You don’t just need any tenant for your rental property, you need the perfect tenant.

Your perfect tenant will pay rent on time and take great care of your investment property. A bad tenant will be a constant headache and cause you to lose money.

And these days, your perfect tenant is increasingly online, not driving around or looking at newspapers. So you need to list your property online. Not only will it reach better qualified renters, it will also reach a lot more of them than a simple yard sign.

And as you’ll see, many of the free online listing sites such as AVAIL incorporate additional helpful tools, such as the ability of the prospective tenant to apply online, and your ability to screen them with credit checks and background checks.

To help you decide which site is best for you, in this article I’m going to list, chart, and review what are currently the best, mostly free, rental listing websites for landlords. Many of them are grouped into “syndicates” which I will go over below.

Scrolling below you’ll find (click to jump to Topic):

1. Free Rental Listing Syndicates Explanation
2. Free Rental Listing Websites Comparison Table
3. Review of Each Listing Site
4. FAQ’s about Listing Your Rental Property
5. Law Regarding Listing Your Rental Property Online

So let’s do it. Take just a few minutes to learn the rental property listing landscape and you’ll be on your way to a great tenant. First thing: What the heck is a “syndicate” in this context?

Free Listing Site “Syndicates”. Sounds Shady.

Well, corporate consolidation has been happening in many industries, and Free Rental Listing Websites are no exception. As they have bought each other, they have formed groups or “syndicates.” What that means is that if you list your property on one website in a syndicate, they will publish, or “syndicate,” your listing on other websites in their group.

Some sites like Avail.com publish to multiple syndicates which gets you lots of exposure. (Avail says 12 plus sites).

To help your understanding, here are the major Free Property Listing “syndicates”:

• Trulia, Zillow and HotPads
• Realtor.com, Doorsteps, and Cozy
• Apartments.com, ForRent.com, ApartmentFinder.com, Apartementhomeliving.com, Apartamentos.com
• Zumper, PadMapper.com, and WalkScore.com
• Rent.com, Rentals.com, Lovely, ApartmentGuide

Okay, on to the chart…

Top 20 Websites to List Your Rental Property

Rental Listing Site	Cost?	Broadcasts to Other Sites?	Extra Tools?
	FREE	YES (12+)	YES
	FREE	No	No
	FREE	YES (3)	YES
	FREE	YES (2-3)	YES
	FREE	YES (3)	YES
	FREE	YES (5)	YES
	FREE	YES (4)	YES
	FREE	No	Not Really
	FREE	YES	YES
	FREE	YES	YES
	FREE	YES (3)	YES
	FREE	No	No
	FREE	YES	YES
	FREE	YES	YES
	FREE	YES (5)	No
	$299/year	No	No
	FREE	YES	YES (thru Avail)
	FREE	No	No
	FREE	No	Yes
	$499/year	YES (2)	Yes

Here’s my Review of the Top 20 Websites Where You can List Your Rental Property

1. AVAIL

Avail is one of the top sites on my list because they are easy to use, they syndicate your listing to over a dozen sites such as Zillow and Walkscore, and they have great tools to manage the applicants and even manage the property (signing a lease, collecting rent, etc.). It is geared for landlords with 10 properties or less.

One thing I like about listing your rental property on Avail is that when leads come in from the other websites that Avail has syndicated to, those leads will go directly to your Avail account (and your email). Then, directly from your Avail account, you can:

• ask the lead some pre-screening questions,
• schedule a showing,
• request rental applications and credit reports (at the applicant’s expense, not yours).

From that point, if you want to, you can take advantage of Avail’s other tools. This would include signing a digital lease with the tenant, collecting the deposit from them, and then collecting their monthly rent from them, all inside your Avail account. It’s really a one-stop-shop for property management. I wish this had been around when I started landlording about 15 years ago!

As an affiliate, I can tell you that these guys are very professional and try really hard to provide the best software for landlords. You can read more reviews on Avail HERE and you can post your rental property listing for free HERE.

2. Craigslist

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve heard of Craigslist. They started way back in the early years of the internet, 1995, in San Francisco. Craigslist still maintains it’s signature very basic Classified Website feel.

The good news for you, the landlord, is that’s it’s very quick and easy to post your rental property for lease on Craigslist. You just go to the “apts/housing” section and click “post,” then follow the prompts. Make sure you have your pictures ready.

Craigslist does not syndicate your listing out to other sites, but since it’s free and quick, you should still use it to supplement your search for the perfect tenant.

