best place to list apartment for rent

If you don’t list and advertise your rental property in the appropriate places, you’ll never find tenants! Rental properties don’t market themselves, so it is very important for landlords like you to find the best place to list an apartment for rent. Tenants are key to succeeding in the rental business, so start your journey to find those tenants!

These days, the best place to start your advertising is on the best rental listing sites. Most renters start online when they are looking for a new place to live. They’ll browse various websites and compare listings based on their price, location, and quality. 

But they won’t be able to browse every website. In fact, a lot of renters will only look at one or two sites before they find the rental of their dreams! And that’s just one of the many reasons why you want to choose the best places to post apartments for rent. 

There’s no reason to waste your time listing on sites that won’t bring in any rental applications. Today, we will introduce the top 15 places to list rentals!

By the end of the day, we hope you can find the best place to list an apartment for rent in a way that will benefit your business.

Why You Should Spend Time On Researching Listing Sites

Before we get into the heart of today’s reviews, we want to briefly remind landlords about why you should care about which sites you are using. Sure, you might just want to post on one or two websites and call your work done. And that might work for you.

But ultimately, you should put a decent amount of care into selecting the sites that you use to market your properties. The style, features, and quality of the site will have an effect on the quality, volume, and type of tenants that you attract. 

Having solid and reputable tenants in your property is the best way to protect and ensure the success of your property. By using a service that lends itself to great tenant selection and screening, you’ll be able to secure the best tenants possible!

Comparison Chart Information

Site Name Price Syndicates? Rating
1 ZillowZillow Rental Manager Free Yes 5 stars
2 cozyCozy Free Yes 5 stars
3 rent.comRent.com $50 Yes 4.5 stars
4 apartable logoApartable Up to $50 Yes 4.5 stars
5 apartment listApartment List $349 Yes 4 stars
6 ZumperZumper Variable Yes 4 stars
7 rent jungleRent Jungle  $47 Yes 4 stars
8 Hotpads Free (or up to $100) Yes 4 stars
9 realtor logoRealtor.com Free Yes 4 stars
10 apartments.comApartments.com Variable Yes 4 stars
11 Doorstep logoDoorstep Free Yes 4 stars
12 rentdigsRentDigs Free Yes 4 stars
13 apartment guideApartment Guide Free Yes 3.5 stars
14 oodleOodle Free Yes 3.5 .stars
15 Craiglist logoCraigslist Free Yes 3 stars

Rental Listing Site Reviews

Now let’s get into the heart of each of these sites. To help you make the choice about which site is right for you, we’re giving you basic pricing information as well as the primary features that could benefit your property management work.

As always, you’ll want to check the terms of each product for their most updated fees and features!

1. Zillow Rental Manager

Cost: Free

Zillow LogoZillow is arguably the most popular real estate website today. While other sites like Trulia have been long-term competitors of Zillow, the two have recently joined forces and began cross-sharing listings so you can get a complete experience on both sites. 

The best feature of Zillow is how easy it is to use for all parties. While the listing process is smooth to complete, renters will also find it easy to narrow their searches and discover only properties that truly interest them. 

Another huge benefit of using Zillow is that your added listing will be shared on Zillow, Trulia, and Hotpad – as well as on 23 other sites. All these sites get great unique monthly traffic, so you can be certain that the audience for your listing will be wide and varied.

Plus, the listing layouts look great and are full of detailed information!

Verdict: Zillow is a fantastic choice for any market and all landlords with the exception of those who have more than 50 units. The number of sites that your listing is shared to is remarkable with Zillow.

2.  Cozy

Cost: Base product is free; additions cost up to $20/month

cozy logoIf you are hunting for the best place to advertise rental property and then continue to manage it, Cozy has got your back. In recent years, Cozy has become one of the most popular rental marketplaces. Most tools on the site are free for landlords, and that’s a very big draw!

On Cozy, you can screen tenants, collect rent online, cross-post your listings to Doorsteps and Realtor.com, request one-time payments from tenants, share documents with the tenant, keep track of maintenance reports, and so much more! And all of these services are free. 

