The Best (and Worst) Apartment Rental Sites

By Angela Colley

Apartment hunting is a hassle. Newspaper listings don’t give you enough information, apartment guide magazines are always out of date, and driving around town looking for “For Rent” signs wastes time and gas. Apartment search engines aim to make finding a new apartment easier by showing listings from multiple sites in a single easy-to-read format. But some hit the mark while others miss it by miles.

As a renter, here’s my rankings on these sites from best to worst…

1. PadMapper

PadMapper is the one site I’ve had the most success with – because you can customize your search results in nearly every way imaginable. The basic search goes by price, number of bedrooms, and type. The expanded search lets you enter in your own keyword or look for pet-friendly spots. But the best feature of PadMapper is the super-secret setting – seriously, it’s a blue bar called “Show Super-Secret Advanced Features.” With this setting, you get a crime map, walk score, neighborhood layout, and mass transit map for each listing.

2. MyApartmentMap

If you’re looking for a specific type of rental, MyApartmentMap is the site to search. It sorts results by pets allowed, military housing, college apartments, or affordable housing. You can also refine your search within each option – such as choosing cats, small dogs, or large dogs under the “pets allowed” subsection. The listings themselves were the easiest to browse of all the sites. Each listing has a photo and the rent price clearly marked.

3. HotPads

If you’re an organizational nut like me, you’ll love the interactive map on HotPads. Each apartment listing appears on the map as a color-coded “hotspot.” Clicking a hotspot pulls up the listing, and from there you can hide the apartment or add it to your favorites. Hiding a listing removes the hotspot, while adding to your favorites puts a star on the map. After sorting all the listings, you’re left with one easy map showing you which apartments you want to look at.

4. RentLinx

RentLinx does have some cool search features. You can look for income-based, Section 8-approved, handicapped-accessible, and smoke-free rentals. But the site was harder to navigate than the others. And even after sorting by most recent listing, all of the ads I saw were a year or two old.