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As a landlord, there are dozens of things that you are responsible for on any given day.

All of these responsibilities, however, generally revolve around a single concept: making money.

And one of the quickest ways that landlords or property managers do the opposite of that is by having vacant rental properties in their portfolio.

Think about it, how are you supposed to make money off of a property with nobody living in it. For this reason, it is vital that you do not have a single empty rental property.

And how do you accomplish this? By creating rental listings and advertising them on various rental websites. You can also see if advertising opportunities are available through your local apartment associations.

This sounds pretty simple, but since there are so many choices out there, it may be difficult to choose just one rental listing site. To help with this, we have conveniently rounded up the top 10 best options and have outlined all of them down below.

Specifically, we are going over the best rental listing sites that are best suited for apartment listings.

So, let's get started by going over what rental listing sites actually are and how they can be one of your most useful tools.

What are Rental Listing Sites?

A rental listing site is any website that specializes in advertising your rental properties and displaying them across multiple platforms. This means that the website is connecting your properties with tons of potential tenants, costing only a few minutes of your time.

Some of these sites also provide functionality apart from simply listing your rental properties, like listing syndication, rent collection, and property management. There are also some tenant tools, like identity confirmation, tenant screening, and credit checks.

When using one of these rental websites, you will normally have some guidance while creating the listings. Some of the basic information to always include in apartment listings include:

  • Photos and videos of the apartment
  • The apartment type (Studio, loft, etc.)
  • The apartment size (Typically in square feet)
  • And the rent prices

Although this is just the most basic information about any apartment, it is enough to get your first apartment listed on some of these websites.

However, you are still facing the decision of where to place your apartments for rent. To answer this question, continue reading to find out about some of the best rental websites that you can use to market your apartments.

Top 10 Best Rental Apartment Listing Sites

Apartments.com

Apartments.com

To nobody's surprise, Apartments.com starts off our list of the best apartment rental listing sites. With a name like Apartments.com, it is the place where apartment hunters will begin their apartment search.

With their easy-to-use website and user-friendly design, users can quickly and easily find apartments that you have listed. This design is also very beneficial to property owners, as it makes it very easy to get listings up and live in just a few minutes. Apartments.com takes the user through every single step of the listing process, providing guidance and suggestions along the way.

When making the listing, the user can add things like an interactive map, a neighborhood's zip code, multiple photos, and location-specific information. Also, since prospective tenants also have the ability to view apartments from the mobile app, your rental listing gains even more attention.

After listing your apartment, or multiple apartments, there are also a ton of other tools to help you along the way. Some of these tools include background checks, credit checks, and even the ability for tenants to pay rent.

Zillow

Zillow

Second on our list of the best apartment listing websites is Zillow. The Zillow rental manager is a very powerful and versatile tool that allows you to have multiple units listed at any time. With Zillow, you can manage all of these apartments from one single online platform to make sure that you fill vacancies as quickly as possible.

One of the most useful tools that Zillow offers is its quick and easy listing creation. Like other rental listing sites, Zillow provides guidance to the property owner during the process of creating these listings. This means that anyone can create an attractive and effective apartment listing in just a few minutes.

Also, Zillow provides a ton of other tools that make it a very good option for landlords and property managers. Some of these tools include application reviews, tenant screening, and background checks, and rent collection.

Avail

Avail

Next up on our list is Avail, which operates slightly differently when compared with the other apartment listing sites. Avail is a rental listing syndication site. This means that instead of listing your apartments on their own website, Avail distributes them to some of the most popular sites at one time.

This means that you only have to make one listing for your apartment, and it gets spread to very high-traffic websites where it is going to get exposed to millions of potential tenants. Some of these websites include rental listing giants like Zillow, Apartments.com, Trulia, HotPads, and many more.

The best part is that Avail makes creating rental listings a breeze by just asking a few simple questions. After that, the website automatically comes up with a description of the property that is sure to attract many apartment hunters.

Apart from listing your sites to these websites, Avail also provides tons of other functions to help you decide on which applicant is the best. Some of the most useful tools include credit checks, online tenant screening, online leases, and rent collection.

Zumper

Zumper

Zumper is a refreshingly easy-to-use website that makes listing your apartments something very easy.   One of the main benefits of using this site is that you can get your vacant apartment filled in as little as one day.

The way that Zumper manages this is by a reservation system. When a potential renter shows interest in one of the apartment buildings, they pay a small fee to have it reserved. After its reservation, the property is taken off of the apartment list, and it is taken off of the market. Then, after approving the applicant, they digitally sign the lease to the apartment, and it is no longer vacant.