Scams? They can definitely happen. Be careful of fake messages, and be aware of the latest rental scams, but don’t let that stop you from getting your property listed. I have found many great tenants on Craigslist over the years. The point is that you get good and bad leads on Craigslist. So just be aware of that and weed out the bad rental leads, avoid scams, and call back the good leads.

3. Zillow Rental Manager

Zillow is one of the biggest real estate websites out there. It was founded in 2006 by a couple of Microsoft executives along with the cofounder of Hotwire.com.

For us landlords, the Zillow Rental Manager is one of the top places to list our rental properties. Zillow brags that 32 million rentals visitors are on their platform each month. So your listing will definitely be seen by lots of folks. Your listing will also syndicate out to Trulia and Hotpads getting you even more exposure.

Zillow also offers additional tools for a fee:

• You can collect Online Rental Applications from leads
• You can do your tenant screening through Zillow (credit reports, criminal background check, eviction check)
• You can collect rent payments

Kind of like Avail, Zillow is trying to be a one-stop-shop for landlords.

4. Trulia

Founded by a couple of Stanford students in 2005, and bought out by Zillow in 2015, Trulia bills itself as a home and neighborhood site for buyers and renters to find homes and neighborhoods by learning details about the neighborhood such as commuting time, crime, schools, churches, local businesses, etc.

Posting on Trulia is Free. If you are posting an entire unit or home from rent, it will direct you to the Zillow Rental Manager and syndicate the listing out to Trulia, Hotpads and Zillow (all 3).

If you are just posting a room for rent, your listing will appear on Trulia and Hotpads, but not Zillow.

Cool feature: They will give you a unique URL for your listing that you can post on social media, text to people, etc. This will help you spread the word about your property and help you land a solid tenant.

5. Cozy

Founded in 2012 and headquartered in Portland, Oregon, Cozy has been working hard to make renting more simple and bring integrity to the housing process. They are now owned by CoStar, who also owns Apartments.com.

For you as a landlord, it is free to list your property on Cozy. Your listing will then syndicate out to Doorsteps.com and Realtor.com, getting you lots of exposure. Cozy will also give you a shareable link so you can post your listing all over social media. Another cool feature is that there is a Built-in Rental Application in each listing, so interested leads can start the application process right away.

Optional Services by Cozy (for a small fee)

• Rent Estimate Report
• Collect Rent Payments from Tenants

Services the Renter Pays For

• Tenant Screening Reports
• Renters Insurance
• Pay Rent With Credit Card (extra fee covers the transaction cost)

Overall, Cozy was built for landlords, which makes it a nice fit for the small-time Landlord. Cozy also owns the blog Landlordology, which has many helpful articles about being a Landlord.

6. Apartments.com

Owned by CoStar, and associated with Cozy and Doorsteps, Apartments.com boasts 35 million renters per month coming to them looking for a place to rent. For you, this means lots of eyeballs on your rental listing.

Although named and geared for listing apartments, you can also list single family homes, townhouses, condos, duplexes. So pretty much any type of residential listing. It is Free to list your rental on their site, and they advertise that it only takes you 5 minutes.

Your listing will get pushed out to 5 different sites:

1. Apartments.com
2. ForRent.com
3. Apartement Finder.com
4. apartementhomeliving
5. Apartamentos.com

Apartments.com advertises their site across media channels (TV, billboards, radio, etc.) so renters from all different segments of society will go to the site and potentially see your rental. I would rank this as one of the top sites to get exposure to your apartment unit listing. But if I were leasing out a single family home, I would stay away because the branding seems to attract people looking more for apartments.

7. Rent.com

Founded back in 1999 and associated with the well-known Apartment Guide, Rent.com is known for catering to the transient millennial population.

When you list with them, 25 million visitors will view your listing across the following sites:

1. Rent.com
2. Rentals.com
3. Lovely
4. ApartmentGuide

They also offer extra tools such as Online rental applications, tenant screening and rent collection.

Depending on the number of units you want to list, it will push you to one of those partner sites to do the actual listing. For example, as a small-time landlord I clicked on 1-19 units and it took me to the listing page for “Rentals.com.”

8. Sublet.com

Sublet.com has an older feel to it, but is still worth listing on because it is free.

You can list any type of rental housing for free, not just subleases. That means short term rentals, long term rentals, furnished, not furnished, private rentals, or just rooms to rent.

Although it is free to list, you can purchase a Premium Listing and Tenant Database which they say will get you 50 times more leads.

