5 Best Apartment Websites for Young Professionals (2023)

When you were 10 years old, imagining having your place was a lot of fun. Now that reality has set in, you may feel more stressed than excited about apartment hunting.

Thankfully, you can use apartment listing services to find your next home sweet home as you start your professional life. Regardless of where you decide to move, use these five to ease your search.

1. Zumper

This privately owned rental marketplace — the largest in North America — focuses on finding apartments for young professionals, remote workers and digital nomads. Its acquisitions are PadMapper and NowRenting, expanding its listings and getting landlord software suite.

After being relatively quiet since the pandemic, Zumper made headlines in early 2023 to announce FlexPass. If you love to work hard and party harder, using this subscription service for premium, fully furnished short-term rentals will let you travel and live in style.

Through FlexPass, you can choose the best places to stay from a curated list out of Zumper’s network of half a million across more than 100 cities and metropolises in North America, Europe and Asia.

Although each FlexPass booking requires a minimum of 30 nights, this service eliminates the need for lengthy leases. Aside from reserving your chosen rental on your behalf, Zumper also eliminates security deposits and hidden fees.

2. Apartments.com

Apartments.com has been around since 1992, making it one of the oldest apartment listing sites in the United States. It takes pride in being the leading resource for renters looking for a place to live anywhere in the country. Despite its name, its comprehensive database of millions also includes condo units, townhomes and houses.

This listing service is synonymous with reliable images, too. Its research team works to confirm rental information and photograph properties to ensure your prospective rental is as beautiful as advertised.

Although the company started in the ‘90s, Apartments.com has kept up with the times. It brags about powerful filters and innovative features, such as its remarkable drawing tool and Travel Time. The former allows you to define search areas on a map, whereas the latter recommends rentals near a specified address.

3. Craigslist

Some may shy away from using Craigslist, but it’s an indispensable tool for searching for affordable apartments in your area.

Many landlords use this site because it’s a free place to post listings, so you can find a gem if you’re willing to put in some extra effort. Apartments on Craigslist go quickly, so this is also a great option if you want to move as soon as possible.

Its no-frills design renders navigation super intuitive. All you need is to select the city where you want to live and various options under the Housing category, including apts / housing, rooms / shared, rooms wanted and sublets / temporary.

Filters are optional but helpful for receiving quality results. You can narrow your search by distance, price, square footage and bathroom and bedroom counts. Craigslist’s checklist makes it easy to know which rentals ban smoking, welcome dogs or cats, have an electric vehicle charging station and support wheelchair mobility.

If you can’t find your dream apartment right away, don’t fret. Consider creating an Applet to get alerted when new listings match your search criteria. After searching Craigslist once and setting up applet notifications, you can go about your day and get notifications about new possibilities in your area.

4. Trulia

Trulia is an abundant source of apartment, condo, loft, single-family house and townhome rentals. This blue-chip listing platform lets you sort results by recency, price, community, square footage and more.

You can also explore by feature on Trulia, viewing only the properties that meet your unique needs. Air conditioning, garage, dishwasher, gym, balcony and garage are some feature-related filters available. Some listings have labels — such as pet-friendly and sponsored — highlighting what’s unique about them or admitting they’re renting space on Trulia from the search results.

Trulia listings are information-rich. They cover the basics, like monthly rent, size, number of baths and bedrooms, and come with a description. Some have more details than others, but whatever information you find is relevant. This Zillow sister brand may warn you about additional costs and offer affordability tips to save money. Trulia has dropped crime data from its listings to prevent inaccurate information from unfairly putting neighborhoods in a bad light and reinforcing racial bias.

You can bookmark your favorite listings and check their availability if you have an account. If a listing doesn’t spark excitement, Trulia recommends other nearby rentals at various price points and with different floor plans at the end.

Trulia loves whitespace and also has a penchant for using maps. Its results page has a map showing the listed properties’ locations within or outside your chosen town’s boundaries. Each rental also uses Google Maps to underscore the area’s schools, restaurants and shopping spots.

5. Apartment Guide

Apartment Guide gives off a similar vibe as Trulia. It also detects your general whereabouts and automatically suggests local properties without entering geographical data. It also has a companion app like every entry on this list.

Key design elements and features separate Apartment Guide from Trulia. On this apartment rental marketplace, you must scroll across and zoom in on its map to view the listings’ locations. It uses whitespace better and relies less on buttons and colors to highlight specific property details.

Apartment Guide shares information about floor plans and leasing terms because it lists entire apartment complexes, not just individual units. It allows property owners and managers to show the layout differences between studios and units with one or more beds. Its listings have dedicated space for leasing terms, videos and three-dimensional tours.

Furthermore, Apartment Guide has a rent calculator. This handy tool can help you realize what rental property you can afford in your target city based on your income before taxes.

Renting Made Easy

Finding an apartment can be fun and convenient. Apartment hunting involves many considerations, but browsing the right listing sites can simplify your search. You can significantly reduce your time scouring rentals while maintaining confidence that you’re finding good options in your area. 

You can use these five services separately or together to compare as many listings as possible and find your ideal apartment quickly — and with little stress. Take advantage of these free resources to streamline your apartment search and get back to the business of apartment living. 

Original Publish Date 5/25/2022 — Updated 11/15/2023