As a landlord, the only things that you would have to option to add for an additional cost are:

  • $19.99 for a rental trend report of the area around your property
  • $2.99/month per unit for faster payment processing

Verdict: With the huge variety of tools that are offered to landlords for free on Cozy, there is no reason why you shouldn’t at least give this listing site a try! The listing-to-management process is the focus at Cozy, and you might come to love it.

3.  Rent.com

Cost: Monthly fee (around $50 per month depending on the number of units)

rent.comThis is a smaller website that focuses on helping the younger generation and other first-time renters find the properties that appeal to them the most. Because of the popularity of the domain name and their presence online, Rent.com has been a steady presence on the rental marketplace.

The best things that this site offers are the detailed floor plans, HD photo capabilities, and virtual property tours. These features are a must to be considered a great rental site. Additionally, Rent.com promises you to get at least 15 leads in a 30-day period or they will give you the next month’s subscription for free.

The site was recently bought by Rentals.com, a rental listing and property management website, so you can also take advantage of the tools offered on Rentals.com if you want to collect rent or do any other tasks through a single service.

Verdict: Rent.com is a good choice for those who are looking to set up a property management workflow through a single site, but the monthly fee may be too steep for low volume landlords.

4.  Apartable

Cost: $9.99/month for a single listing; $49.99/month for 50 listings

apartable logoApartable is a rental property website that is focused on New York City and San Francisco. If you aren’t in these areas, there may be some listings that show up for you in other areas thanks to syndication between rental sites, but the site is geared towards those two cities. 

When working on Apartable, you can create as many listings as you want over time. However, you will only be able to have a specific number of listings active at any one time per your plan subscription. The listings that are not active will remain in your account, and you can reactive them at a later time. 

Apartable also prides itself on being a site that has managed to cut out some of the spam listings that can plague free websites by requiring certain types of income verification and a fee. In the end, this leads to a more productive experience for tenants (and thus, for you).

Verdict: Apartable might have a relatively steep subscription fee, but the fee is well worth the cost when marketing in rental hotspots like New York City and San Francisco.

5.  Apartment List

Cost: $349 fee when a renter moves in

apartment listApartment List is a rental website that allows you to load all of your listings for free. If you end up finding a tenant and signing a lease with them while using Apartment List, you will be responsible for paying a $349 fee for the connection.

While Apartment List has been popular since the early 2010s, the site gained a lot of notoriety whenever it joined forces with Facebook to set up the Facebook Marketplace with rental and selling listing functions. 

Renters using the site can set up super customized searches. For you, this means that the tenants who are going to be most attracted to your property will be guided more directly to it without wasting so much of their time. 

Apartment List also has a fantastic mobile app, which can help both you and your potential renters manage their interest on the go!

Verdict: This site gets relatively high traffic, but there is also a relatively high fee for completing a rental through their services. If you aren’t keen on paying, try using Zillow’s Rental Manager service instead.

6.  Zumper

Cost: Free for 1 to 25 units; variable price for more than 25 units

ZumperZumper is a rental listing website that aims to make the process of renting easier for both landlords and tenants by connecting them through quality and well-organized listings. In particular, Zumper is well-known for its high-quality filters, which make it easier to find what you are looking for. 

Something super unique about Zumper is their Instant Apply feature. Only available in certain cities, this feature makes it possible for a tenant to keep their credit score and application on file. When they find a property they like, they can Instant Apply. In addition to helping tenants get properties in hot markets, it also helps you to rent yours out faster!

Zumper does not clearly release their fee schedule for landlords managing over 25 units and listings, but most sites will charge somewhere between 18%-50% of one month’s rent for this type of services.

Verdict: Zumper is a fantastic choice for landlords with less than 25 units. It offers high-quality functionality, photos, and support, and you’ll be pleased with the number of applications received.