The “Rental Tools” they offer seem to just be outsourced services and not directly integrated into their platform. For example their rental agreements are just something you purchase, download, and edit yourself. This is pretty old-school compared to the integrated system tools offered by sites like Avail.

9. Doorsteps

Owned by Move.com, Doorsteps is part of the Cozy.com-Realtor.com-Doorsteps.com Alliance. Sounds like an airline alliance doesn’t it?

So essentially, Doorsteps has “partnered with Cozy to allow landlords to list their properties, accept online applications, and screen their applications with background checks and credit reports.” And of course your listing will show up on Realtor.com, Move.com, Cozy.com also.

You can collect applications, and have the tenant-applicants pay for their own tenant screening (credit reports and background checks).

For this reason, I do recommend Doorsteps because it syndicates and gets you great tools.

10. Move.com

Founded way back in the infancy of the internet days, 1993, Move.com operates a bunch of real estate websites, some of which I’ve already talked about in this post, and the most powerful being Realtor.com.

Move.com has a longstanding relationship with the National Association of Realtors, a powerful trade group.

As of this writing, when you visit their website they just list all the brands they own. So if you want to leverage their reach I would just go list on one of their sites such as Realtor.com.

11. Zumper

What a funny name. Based in San Francisco (like any good tech company), Zumper has raised 90 million in VC funding. What does that mean for you, the landlord? Well hopefully it means that have built a robust listing network as well as tools to help you as the landlord. But it also means they have to make money from selling services so they can provide a return to those investors.

When you list with them, your listing will also be marketed on PadMapper.com, Facebook, and WalkScore.com.

Like a lot of these other sites, you can gather applications, screen possible tenants, and even collect rent (they use Stripe).

12. Oodle

Oodle is a big classified website like Craigslist, but they pull in classified listings from other sites like eBay.

It’s quick and free to list your rental, and prospective tenants can filter through listings.

You won’t get syndication or other landlord tools, but if you’re looking to spend 5 minutes expanding your listings reach, go ahead and list it here. Of course keep your guard up and be aware of the same kind of scams you can get with Craigslist or any other classified site.

13. Hotpads

And… back to the Zillow-Trulia-Hotpads Alliance.

When you go to Hotpads to list your rental, you are directed to list it on Zillow. This will cause it to show up on Hotpads, Zillow, and Trulia.

Hotpads was known for having an interactive map upon which users could search for housing. They were bought by Zillow in 2012, hence the alliance.

A lot of prospective tenants use Hotpads for the good information it provides, so I do recommend you make sure your listing gets pushed out to it.

14. Rentals.com

Rentals.com is almost the same as Rent.com above, and uses the same platform and sister websites to syndicate your listing. The only difference is that Rentals.com seems to be more geared for smaller landlords.

15. RentDigs

RentDigs was created by Landlords, so we have that going for us!

It is Free, and it will syndicate out to Oodle.com, Trovit.com, claz.org, Mitula.com and RentJungle.com (um, who?). The Syndication is nice, but keep in mind that none of these sites are as high-traffic or quality as some of the other sites reviewed above.

One cool feature of RentDigs is that you can see how often your rental advertisement is being viewed.

But a downside is that they do not offer the “plug-and-play” landlord tools like built-in tenant screening, lease agreement signing, and rent payment collection.

Should you post on it? Yes, because it’s quick, free, and will get more eyeballs on your listing!

16. People With Pets

Have a Pet Friendly Apartment Complex? Or want to target Pet Owners? This is a place to do that, but obviously not the only site.

“Celebrating over 75 years online” (in dog years, LOL), this site carved out their niche as a place where landlords can list pet-friendly homes for pet owners to find.

Their site shows a “Free Membership” but I can tell that you won’t get to list your property with that free option. So It looks like you’ll be paying $299 per year to list your property.

Is it worth the $299? That depends on how bad you want to target pet owners. For me, I would prefer non-pet owners, although I don’t discriminate (I just get a pet-deposit).

17. WalkScore

Owned by RedFin since 2014, Walk Score’s mission is to promote walkable neighborhoods. Walkable neighborhoods are one of the simplest and best solutions for the environment, our health, and our economy.

To that end, they assign a “Walk Score” to every listing, as well as help you understand the local neighborhood, crime rates, nightlife, commute time, etc. In other words, the prospective tenants can see lots of data.

How to list your property on Walk Score for FREE? Create free rental listings with Avail and your listings will automatically be posted on Walk Score (as well as many other sites).

