Hunting for Apartment / Home Rentals

I remember way back in the day (in 2000) when you had to read the online newspaper classifieds to find a good rental property. Now there are many options for finding the ultimate pad.

Housing Maps is my favorite because it’s simple and easy to use. I especially like the fact that Housing maps is using Craigslist as a data source rather then creating an entirely new housing database. Housing Maps is really geared for renters who know the local area, and which sections of the neighborhood should be avoided. Aside from renting properties, you can also shop for new homes.

For the data miner, I recommend HotPads. HotPads does a better job at filtering criteria based on price, bedrooms and location of points of interest. By far, the biggest advantage of HotPads is the ability to apply heatmaps. As a former GIS junkie I love the fact that I can overlay population density, median age and per capita income over the areas of interest.

There are a slew of other options for buying and selling homes, such as Zillow and Redfin; however I’m more interested in finding tools that help renters locate the best rental properties. So, what tools have I missed?