7.  Rent Jungle

Cost: $47 per Month

rent jungleRent Jungle is a site that has dwindled in popularity in recent years, but they still have a great number of useful features that you can use to find potential tenants. First, the site is laid out in a very user-friendly way on the tenant-facing side. This means that tenants will be happy to browse listings like yours. 

One tool that we love for landlords is the Rent Jungle Rent Trend tool. This tool uses data to track the average rent prices in specific areas, which can help you to price your rental property in the most competitive way.

In addition to the $47/month base fee for landlords who want to list properties, there are other pricing options that you can use to feature your listings when you need to fill a property fast. You can track all of this information on a landlord dashboard within the site.

Verdict: Rent Jungle makes it possible for you to take the data of their trends and turn that data into profit through their landlord tools, dashboard, and reasonable pricing. If you have a small advertising budget for your listings but want great results, Rent Jungle may be able to help.

8.  Hotpads

Cost: Free for individual rentals; $100+/month for complexes

HotpadsCommonly known for the affiliation with Zillow, Hotpads is a very popular renting marketplace. You can find houses, apartments, condos, and more on the site for rent. Many listings on this site are of the commercial variety, but there are residential properties as well. 

When you list your property on Hotpads, it is integrated into the site’s mapping tools for easy searchability by prospective tenants.

As one of the most popular sites in the rental industry, you can expect the tools to be top-notch. And they are! The interface and design are amazingly executed, and it’s worth the time it will take to load a listing onto the site. 

Hotpads get more than 10 million visitors every month! Additionally, the listings are linked between both Zillow and Trulia, so you will get a very wide audience by simply listing here. 

Verdict: Hotpads is an easy “yes” for all types of landlords. While you may have to pay a fee for larger property listings, the added value from Hotpads is undeniably worth it.

9.  Realtor.com

Cost: Free

realtor logoThe way that the Realtor.com website works can be confusing to many people. While the site itself does have good information, you’re likely to be redirected to Move, Doorsteps, or one of the other websites that Realtor.com partners with.

The real success of Realtor.com that you need to know about, however, is their Rentals app!

This app grabs listings from Realtor.com and other partner sites and makes it very easy for tenants to browse their options. The app is relatively popular, so ensuring that your properties make it onto the app is a must!

Verdict: Using Realtor.com or one of the sites that syndicate to their app (such as Doorsteps) is a sure-fire way to expand your listing’s audience.

10.  Apartments.com

Cost: Ranges from free upwards; variable pricing

apartments.comAparments.com is a website that lists currently available rental properties! The listings on the site can be done for free or for a flat rate depending on what size and style of ad you want and what services you want to have included with your listing.

As its name suggests, Apartments.com is especially well-outfitted for those that are renting out apartments or other complex-style housing types. Houses can be listed, but there are much fewer tenants looking for houses that frequent the site in comparison to those looking for apartments.

The innovative search tools on this site help to ensure that the right kind of tenants will find your property – and that makes it a great time investment.

Verdict: The goal of listing your property is to find well-suited tenants for your properties, and Apartments.com can do just that for a relatively low cost.

11.  Doorsteps

Cost: Free

Doorstep logoDoorsteps, Cozy, and Realtor.com paired up in 2015 to ensure that you can get your listing on all these sites while also enjoying the benefits for landlords on Cozy.

When you visit Doorsteps.com, the site feels like a standalone site. And that is the experience that tenants will have when they visit! They’ll browse the properties using the site’s filters, but they won’t know that they aren’t looking at Doorsteps listings at all. 

To list on Doorsteps, you will actually need to list via Cozy. Once you create the listing, you will be able to cross-syndicate it to all of these three sites for the most complete exposure around.

Verdict: If you’re only looking to post on one or two sites, using the Cozy/Doorstep site as one of your options is ideal because of the huge exposure that you will gain.

12.  RentDigs

Cost: Free

rentdigsCompared to large sites like Cozy and Zillow, RentDigs is a very small marketplace, but that doesn’t mean that it’s not worth checking out!