18. Facebook Marketplace

Yes, you can list rental properties on Facebook. Facebook essentially built the functionality into their Advertising Platform. That got them in trouble recently because their Ads Platform allowed landlords to target ads to groups in ways that violated the Fair Housing Act.

So is it Free? Well, kind of, which is why it made my list. You can post the listing for Free, but if you want more than a few people to see it, you will likely need to run paid ads.

Facebook also does not have all the built-in Landlord tools that sites mentioned above have.

I personally would not start my search for a tenant on Facebook.

19. airbnb

I can’t write a post about Free Rental Listings without mentioning this big company. Airbnb is good for short-term guests. You will be a “host” and not a Landlord.

It is Free to list your property, but there is more involved than just handing over the keys. You need to do everything the way the Airbnb platform requires you to.

I’ve never been an airbnb host, but it definitely seems like an active job, and not a passive-income activity.

20. Vrbo

It stands for “Vacation Rentals By Owner”. Founded in 1995 as a service for homeowners to list their properties for short term rental, this site is similar to Airbnb. It’s now owned by HomeAway, which is owned by Expedia.

So when you list on Vrbo, you also get Homeaway, and vice versa.

Free? Not really, because you either pay a booking fee when someone books, or if you make rental income of more than about $7,000 per year, it makes more sense to pay the $499 Annual Fee.

That being said, Vrbo-Homeaway and Airbnb seem to be the top-ranked sites by owners for playing the short-term rental game.

Free Rental Property Listing Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ’s)

Question 1: How do I list my Rental Property for Free?

Answer: Simply go to one of the Free Rental Property Listing Websites I’ve written about above and get started! It will go much faster if you have pictures of your property ready beforehand.

Question 2: What is not allowed in my Free Rental Listing

Answer: Anything that violates the Fair Housing Act by discriminating against protected classes of folks. (see below).

Question 3: What do I do after I find an interested prospective tenant who wants to lease from me?

Answer: This is where the extra “tools” on many of these sites come into play. If you don’t know how to be a property manager (showing the property, signing the lease, collecting rent, etc.), these sites can help by providing the tools. They can help you collect rental applications, screen the tenants, sign the lease, and collect the rent.

Just make sure you still “show your face” to the tenant so they don’t only deal with an email address. They need to know you’re a real person who expects the rent to be paid on time.

Question 4: Do the Extra Tools on these sites cost money?

Answer: A lot of the tools are paid for by the tenant, such as the Rental Application Fee and the Credit and Background Check. And then there are optional tools the landlord can opt to use, such as digital lease signing and rent collection, that may cost you a fee depending on the site.

Question 5: Should I still put a “FOR RENT” sign in my yard?

Answer: The website Rentec Direct has a Great blurb on the Pro’s and Con’s of using “FOR RENT” signs. Essentially, a FOR RENT sign can help by getting tenants from the local area who are driving around looking. But it can hurt by inviting burglars, and generating a lot of annoying phone calls from unqualified leads.

Follow the Fair Housing Act When Listing Property Online

Want to get sued? No? I didn’t think so. So follow these rules when you list your property on these free sites. Don’t ask about, mention, or target renters based on:

• Race
• Color
• National Origin
• Religion
• Sex
• Familial Status
• Disability

Even though not part of the Fair Housing Act, there are many other laws protecting Sexual Orientation as a class, so definitely do not mention or ask about that either.

Also, even if your listing is clean, you can still get sued for simply not renting to people based on the above. An example would be denying that a rental unit is available, or setting tougher standards for someone in one of those protected classes.

How do Landlords get caught? The Department of Justice will call an apartment complex or landlord with a “foreign sounding” person and an “non-foreign sounding” person. They will see if the landlord treats the applicants differently, or if the apartment tells the foreigner that there are no units available, etc.

So what can you discriminate on when deciding whether or not to rent to somebody? Glad you asked. These:

• Bad Rental History
• Smoker?
• Bad Credit
• Income not enough for this unit
• Pets

Listing Your Rental Property Online is Powerful

In this article, we went over 20 websites to list your rental property online. Most are Free to post the listing, and many of them are part of listing “syndicates” or groups.

Many of them also offer extra landlord tools to help the landlord manage the property, making a seamless transition from listing, to applicant, to happy landlord-tenant relationship.

I want to wish you much success in getting your rental property listed online, and in landing a great tenant! And remember, successful landlords always treat their tenants with respect and in a businesslike manner no matter what!

The post The Top 20 Rental Property Listing Sites for Landlords in 2020 appeared first on Landlord Guidance.