You probably have a limited amount of time until you have to relocate when you start looking for a new apartment.

Finding a suitable property to call your next home can be difficult, and the hunt becomes even more urgent if you want to reserve it before another renter takes it. A rental open house might feel more like a face-off with other renters than a tour of the property, and available apartments in a competitive market can go at any time.

Thankfully, there are rental applications and websites that not only offer more accurate search options and the most recent apartment availability, but they also expedite the application process, allowing you to move swiftly after you’ve discovered your next residence. Some rental apps, for example, have developed to enable tenants to pay rent after a lease has been signed and to give prospective landlords access to the financial details of renters.

1. Zillow Rental Manager

The sheer volume of information and services offered by Zillow Rental Manager makes it the greatest rental listing website overall. It offers services that take the landlord from marketing to rent collection, and it has the biggest inventory and the greatest traffic on the website.

Founded in 2006, Zillow Rental Manager and its parent company Zillow cover the entire United States. Landlords can help their property listing stand out by uploading a 3D view. In fact, applicants can even focus their search to see only listings that have a 3D tour uploaded. 

Beyond the basic amenities, landlords can also attract attention by checking off whether they allow large dogs, small dogs, or cats. If the renter is seeking a specific view, they can sort their search for city, mountain, park, and water views.

Zillow Rental Manager has made creating a listing a simple process. Add property details and images, set your monthly rent price, and then publish the listing. Landlords can update their profiles online whenever they want. 

The built-in tenant screening service keeps the process moving. Once the landlord receives an application that meets their initial criteria, they can use Zillow Rental Manager to run a background check and credit score report. 

Landlords have limited expenses with Zillow Rental Manager. Renters pay only a $35 fee which allows them to apply to an unlimited number of participating rentals for 30 days. The fee also includes the cost of their credit and background reports.

Zillow Rental Manager also has the most applicant traffic and listings, an integrated application, rent payment tools, and volumes of education about the daily responsibilities of being a landlord as well as pertinent laws and regulations.

2. Avail

Avail’s renter screening procedure goes beyond credit history and criminal background checks, which it of course performs. Avail covers, among other things, the eviction history of potential tenants and advanced criminal checks, such as determining whether the application is on a sex offender or terror list.

Founded in 2012, Avail has created a rental management platform that serves every state in the U.S. and is our pick as best for screening prospective tenants.

Landlords create their listing with Avail, and Avail then syndicates it to Doorsteps, HotPads, Zumper, Apartments.com, Zillow, Trulia, PadMapper, Abodo (now Rentable), Realtor.com, Apartment List, and Walkscore.

In addition to syndication to other listing platforms, Avail also makes it easy for landlords to share their listings on social media channels and use a custom marketing and portfolio site that includes a tenant portal. Avail enables the landlord to communicate with applicants from all 17 of the syndicated sites from the Avail platform. 

Avail is weak when it comes to creating ways for the landlord to highlight their property. There are unlimited image uploads, but the list of filters that applicants can use to search is short.

Avail offers a free unlimited plan for landlords, and its premium plan, called Unlimited Plus, costs the landlord $5.00 per unit per month. If the landlord uses the free plan, tenants would pay $2.50 per bank transfer. If a credit or debit card is used, a 3.5% processing fee is added to tenant payments regardless of the landlord’s subscription plan.

Avail provides credit history and nationwide criminal background and eviction checks for $30 each, or you can buy them as a bundle for $55. The tenant pays these fees (although the landlord can choose to cover them). Avail also offers nationwide terror and sex offender list checks and employment and identity verification.

3. Apartments.com

Because it costs users to apply through its mobile app, Apartments.com is the best at drawing in eligible candidates. Landlords gain from this since it forces a candidate to carefully review a listing to ensure that the property’s size, price, and rules align before submitting an application.

Apartments.com syndicates listings over a network of seven additional websites, offering the landlord leveraged exposure at ForRent.com, ApartmentFinder.com, Apartmenthomeliving.com, Apartamentos.com, and others.

Apartments.com walks the landlord through its simple process to create a listing, which can be completed in minutes. The landlord can tag their listing by neighborhood to stand out for those applicants who seek a specific area of a city. 

Another way landlords can capture renters’ attention on the platform is by completing the amenities list in the listing profile. Apartments.com also facilitates online tour scheduling, application submittals, tenant screening for credit and background checks, lease signing, and rent collection.

Renters can research properties for free in both the app and on the website. Applicants can also pay to apply in the app. That means landlords are getting fewer applicants that waste their time because the applicant has a financial stake, compared to listing sites where they can apply for free.

4. Rentometer

Because Rentometer uses unique algorithms to compare rents based on information from other landlords, we believe it to be the finest website for locating cost comparables.

Rentometer was established in 2012 and provides comprehensive rental comparisons across the country. Landlords, agents, and tenants utilize the website; each time a renter enters an address in the neighborhood of your property, your listing will show up on the results page.

A comprehensive analysis of important metrics, including average rent, median rent, 25th and 75th percentile rents, map view, sample size, and sample radius, is produced by the results of a property search. You have the option to filter by building type, radius and distance, and listing age. Entering the street address of your property, your present location, a neighborhood, or a city will allow you to examine the results.

