rent. First figure out how much rent you can afford if you need a roommate, must-have amenities, and the neighborhood you want to move to.

With a little bit of organization and effort, you’ll be in your new place, kicking back and watching a great show on Netflix before you know it.