RentSavvy is a web service that helps you find apartments by specifying your preferences. When you visit the site, you can enter the city in which you are looking for an apartment. Next you select your preferences. These preferences let you indicate whether the place should be family friendly, have schools, has an active nightlife, etc. You can even connect with your Facebook account and check if any friends live nearby.

According to your settings, the listings will show up. These listings are searched for from numerous online resources.

Clicking on a listing will pop up its location on a map in the right pane. Here you can read more about the listing, view more photos, and read reviews wherever available.

Features:

• A user-friendly web service.
• Helps you search for apartments.
• Considers your preferences while displaying listings.
• Displays apartment locations on a map.

Check out RentSavvy @ http://web4.rentsavvy.com (By Umar from AllThatIsApple)

The places that appear in Crash My Pad’s search are ones put up by the site’s users themselves; so if you have a place that is available for others to crash at, you can put it up on the site. Searches for places can be made by typing in a city and then your dates for checking in and checking out. You can also specify how many people will be staying with you.

Results are shown with their rates displayed alongside a short description. You can click on a result to view its further details, pictures, and to contact the place’s host through the website.

Features:

• A user-friendly web service.
• Lets you find places to crash while visiting a new city.
• Lets you specify your duration of stay and number of people with you.
• Lets you put up your own available places on the site.

Check out Crash My Pad @ www.crashmypad.com (by MOin from ThumbPress)

Lovely is a wonderfully user friendly web service that takes the frustration out of apartment hunting. All the physical tasks that you need to – check apartment prices and visit apartment – are simplified thanks to Lovely. You can start by closing in on a region in the map that loads up. You can see the available listing through blue markers on the map. These apartments can be filtered by specifying your budget. Clicking on a marker opens up available apartment listing as balloon markers.

You can click on a balloon marker to view the apartment’s photographs and see what it looks like without having to visit it.

Features:

• A user-friendly web service.
• Helps you find available apartments.
• Lets you specify region and budget.
• Includes photos of apartments.
• Similar tools: StreetEasy, RentBits, MyApartmentMap, PadMapper and some others.

Check out Lovely @ www.livelovely.com (By Umar from AllThatIsApple)

The neighborhoods are ranked based on a number of criteria and clicking on any neighborhood will give you detailed information on various topics including quality of life, safety, public transportation, people, schools, nightlife and more. The neighborhood is ranked on each of these factors to give you a comparative analysis. You can also contribute by rating each neighborhood and/or writing detailed reviews.

Features:

• Find a neighborhood like your own.
• See maps, current and historical images.
• Currently works for NYC, San Francisco, Boston and Seattle.
• See information about schools and statistics.
• See neighborhood ranking on tens of factors.
• Rate and review a neighborhood.
• No registration required.
• Similar tools: CityMelt and Homethinking

Visit NabeWise @ www.nabewise.com

You can read reviews before committing and see other details like location, bed type and if the owner allows pets. If you have a spare room that you’d like to rent, post it on AirBnB and start making some extra cash.

Overall it is a great idea and a very effective tool but it probably won’t work for people who are too cautious about trusting strangers.

Features:

• Lists private rental accommodation from actual people.
• See pictures and read details before booking.
• Know beforehand about the are and the house.
• Post your spare room and earn money.
• Similar websites: Istopover.

Visit AirBnB @ www.airbnb.com

Moreover, it lets you search by additional criteria such as commute time, price per square feet and provides important relevant information like public school information, market data, neighborhood photos and other to help you make an informed choice. Sign up to save your searches and favorite listings.

Features:

• Search apartments sales and rentals in New York and surrounding areas (Hamptons, North Jersey)
• Search and filter results by price, apartment type, # of bedrooms and region.
• Use additional search criteria such as commute time, price per square feet, local public school information, neighborhood pictures and other relevant information.
• Browse popular searches – “Most expensive”, “Least expensive”, “Most recent apartments for sale” etc.
• Check out site’s New Development Directory for NYC’s most complete information on new building projects.
• Sign up to save your searches and favorite listings for reference.
• Similar websites: RentBits, MyApartmentMap, PadMapper and some others.

Check out StreetEasy @ www.streeteasy.com

Features

• Online marketplace to find cheap local accommodations.
• Advanced search based on various filters available.
• Get detailed information about the room and reviews from previous guests.
• Book online through credit cards.
• Similar websites: Istopover

Check out AirBnB @ www.airbnb.com (via Lifehacker) (By Abhijeet from Jeet Blog)

You can browse listings by a city name or simply use a map to zoom in on a particular location. There are also options to filter listings by keyword, price, number of rooms, dogs, cats… etc. Each listing is marked as a colored icon and when clicked brings up the images and price details.

Features:

• Find places for rent and sale in over 35 US cities (more cities will be added).
• Browse by city name or zoom in.
• Filter listings by keywords, price, number of rooms, dogs, cats… etc.
• Each listing is marked as colored icon clicking which will show images and price details.
• Free and no registration.

Other sites that offer similar functionality are RentBits, PadMapper, ApartmentMap and few more in Top 5 U.S. Apartment Search Engines.

Check out HousingMaps @ www.housingmaps.com

Bascially, enter the names of your current city and the one you’re planning to move to get a list of similar neighborhoods. Among other things, the site shows homes for sale and real estate agents in that city. Currently, only major US cities are covered.

Features :

• Neighborhood comparison tool.
• Compare neighborhoods of different cities and find the most suitable place for yourself.
• Find homes and real estate agents.
• Simple and easy to use.
• Similar websites: CityMelt.

Check out Homethinking @ neighborhoods.homethinking.com [via Lifehacker] (by Abhijeet from Jeet Blog)

Enter the name of the city and it will display a list of hotels available along with the prices offered. You can compare the prices and select the best deal for yourself. It also provides hotel description, images, location on the map and reviews of the hotels.

The hotel listings can be sorted on the basis of popularity, price, stars, name and distance. Moreover, search results can be refined further using criteria such as distance from specific location, hotel brand, amenities and more.

Hotel World Online boasts of a database of 900,000 global hotel deals from over 30 merchants, and access over 1.5m consumer reviews, 3m hotel images, 2m hotel descriptions and maps.

Features :

• Check hotel availability and rates.
• Compare prices offered by different booking sites.
• Provides hotel description, images, Google map and reviews on the hotels.
• Hotels can be sorted by a number of factors.
• Similar sites: HotelDiscovery, HotelCalculator and HostelBookers.

Check out HotelWorldOnline @ www.hotel-world-online.com (by Abhijeet from Jeet Blog)