Subscriptions range from $29 per month for basic service to $199 annually for more features. All Pro subscriptions include three-year trend and moving average charts, average rent by bedroom charts, an interactive map with street view, year built, tax and last sale data, and Excel and PDF reports.

The quality, depth, and breadth of information Rentometer provides when researching cost comparables is far superior to all other rental listing sites.

5. Trulia Rentals

Trulia Rentals helps streamline inquiries with its one-click feature, which puts interested renters in direct contact with the property manager, without having to fill out an inquiry form for every apartment they’re interested in or search for a phone number. The Trulia Neighborhoods feature provides photos and drone footage of the neighborhood, with details including surveyed opinions from local residents on safety and walkability, whether local laws protect gender identity and sexual orientation in housing, as well as employment and public accommodations.

Read Also: How to Find the Perfect Rental Property for Your Family

The “Affordability” tab on each rental listing automatically calculates the ideal income to comfortably rent at the asking rate, based on Trulia’s recommendation that you rent within a third of gross household income. Parents can also search for homes to rent in a desired school district by searching by school or district.

Alana Lindsay, a real estate agent with Coldwell Banker Warburg, says Trulia has rental listings that are not stale or without updates, and that the app often has better listings for renters with a very tight budget. However, some reviewers wish listings included floor plans and would like to see properties that accept Section 8 housing vouchers.

6. Apartment List

Apartment List initially opens to ask you a series of questions about your next rental – location, budget, how you prioritize those details and what amenities are most important to you. Once you’ve answered these questions, Apartment List presents categorized groups of rental listings that match everything you want or are a bit kinder on your budget, among other options.

When going through the listings, you can create a short list of favorites by approving or rejecting your options like you would on a dating app. When you note that you like a particular rental listing, the app can reach out to the property on your behalf to start an inquiry. The personalized renter questionnaire and swipe features are popular, but reviewers say the app sometimes gives results that are not close to the set parameters and there’s no way to search without giving your email and other personal information.

7. HotPads

HotPads is best known for its apartment listings in major cities, but the app displays inventory throughout the country. Features include neighborhood details, such as nearby schools and a walk score, to help you get a feel for the area around the apartment you’re considering. If you find a listing that you think would be a great fit for a friend or family member, the share button allows you to send the information with a couple of simple clicks.

Like many other apps, similar availabilities are shown at the bottom of a listing, but on HotPads you can also see other properties listed by the same property manager, in case you’re interested in inquiring about more than one availability at once. While you can use filters to narrow down your search, such as by senior housing communities, student housing or low-income restricted houses, users say they wish there were more filters when it came to preferred amenities. Another common complaint is about the alerts, which reviewers said suggested apartments outside of their budget or for apartments that aren’t close to what they’re searching for.

8. Zumper

Zumper offers instant alerts as rental listings that meet your needs come online. Zumper also partners with TransUnion to provide you with your credit report so you can submit a rental application to a landlord securely through the app. Renters can take advantage of features such as booking tours, prequalifying for an apartment, making an offer on a rental and, in some markets, even paying rent once you’ve signed a lease.

Rent trends also show you how an apartment’s rent compares to the current average rent in the area, and how the average has changed in recent weeks. You can also use Zumper to book short-term accommodations since Zumper has partnered with Vrbo, Booking.com and others to offer short-term and vacation rentals. Reviewers appreciate how simple it is to apply for an apartment but complain that houses are not verified and warn others to be wary of scams.

9. StreetEasy

StreetEasy has one of the largest selections of rentals in New York City (all five boroughs and parts of New Jersey), and it’s the go-to app to find a home for New Yorkers. You can use the app to search for listings and buildings and view full-screen listing photos and floor plans, as well as filter a search by price, neighborhood, amenities, virtual tours or no-fees. Save your favorite apartments and buildings to receive updates whenever there’s a change in price or availability.

When you see something you like, you can email or call real estate agents directly from the app. “StreetEasy is for your mid- to high-budget renter who’s looking primarily to live in Manhattan,” says Lindsay. But there are also downsides to the app. “Rentals in New York City go so quickly that by the time a listing even has its first open house, it may have several applications,” she says.

10. Rent.com

Rent Group Inc.’s app allows you to find available visit times and book a tour for the apartments you’re interested in. You can narrow your search based on certified residents’ reviews, which are obtained by a Rent.com survey of residents. Rent.com makes its boundary search, which is common in other apps, even more useful by being able to focus on more than one area that may not be connected.

If a property recently lowered the asking rent, you’ll see it noted at the top of the listing. Leasing office hours are also clearly noted on property information so you know when you’ll be able to reach someone directly with an inquiry. Some users say the biggest problem with the app is the inability to search a specific region; the location has to be changed manually.

Landlords must use the best rental listing sites to assist them discover qualified tenants because of the high turnover rates. All things considered, Zillow Rental Manager is the greatest since it provides landlords with the capabilities they require, including a wealth of information and services, including integrated tools for tenant screening.

Additionally, you can post one rental for $0 using Zillow’s free listing option without having to upgrade to a premium listing. In order to determine whether Zillow is the correct site for you, you may test out the platform before paying.