7 Secrets to finding a great apartment in 2021

A lot has changed.

For many of us, the search for a new rental is an occasional thing and maybe it’s been a few years since you last searched. Here’s a guide to what apartment searching looks like today vs. five or seven years ago.

Craigslist No More

I remember looking for a new rental in 2013, and it was 100% clear to me that Craigslist was the way to do it. Yeah, it was awful to use and hard to search, but pretty much everything was on there, so if you wanted to find a place, that’s where you went.

Today, that’s no longer the case. Because of the well-publicized issues with the platform, most landlords have abandoned Craigslist, and so there are now very few legitimate listings on there. Though it may still feel like there are many listings, most are fraudulent.

The most common Craigslist rental scam is the “fake landlord”. In this scam, the fraudster scrapes a legit rental or for-sale listing and re-posts it with a great price. And, since there are very real deals available in the rental world, it seems plausible to anyone looking at the listing. The fraudster then poses as the landlord, relieving you of — in the worst case scenario — first and last months’ rent and a security deposit. And, you only find out when you try to move in. Horrifying.

Rental scams are common and most legitimate landlords are avoiding Craigslist these days. So, avoid Craigslist and work on your search in other ways.

Yard Signs are Back.

Not joking — Yard Signs. 1972, welcome back.

So, what’s replaced Craigslist? Dwellsy is increasingly filling the gap that Craigslist’s fall has left for comprehensive online apartment and single family rental search, but before we came along, landlords were increasingly using yard signs, window signs and other local signage to advertise availability.

What does this mean for the renter searching for a new place?

Sorry to be the one to tell you, but it probably makes sense to go to the neighborhoods you’re looking in, walk the streets and look for signs in windows and in front of properties.

Google Is Your Online Source

Yard signs and walking neighborhoods not your thing? Well, join the masses and search Google for options. Since there’s no one online resource that has everything (Dwellsy is not quite there yet, but closer every day), and the “big brand” listing sites only have the big apartment communities listed (less than 20% of apartments and rental homes), be ready to go through a lot of individual sites — dozens, perhaps hundreds.

Beware Pay-to-Play!

They’re pretty much the first results that come up when you search Google, and the photos sure do look great, but beware! Those “big brand” sites are something called “lead gen” platforms and they are not there to help you. You’re the product on those sites, not the customer.

Here’s how it works: Landlords pay those sites to carry their ads. The more they pay, the more you get shown that ad — whether or not it’s what you’re looking for.

Unlike Google results or other types of sites, they don’t tell you it’s an advertisement (I know — how is that allowed?!?). So, if you’re wondering why they’re showing you places that you aren’t looking for, that’s why. They’re showing you the listing that paid the most to be shown to you — not what you’re looking for.

Apartment Community Websites Can Be Great

Way, way back — like in 2015 — only the biggest, most corporate landlords had websites — and they generally pretty much sucked. If a small landlord had a website, you could be sure it was terrible. Fast forward a few years, and things have gotten far better on this front.

Today, a wide range of landlords have websites and many of them are actually quite good. At minimum, they have good information about their rentals, and some of them can actually allow you to make online appointment bookings, see video tours and more. Plus, if you’re looking to fact check another source about an apartment community, their own site is a great place to confirm the details.

That said, keep in mind that many individual landlords still have pretty poor quality sites, since most property managers are better at managing physical property than they are at managing websites. So, though most landlord sites have gotten better — don’t be surprised when your ideal place is on a janky site.

Single Family Home Rentals are BIG

Used to be that if you wanted a rental, you were generally looking at an apartment.

Would you have guessed that today, one in every three U.S. rentals is a single family home?

Single family home rentals have become widely available with a host of different price points, a wide variety of locations, and every finish you can imagine. Of course, the team at Dwellsy has worked hard to have a good inventory of single family homes for rent, so you can always find plenty of options available.

Online Leasing

No pandemic-era outline of the apartment or rental home search is complete without mentioning the online leasing experience. Given all that we have to worry about today, you certainly don’t want to take your life in your hands just to go see a potential rental.

Happily, much of the process has moved online with massive speed over the past year. A couple of tips:

• Ask for Video Tours. You can request detailed video tours of the place, rather than go see it. You can actually ask the landlord or manager to walk through the place with their phone while you’re talking to them and you can get a very real sense of what it’s like.
• Use Online Paperwork. You can go through the entire leasing process online. No need to go into a stuffy leasing office and sit there reading a long lease anymore — it should all be online.
• Be Careful. If you’re conducting a fully online search and can’t or won’t visit the actual place, do extra due diligence to make sure you’re not dealing with a fraudster. Check online reviews and if there aren’t any, ask for references from the landlord. Drive by the place and make sure it’s there and the exterior condition matches the video tour. If there’s anything at all that spooks you in the process — stop immediately and move on.

Good luck finding your place in 2021!