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3.4

Overall Score

Author: Kaitlyn Short

LAST UPDATED: September 23rd, 2024

Apartments.com is one of the most popular online apartment listing websites, offering renters access to information of more than 500,000 available units for rent. In addition to serving renters nationwide, Apartments.com is an advertising partner for professional property owners and management companies, private landlords and classified listings. The company is a subsidiary of Washington, DC-based CoStar Group, Inc. along with ApartmentFinder.com, and ApartmentHomeLiving.com. CoStar operates websites with over 19 million unique monthly visitors with more than 9 million registered members. 

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The Good

  • Search Filter Options
  • Virtual Tour Feature
  • Landlord/Property Manager Tools

Search Filter Options

Potential tenants can narrow their search across a number of different categories to ensure they find the exact right space for them:

  • Dwelling Type — includes apartment complex, home, condo, or townhome options
  • Lifestyle — includes options catered to students, seniors, short-term, military, and corporate housing
  • Price — set your minimum and maximum monthly rental budget
  • Size — including number of bedrooms, as well as actual square footage

Any apartment hunter who visits Apartments.com can also filter a search by available amenities (in-unit washer/dryer, fitness center, pet-friendly, etc.) as well as by specific keywords, and a property's star rating as reported by actual tenants.

Virtual Tour Feature

Another useful feature on Apartments.com is its 3D tour feature, which allows potential tenants to explore a potential living space from the convenience of their computer or smart device. A potential renter can take a closer look at an apartment, home, or other dwelling using the following virtual modes:

  • Dollhouse Mode — gives you a three-dimensional cross section of the space, showing you how all the rooms connect, and the relative size of each room compared to other spaces in the apartment
  • Floor Plan Mode — a more traditional approach, this mode offers a top-down view of the apartment or condo
  • Measurement Mode — using the ruler icon, users can take actual measurements of the space to determine just how much room is available to them. This is a great feature if you're curious whether that sofa will fit in the living room.
  • Virtual Tour — much like the 3D tour, which allows users to view the physical layout of the home from the inside, the VR tour lets you view the apartment as if you're actually there (requires a VR headset).

Landlord/Property Manager Tools

Apartments.com is not only a useful resource for renters, but it also provides a number of helpful tools for landlords. Landlords can easily add their rental property to Apartments.com's database, and well as the following:

  • Develop online rental applications
  • Conduct tenant screening
  • Create rental lease forms
  • Automate rent collection
  • Respond to apartment reviews publicly
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The Bad

  • License
  • Alleged Negative Review Suppression

License

Since they don't use agents, realtors or brokers, no licensing is required. This allows for no commission fees or acquisition costs for renters. By interviewing everyone from brokers to owners and property managers, Apartment.com makes sure their data is up-to-date, trusted and reliable. The downside is that Apartments.com does not broker, lease, or sublease apartments directly and is not a part to any transaction between landlords and renters. So, Apartments.com does not (a) guarantee or ensure any apartment or any transaction between a renter and landlord, (b) collect or process payment or execute any lease or sublease documentation on behalf of renters or landlords, or (c) broker, lease, or sublease or offer to broker, lease or sublease, or own any apartments. You are personally in charge of inspecting any apartment advertised for rent prior to signing any lease documentation. If you do not want to take on all these responsibilities you must go and hire another company, or real estate agent, to help you close the deal you want.

Alleged Negative Review Suppression

Several renters who submitted verified Apartments.com reviews to our site reported that their review had been deleted, despite meeting word count and verification requirements. Apartments.com does mention on its help center that its review moderation guidelines will not take down a review purely because it is negative. A cursory check of random listings on the site confirm the presence of one-star reviews, so it's possible that the site's review moderation process be more exclusionary than that of other real estate search websites.

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The Bottom Line

For renters seeking apartments or condos, Apartment.com is recommended. This is especially true for millennials and tech-savvy individuals who enjoy using mobile devices and apps. Keep in mind that if you use this site you are solely responsible for making deals with landlords/rental owners and whatever comes along thereafter.
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Star Rating

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1.7

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123 Reviews

Review Breakdown

5 grade

14%

4 grade

3%

3 grade

2%

2 grade

4%

1 grade

77%

Sentiment Criteria

Value

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Quality

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Service

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Trustworthiness

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Bruce Rice Breckenridge, CO

We have 36 rental units and moved over from COZY.CO to apartments.com to collect the rent. After many false starts, we made the transition last month. OH. the new user interface from Apartments.com is very frustrating and NOT user friendly. If you are a landlord thinking of having Apartments.com collect your rent, I suggest you consider other options until they fix some of their issues. COZY.CO was much better.

3 years ago

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Nicholas Baltimore, MD

Apartment's com started allowing real estate agents to list their rentals, which sounded really great. NONE of my actual listings were ever approved after the review period, but suddenly I was bombarded with approvals for listings in other cities and states that clearly were NOT mine. I got e-mails stating that my password had changed, etc. I called Apartments.com, and they said "Oh, hope you didn't click anything. You got phished." Their overall attitude was one of "Oh, well. It happens." I deleted my account that day out of frustration, so my experience was pretty brief.

6 years ago

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Joe Santiago Indianapolis, IN

Worst... Takes hours to get a verification that you paid rent. They charge excessive charge for paying rent with debit card. Ie rent is 875.00 final payment is 899.06. Because i dont want them having my checking account information. I could understand a $5.00 service charge. But $24.06 is ridiculous

3 years ago

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The Realist Olmsted Falls, OH

Somebody needs to go back to math class. 9 reviews (including 4 one star reviews) with a total of 23 stars somehow shows as a 4 star property? Old fashioned math says that should be a 2.5 star property.

2 years ago

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Anita Jenks, OK

I'm finding discrepancies with the total units of apartments with other websites such as Realtor.com and Redfin.com

3 years ago