Apartment and rental portals in the US
Apartment and single-family rental search. Split between owner-marketing networks and consumer search brands.
Which rentals portals get the most traffic?
By traffic, the largest rentals portals are Zillow Rentals (240.99M monthly visits), Craigslist (45.78M monthly visits) and Apartments.com (44.72M monthly visits). Worldwide figures for 2026-06, third-party estimates from onelittleweb.com. Where available, each row below lists the portal's monthly visits next to its operator.
Who buys in US rentals, and is there a single national database?
- Who pays for attention here
- Apartment listing platforms (CoStar's Apartments.com, Zillow, Rent.), property-management software vendors (RealPage, Yardi) and landlord services pay for renter-acquisition leads (head term $1.78 CPC, competition 66, measured 2026-09-01).
- What a cross-state index adds
- Zillow, Apartments.com and Rent. already aggregate market-rate listings across states; the uncovered side is subsidized/affordable availability (HUD stock), fee transparency and building-level inspection or violation history joined nationally.
- Single national database?
- Yes — a federal one. HUD's Multifamily Assistance and Section 8 Contracts database covers federally assisted multifamily properties nationwide with CSV/Excel downloads; market-rate rental inventory has no single database and sits in hundreds of local MLS and listing feeds (RESO is only a standards body). Re-evaluated 2026-09-18 (PO): market-rate head SERP is 9 listing aggregators (zillow, apartments.com, streeteasy, trulia, apartmentguide, redfin, rentcafe, homes.com, apartmentfinder). HUD Multifamily Assistance & Sec8 DB measured: no plain CSV — xlsx contracts 24,315 rows x 31 cols (expiration, assisted units, rent_to_FMR_ratio) + properties 23,615 rows x 76 cols (address, phone, owner/agent), updated ~5-weekly (08/07/2026 as-of). The subsidized-listings cross-aggregator already exists (affordablehousing.com #3 on 'section 8 apartments', open to humans and AI crawlers, aiNative=false on dataPage/primaryCitation only), and the HUD source carries no consumer-facing answer (waitlists/vacancy). Not opened.
Source: www.hud.gov · Last reviewed 2026-09-18
How big is the demand for US rentals?
Google Ads, United States, 2026-09-01- Head keyword
- apartments for rent
- Searches / month
- 673,000
- Cost per click
- $1.78
- Advertiser competition
- 66/100
Opening score 42/100 — high click value against thin advertiser competition.
What are the main rentals portals in the US?
Rental search fed by the same consumer traffic as Zillow's for-sale side, strong on single-family rentals.
Classifieds per metro area where small landlords post by city; the largest free owner-direct rental inventory despite no screening tools.
The largest paid rental marketing network in the US; property managers buy placement rather than the site aggregating feeds.
Multifamily-focused rental network, formerly Rent Path, now inside Redfin — presenting multifamily apartment listings...
Map-focused apartment and rental home search tailored to dense urban markets with transit layers.
Rent-matching platform with personalized recommendations and AI leasing agents; requires landlords to hold at least 20 units.
Multifamily rental network whose umbrella also covers ForRentUniversity student housing.
Apartment-only rental search and the sister network to Rent., strongest on small and mid-size multifamily.
Housing Choice Voucher and income-restricted rental listings — inventory the commercial portals largely skip.
Rental marketplace with Zumper Select 24-hour unit holds and centralized dashboard management for large portfolios.
Map-first rental search inside the Zumper network; listings syndicate to Zumper with Zumper Pro.
Free landlord advertising and syndication across Apartments.com, Apartment List and Zumper with digital leasing tools.
Rental listings built around transparent rent bidding, where applicants can see and adjust each other's offers.
Realtor.com's landlord software that syndicates listings to Zillow and shareable links to Facebook Marketplace and Craigslist.
Roommate matching service for student housing, developed by U-Match, LLC, that lets residents self-select roommates and integrates with property management systems.
Booking marketplace for student housing and accommodation listings near universities.