How to Find Tenants: The 5 Best Places to Look

Listing your property for rent can be a daunting task. With so many rental listing platforms out there - some free, some paid, some that look great but you’ve never heard of, it’s hard to know what the best option is for your property. Most landlords are looking for the same two things when they start their listing platform search: a great, reliable tenant and the lowest vacancy possible. We’ve ranked the top five rental listing platforms for you based on real data from our over 26,000 rental listings across the country. We’re here to share where prospective and active tenants living in Hemlane properties search, apply for, and eventually sign a lease, creating happy tenants and happy owners. 

TL;DR: Hemlane operates under the “more is more” philosophy when it comes to choosing a rental listing platform. Why choose just one and miss out on an amazing tenant looking for a home just like yours on the other end of one of the platforms you pass up? You can syndicate your property to 10+ listing sites with Hemlane and manage all inquiries and screenings through our easy to use platform. Ready to get started? Don’t blame you. Check it out here.

Now, let's get into it.

#1 Highest Searched Rental Website: Zillow Group (Zillow, HotPads, Trulia)

Up first, Zillow isn’t only the most recognizable household name in real estate listing platforms, it’s also the most highly searched and the largest generator of Hemlane tenants. Among Hemlane listings, Zillow generates the largest number of rental inquiries over its competitors by a landslide, and takes the lead in number of applicant screenings submitted and active tenants placed. Why? Zillow is an easy-to-use listing platform for owner, which leads to a high volume of rental listings (think: millions) available for prospective tenants to check out, ie. their maps are going to be covered in purple dots available to rent. 

Tenants love a large selection so they can find the best property for their needs that lines up with their timeline, at the best price. Zillow’s mega-high tenant search volumes and inquiries do typically turn into a lower percentage of total inquiries becoming active tenants, simply because with so many properties that each tenant is reaching out to on the platform, not every inquiry can be fruitful. However, even a small percentage of these inquiries turning into active tenants makes a huge impact on the rental landscape due to the sheer volume, making it a no-brainer for owners and prospective renters alike to hit Zillow’s website as their first line of business.

#2 Most Renter-Focused: Rent. & Redfin Network

The Rent. & Redfin network comes in second on the list of top-searched rental platforms for Hemlane listings. Aside from these two listing sites, this network includes ApartmentGuide, LiveLovely, and RentPath and their many platforms are much of what help them reach far and wide. Aside from Redfin, most of these sites are focused solely on rental listings.  It can definitely feel easier for a prospective tenant not to have to filter for rentals vs. sales listings. There’s nothing worse than falling in love with a listing only to realize it’s for sale for $1.5M vs. for rent for $1,500. Bummer. RentPath and some of the others in this network take that mistake out of the equation.

#3 The Platform Built on Trust: Realtor.com

Coming in hot at number three is Realtor.com, which allows listings only from licensed real estate agents and brokers. This aspect of the platform builds in a layer of trust in the quality of the listings that makes it an appealing place for prospective tenants to search for their next home.

#4 The Rental Matchmaker: Apartment List

Apartment List markets themselves as the “rental matchmaker” of the rental listing industry. They ask prospective tenants a series of questions about their search, such as how many bedrooms they’re seeking, budget, and specific neighborhood interest, in order to help match them to their perfect apartment. This is a great resource for searchers who don’t want to spend time weeding through filters on different rental listing platforms and would rather cut right to the chase. About 50% of Hemlane’s interested rental applicants from Apartment List turn into active tenants!

#5 The Flexible-Friendly Listings: Zumper

Zumper is another one of the more tenant-oriented platforms focused primarily on rentals vs. a mix of sales and rentals. They are a flexible platform where tenants can easily search for long-term and shorter term rentals, as well, making it an attractive place for prospective tenants to take on the sometimes stressful search for a place to call home for a flexible amount of time. The search can be hard enough - having a platform that promotes understanding of different timelines sure can help.

So, where should you list your rental property to find the best tenants with the fastest lease-up time?

As we said right off the bat, more is more when it comes to advertising your rental listing. Even if certain platforms have a higher volume of searches than others, at the end of the day, our data shows that prospective tenants are searching all over the place and becoming active tenants through a variety of rental listing platforms. So, why wouldn’t you want your listing to be seen by as many potential renters as possible? Most likely, your answer is because setting up listing accounts through fifteen different listing sites doesn’t feel worth the hassle, even if your dream tenant might be on the other side of one of the foregone platforms. 

We understand that it’s a pain - so much so that we developed Hemlane to help you reach as many prospective tenants as possible through only one account. On our platform, you will create just one(!) rental listing that we will syndicate out to 10+ rental platforms for you, including (of course), our top five performers above.

All tenant inquiries will come right to you through your Hemlane account, where you can directly answer questions, run tenant screenings, and select your perfect tenant to sign a lease with (which you can also do through our platform)! With Hemlane you never have to miss out on the perfect tenant again.The best news? You can do all of this through a free trial and it’s just a click away.