Your company has just transferred you to Washington, D.C. The problem is, you currently live in Chicago and know little if anything about your new hometown. You have two weeks until your scheduled start date in D.C. That leaves you with little time to find an apartment. So you turn to the Internet and try your hand at three national apartment-search sites: Rent.Net, AllApartments, and Apartments Plus. And how do you fare?

For the record, we chose Washington for this story because apartment-search sites have not only more listings, but generate more traffic in major metropolitan areas. National sites have had particular luck with Washington; Rent.Net President Phil Marcus describes the city as "gigantic" in terms of the traffic and listings his site has generated. Our intent with Washington, therefore, was to put our three sites on a relatively even playing field for comparison. National sites continue to experience mixed results obtaining listings in smaller U.S. cities and towns.

After a lengthy and eye-opening search, here's what our apartment search produced:

Rent.Net. On Rent.Net's home page, we were asked for our desired price range and number of bedrooms, upon which we entered "$500-$799" and "1 bedroom." Our criteria produced 32 listings in the metropolitan D.C. area, ranging from $400 all the way up to $1,275 -- well beyond what we wanted to pay, but cheaper apartments were available at those complexes, as well. The bottom line is that we were presented with several choices within a broad range of rents. After clicking on each complex listing, we found features such as floor plans, maps to the complexes, and occasional photos -- often of property features like fitness rooms, exteriors, or lobbies. Beside each complex sat various symbols: "New" for new listings, a dog with a slash mark for "No Pets," a wheelchair for "Wheelchair Access." Some of the listings contained icons for 360-degree walk-throughs, which, unfortunately, our computers were unable to download. We had the options of sorting our lists by amenities and "bookmarking" our favorite listings so that we could comparison shop later, enabling us to view our list of preferred properties and compare rents and amenities. Rent.Net's additional services include cost-of-living analyses; lists of temporary furnished suites; international housing; truck and furniture rental; self-storage facilities; credit report; cable TV hookup; auto insurance; job search, with a link to the World Wide Web's Monster Board (where users may create and post their resumes and search a national job bank); and change of address, which directs users to a site with moving tips, information about motor vehicle registration, a post office locator, and the option of purchasing post office supplies.

AllApartments. AllApartments enables users to locate specific "apartment brochures," should you have a particular complex in mind. Perhaps the most unique feature of this site is its ability to locate the nearest complexes around an address the user enters. For example, if you know the address of your new workplace, type it into the site, and AllApartments determines the closest complexes that meet your desired criteria (price, number of bedrooms, etc.). Beside each listing is the mileage to your street address, and the listings are sorted by distance from that address. Therefore, the complexes that are closest to your workplace are listed first. By clicking on "Drive It," an option next to the listed mileage, you're given an estimated travel time to your address, as well as specific directions for how to get there -- turn left on Street A, right on B, etc. Going this route, our search didn't produce any photographs of the properties, but we were given phone numbers, the opportunity to contact leasing agents, and details such as date of construction.

If you choose not to enter a specific street address and do a traditional, broader apartment search by city, you'll be presented with more options. For the D.C. area, we had the option of searching the entire metropolitan area or up to 20 surrounding cities in Maryland and Virginia. Then we were presented with a list of 24 apartment and property amenities, for which we were to specify degree of personal importance: "Gotta Have," "Would Like," "Whatever," "No Way." A word of caution, and it might be obvious to the more savvy Web browser: The pickier you are (meaning the more "Gotta Have"s you select), the fewer complexes your search will produce. After selecting only a few "Gotta Have"s, our search produced 50 complexes in the metro D.C. area (the site will find you a maximum of 50; to view more than 50, you must narrow your search). A few of the listed complexes contained photographs, and property features such as starting rent, utilities, and year built were included, as well.

AllApartments' list of available services, along the left side of the screen on its home page, include truck rental, furniture rental, renters' and auto insurance, change of address, career resources (which were not area-specific -- instead, the link provided general advice for job-seekers), moving companies, motor clubs, long distance, credit reports, and child/elder care.

Apartments Plus. What Apartments Plus didn't produce in number of listings (our search produced 10, all of them within the $700-$999 range because our "up to $699" search produced no listings), the site made up for with extensive information and photographs of its listed properties. For each complex our search produced, we were presented with four options: "At a Glance," a general overview of the complex; "Take a Tour," which usually treated the browser to interior shots of every room of the model, with an occasional button which, if clicked, provided enlarged photos; "Take a Grand Tour," which provided larger shots and occasional additional photographs of the model, exterior, and floor plan; and "Getting There," which provided a thorough map of the area. Photographs were of good quality and gave us a genuine sense of being inside the apartments. Beside each property listing sat symbols indicating washer and dryer availability, fitness center, pets, and other features. Model descriptions were thorough, as were property descriptions and maps. The site's "Moving Center" contains such services as telephone service, truck and furniture rental, employment services, moving companies, renters' insurance, storage, and school information. The school information link is particularly noteworthy; users may locate all of the public schools within a desired region; locate addresses, phone numbers, and general statistics on each; and order school reports, as well.

Despite the old adage that "seeing is believing," all three of our searches produced results that sure beat a harried and most likely futile trip to D.C. in search of an apartment. While the decision whether or not to visit these properties before signing a lease remains up to you, the worst you can say about your online apartment search is that you've narrowed your choices beforehand. Trip expenses aside, if you make a trip to D.C. to visit properties after an online search, you've got clear destinations in mind. Maybe you'll even have time for a little sightseeing. For larger U.S. cities, at least, the Internet is clearly the most economically sound and time-efficient route to your next apartment, whether it's your first or only step in the apartment-search process.

Published: January 16, 1998

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