One of the most unique things about RentDigs is that they have recently launched their own vacation rental site known as GetDigsAway. If you haven’t been able to find a long-term tenant, you can easily use this service to cross-post your rental and get some short-term income until you can fill your vacancy.

RentDigs has landlords as creators, and this means that many of the features are very landlord-focused. One example of this type of feature is the fact that you can see how much exposure your listing has received. Knowing this will help you be able to continue your marketing more effectively.

Verdict: RentDigs is a simple and small website, but it can be used with success and with comfort because of how user-friendly and landlord-focused the design of the page is.

13.  Apartment Guide

Cost: Free

apartment guideApartment Guide is a listing website that you can use to list properties for free. There are some pricing plans available to give your listings an extra boost, but these are not necessary for most landlords. The site is relatively simple to use, but there are some issues with the way the software maps properties, which can impede how many tenants find your properties.

Apartment Guide is somewhat unique in the way that it does its base apartment categorization. There are six categories that you can choose from:

  • College Apartments
  • Military Apartments
  • Corporate Apartments
  • Senior Apartments
  • Cheap Apartments
  • Luxury Apartments

Alternatively, you can sort by city or by typing in a specific region that you want to search and go from there. The unique category system of Apartment Guide really shows you whom the site is marketed towards, and that can help you to decide if your listing is a good fit or not.

Verdict: If you own an apartment that you want to rent out, there’s no reason not to list here. A big bonus is that the site is easy to navigate, so you won’t have to waste time getting your listing up as quickly as possible.

14.  Oodle

Cost: Free

OodleLike Craigslist (below), Oodle is a free classified ad website.This marketplace can be used to rent out properties in addition to selling items or hiring a specific service, so the versatility on the site is quite varied. 

Oodle is featured to be organized by location so you can find what is relevant to you based on where you will be. Most people have limited their rental idea to a specific area, so this works out well for landlords.

The listings on this site are very simple, which is both a drawback and an appeal point. While it makes it very quick and easy to post your properties, it also makes it harder for tenants to get a full picture of the property so you may end up needing to go through more applications than usual to find a good one.

Verdict: Oodle is free, so there’s not much to lose here. If there is a lot of activity on Oodle in your area, go ahead and add your properties. It can’t harm your advertising attempts!

15.  Craigslist

Cost: Free

Craiglist logoMost people have heard of Craigslist before, but not all landlords realize that this free classifieds tool is a great, free option to use for listing your rentals.

The problem with Craigslist is that many people assume that everything on the site is going to be a scam because of the reputation that Craigslist has gained over the years. And while it’s always smart to be skeptical and vet your potential tenants thoroughly, it is also very possible for you to find good tenants on Craigslist!

Most people like to search for properties in very specific and localized ways when they are trying to find somewhere to rent. Because of the structure of Craigslist, it’s very easy for renters to search their desired zone, so nearly all renters will check the site out at one point or another. 

Verdict: Craigslist is a very simple site, but that doesn’t mean that it is not full of potential. While this site doesn’t have the advanced features of Zillow or Cozy, it does provide a fast and free way to spread the word about your listings. And that is well worth it!

Find The Perfect Listing Site To Succeed

Once you’ve found the best place to list your apartment for rent for your business, you’ll be amazed at the wider pool of tenant applications and what that can do for you.

When you have more rental applications and the knowledge that you’ll be able to find even more potential renters if you need to, it is much easier to let go of the pressure to accept the first application that comes through. 

Jumping the gun to choose a prospective tenant as quickly as possible is likely to backfire. Take the time that you need to properly vet tenants. When you can avoid high-risk tenants, your business will be more stable in the long run. After all, what kind of landlord wants to have to deal with evictions in the future? 

When you’re working on a great rental listing site, more potential renters will be seeing and responding to your property than ever before. Set yourself up for success by using a few of the best listing sites and then reviewing applications until you find the perfect tenant. 

You won’t regret it!

Apartment List Zillow Rental Manager
Rent.com Zumper
Rent Jungle Hotpads
Craigslist Apartment Guide
Cozy Apartable
Oodle