10 Places to Look Online for Apartments

At one time if you were looking for a place to rent you would look in your local paper, or visit the neighborhoods that you hoped to find a place to live. Now with the internet the possibilities of finding a place that suits you are a lot easier. No longer do you just have to go off of a 35 character description. There are several places to look online for an apartment, not all places have every single apartment listed so consider looking at a few apartment finding websites.

What Google Can Offer

Google My Maps

This is a great way to find all of the apartment complexes that are near your place of work. By choosing an address and than searching the word apartment you will see all the apartment complexes that are in that area. You will have the address and phone number right there, you can call the places and make little notes on the computer, save your map for only you to see.
maps.google.com/maps Then click My Maps

Google Housing

When you google the word apartments you may notice a jump menu where you can choose a zip code, property type and listing type. This is the housing category of Goggle Base, a free service that Google offers where people can list what they are selling, or in this case renting, for free. You'll be able to compare apartments on a map by location and price. You can choose an address and sort everything by distance, price, bedrooms, bathrooms and by the date it was posted. If you see a place that you want to find out more about, there is almost always a link to the property's website.
base.google.com/base Then click Housing

Online Classifieds

CraigsList.org

If you don't find many listings in your local paper check out CraigsList.org. It doesn't cost anything for someone to list something on it so they will be more likely to use it instead of the paper. People will often include pictures, this is something that you won't find in your newspaper classifieds. You can place an ad for free of what you are looking for in an apartment and potentially hear back from someone.
www.craigslist.org

Local Newspaper Website

If you don't subscribe to your local newspaper or you don't want to have to buy a week's worth of them while you check the daily listings, you can look online to see if your local paper has website where they feature the classifieds. If for some reason that you don't have that option check the local library or an office for the paper.

Myspace

Myspace has classifieds, of course you have to be a member to use them, in order to communicate with the renter of the apartment. Sometimes in the description of the apartment people will leave a phone number but not always. You'll likely get as much information as an newspaper ad would give, so no pictures.
www.myspace.com Then click Classifieds

Booklets On The Web

Apartment Finder

You may noticed their booklets outside of stores but Apartment Finder also has a website. You'll be able to search for apartments, narrow them down and compare them on a map. You can search by zip code, city, what is near a specific college or military base.
www.apartmentfinder.com

Apartment Guide

Another little booklet that can help you find an apartment that is also has a website is Apartment Guide. You can sort by price, area, bedrooms, apartments with online tours and applications. You can compare up to 4 apartments at a time. Pictures, details and where the place is on the map are some of the features of the site. Any search that you make you can narrow down by only checking what is important for you to have at your apartment.
www.apartmentguide.com

Great Sites

Rent.com

You'll have to sign up with their site for free but then just type in the city and state that you want to find an apartment in, choose you minimum and maximum rent, bedroom and bathroom preferences and you will get an instant list of places. You can narrow your search with some laundry, amenities, apartment community and pet preferences as well. They will email you listings that you may be interested in if you don't find what you are looking for on your first visit and if you find an apartment through Rent.com they will reward you will $100 if you rent it.
www.rent.com

Apartments.com

Click on the state that you are looking for an apartment in, then the region, then the city. Then you can choose your price ranges, bedroom sizes that you are interested in, housing you are looking for, the amenities you would like the apartment to have, the apartment features you want and the community features that you want. You won't have to weed through listings because you'll generate a customized list of places that are what you are looking for.
www.apartments.com

For Rent.com

One place that you can find lots and lots of pictures is ForRent.com. They have floor plans, once again they don't have every single apartment listed but they are well established and have a hefty database of places. You can narrow your search with prices, sizes and amenities and community features.
www.forrent.com

I have never found a place that listed every single property, you may find some on one website but not on the others. There are tons of places that offer the ability to find a place online.