Also, when creating a listing on Zumper, there are tons of tags and categories that you can include to make sure that your property is getting on the appropriate market. For example, you can list what kind of property it is (student housing, income-restricted housing, etc.), the specific neighborhood where it is located, and much more.

Craigslist

Craigslist

Craigslist is a classic website for selling anything that you can put a price tag on - including apartments. Although it is not regarded as an apartment listing site, it serves as a very effective one.

One of the reasons that Craigslist is one of the most useful apartment listing sites is because of its immensely high traffic. With millions of visitors every month, you will be more likely to find potential renters on Craigslist than on any other site. Another reason that it can be so good is that it is very easy to target specific cities or areas. With its location tools, you can make sure that you are only attracting people around the area of your property.

Also, Craigslist is an extremely easy website to learn how to use. Most people already have some sort of experience with Craigslist, so there is no learning necessary. And, if you don't have any experience at all, the process is extremely straightforward and simple.

Realtor.com

Realtor.com

Next up on our list is the very popular Realtor.com. Regarded as one of the most popular rental listing sites, Realtor.com guarantees traffic to your property listings in just a few days.

Since it is also a place where landlords and property managers can purchase advertising and leads, you can greatly increase the number of potential renters viewing your properties by listing them on Realtor.com. When listing properties, Realtor.com makes sure that the potential renters viewing them know everything possible about the property, including information like surrounding schools, grocery stores, gas stations, and even nearby restaurants.

Trulia

Trulia

Trulia is another classic real estate search engine that has been in the industry for more than 15 years. Since they are owned by Zillow, they boast an impressive database of properties hosted by Zillow.

For landlords, Trulia makes it easy to make your properties seem as appealing as possible. With the ability to use tags on their properties, prospective tenants can use a keyword search to quickly pull up any of your apartments.

Also, since Trulia is partnered with sites like CrimeReports.com and EveryBlock.com, landlords can reflect the crime rates in their listings. This means that all of the rental prices on the website are as transparent as possible.

MyNewPlace

MyNewPlace

MyNewPlace is a great place to list your rental apartments. The interesting aspect about MyNewPlace is that it is able to provide landlords and property managers with insight on whether or not the rent they are charging is adequate.

Using crawlers that index over 12,000 websites, MyNewPlace can provide property owners with a complete overview of the median rent surrounding a certain area. With this tool, you can make sure that you are not undercharging or overcharging, making it easier to fill up your properties.

Apartment Finder

ApartmentFinder

Next up on our list is a member of the Apartments.com network of sites, Apartment Finder. As one of the most popular apartment listing sites, Apartment Finder provides many tools that increase conversion rates and get you more clicks on your listings.

By adding special labels to your listings, Apartment Finder alerts users if something is going on with your listing. For example, users can be alerted when there is a price change or price drop on one of your listings. These special labels greatly increase clicks, increasing the number of people interacting with your listings.

DoorLoop

DoorLoop Apartment Listing Sites

Saving the best for last, we have DoorLoop. DoorLoop is an all-in-one property management software that manages all aspects of your property management company.

Apart from that, DoorLoop will soon have the capability of syndicating your apartment listings to a ton of different sites like Zillow, Trulia, and the Apartments.com network of sites. This means that after going through the seamless listing creation process, your listing is posted for millions of people to see at once.

Apart from these services, some more of DoorLoop's features include:

  • Full accounting suite: Including bank reconciliation, bank account syncing, custom accounting, and more.
  • Maintenance management system: Accept maintenance requests from tenants via the app, create and edit work orders, assign them to vendors, and pay those vendors all from one place.
  • Tenant portal and communication tools: Communicate with tenants easily via multiple methods from one single dashboard, while giving tenants an easy place to pay rent and other regular fees, improving your ability to collect rent and more of it.
  • Owner portal: Give yourself an easy place to manage everything related to your owners, including printing checks and special reports, so you can keep everything neatly in its place.
  • Marketing and leasing tools: Including eLeasing, lease templates, screening tools, a custom website, and more.
  • And a convenient mobile app version that gives you an easy way to keep tabs on everything when you're on the go.

If you want the basic features, DoorLoop's features start out at $49 per month for up to 20 units. However, the real savings come when you choose the Pro or Premium plans.

So, if you're looking for a property management tool that can streamline, optimize, and even automate many of your property management processes, try DoorLoop.

Try DoorLoop today.

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David is the co-founder & Head of Special Projects of DoorLoop, a best-selling author, legal CLE speaker, and real estate investor. When he's not hanging with his three children, he's writing articles here!

Legal Disclaimer

The information on this website is from public sources, for informational purposes only and not intended for legal or accounting advice. DoorLoop does not guarantee its accuracy and is not liable for any damages or inaccuracies.

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