On-line Rental Manager Platforms: Zillow vs. Apartments.com

General Landlording & Rental Properties
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On-line Rental Manager Platforms: Zillow vs. Apartments.com

Mike S.
Denver, CO · Member since 2019 · 16 posts · 5 votes

I'm curious if anyone has thoughts on either/both of the Apartments.com Rental Manager or Zillow Rental Manager. I think the Apartments.com one used to be Cozy and it seems like it has additional functionality (especially around maintenance requests)

Second question: Anyone used the applications feature (credit score, background, eviction, criminal, etc) of either of those two sites? I was kind of set to use the Apartments.com one because it seemed more robust, but all of my listing's interest is coming from the Zillow site and I'd hate to have to refer them over there.

Appreciate the help!

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Joe SplitrockPro Member
Moderator
Rental Property Investor · Sioux Falls, SD · Member since 2015 · 9k+ posts · 18k+ votes
4y

Zillow and Apartments.com (owned by CoStar) are the two largest companies in the rent collection business. They are bot publicly traded. Apartments.com had a rent collection service before they purchased Cozy. The new service is a blend of features from both services. I used Cozy for years and have been using Apartments.com for almost a year after transition. There are more features available now than Cozy had. They also have live phone support (Cozy had no phone number). They also reduced the cost of a credit/background check from $39.99 to $29.00 for tenants.

I have also used Zillow, which is my preferred platform for advertising. On my recent listings, I have used Zillow for applications and screening. The Zillow credit report is from Experian and Apartments.com is from TransUnion. I like the Apartments.com report better for two reasons. You can save a copy and it shows monthly payment break down. The Zillow report cannot be printed or saved. Zillow only shows if there were late payments, but you can't tie it to specific months to know if recent payment history is better. Most tenant screening software uses TransUnion as the base report.

I also use Zillow for lease signing. I am able to upload my own lease and have the tenant digitally sign. This is a huge time saver. Apartments.com has lease signing, but they force you into using their own lease. That may sound great, but their lease sucks. It was written to be used in any state, so you have all sorts of tenant friendly junk that doesn't apply in my state.

I have never tried Zillow for rent collection, but I am sure it is fine. I used Cozy and now Apartments.com. I have never had any payment problems other than tenant generated NSF type issues. Although I do think Apartments.com could improve the interface a little bit, it works fine and reliably. I am not sure why so many people get outraged about the move from Cozy. I would say Cozy was far from perfect and it is clear Apartments is putting more resources into the platform than Cozy ever did. I believe Apartments.com is the largest rent collection platform in the USA right now by dollar volume. 

I don't love everything Zillow does, but I am also not a Zillow hater. Their failure in the house flipping market has nothing to do with their core business. In fact, the house flipping business always lost money. Their services and lead gen business has always been very profitable. Dropping the flipping business will help them refocus, so it is a good thing. The loss they are taking on the flipping business is basically a years worth of profits on their core business, so not hard to recover from. 

Quick Summery of what I do, but you could could use either one for all these things and it would be fine:

Zillow for listing

Apartments.com for application and screening

Zillow for lease signing

Apatments.com for rent collection

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  • Scott M.
    Real Estate Broker · Rochester Hills, MI · Member since 2009 · 2k+ posts · 2k+ votes
    4y

    I always advocate for everyone to stop using zillow.  All you are doing is funding their ability to put you (us) out of business.  While their latest venture didn't go so well for them (link below) they will regroup and continue their efforts

    Zillow is offloading 7,000 homes — raising 'red flags' about the real-estate market - MarketWatch

    0Reply
  • John UnderwoodPro Member
    Investor · Greer, SC · Member since 2014 · 13k+ posts · 17k+ votes
    4y

    I advertised on Zillow.com and Apartments.com and Apartments was useless. Zillow worked out great.

    1Reply
  • Terrell Garren
    Rental Property Investor · Concord, NC · Member since 2016 · 1k+ posts · 3k+ votes
    4y

    Cozy was great. Apartments.com is meh.  Too dang much trouble to change to something else though. 

    0Reply
  • Mike S.
    OP
    Denver, CO · Member since 2019 · 16 posts · 5 votes
    4y

    @Terrell Garren - I was under the impression that they simply integrated the whole thing? What did they take out?

    0Reply
  • Mike S.
    OP
    Denver, CO · Member since 2019 · 16 posts · 5 votes
    4y

    @John Underwood - that's been my experience so far as well. I put a "Premium" listing on Apartments.com and got 2,000+ views in a day but zero inquiries. Same listing on Zillow, but free, got 300 views but 11 inquiries. The ratio is a bit off there.

    1Reply
  • Terrell Garren
    Rental Property Investor · Concord, NC · Member since 2016 · 1k+ posts · 3k+ votes
    4y
    Originally posted by @Mike S.:

    @Terrell Garren - I was under the impression that they simply integrated the whole thing? What did they take out?

     If they did any integration, it was back office.  The UI on Cozy was simple, intuitive and efficient.  After 6 months on apartments.com, I still have to hunt for things like lease termination, rent amount change, etc.  Not to mention sending tenants to apartments.com for SFHs is like sending them to trucks.com to buy a motorcycle. 

    1Reply
  • Joe SplitrockPro Member
    Moderator
    Rental Property Investor · Sioux Falls, SD · Member since 2015 · 9k+ posts · 18k+ votes
    4y

    Zillow and Apartments.com (owned by CoStar) are the two largest companies in the rent collection business. They are bot publicly traded. Apartments.com had a rent collection service before they purchased Cozy. The new service is a blend of features from both services. I used Cozy for years and have been using Apartments.com for almost a year after transition. There are more features available now than Cozy had. They also have live phone support (Cozy had no phone number). They also reduced the cost of a credit/background check from $39.99 to $29.00 for tenants.

    I have also used Zillow, which is my preferred platform for advertising. On my recent listings, I have used Zillow for applications and screening. The Zillow credit report is from Experian and Apartments.com is from TransUnion. I like the Apartments.com report better for two reasons. You can save a copy and it shows monthly payment break down. The Zillow report cannot be printed or saved. Zillow only shows if there were late payments, but you can't tie it to specific months to know if recent payment history is better. Most tenant screening software uses TransUnion as the base report.

    I also use Zillow for lease signing. I am able to upload my own lease and have the tenant digitally sign. This is a huge time saver. Apartments.com has lease signing, but they force you into using their own lease. That may sound great, but their lease sucks. It was written to be used in any state, so you have all sorts of tenant friendly junk that doesn't apply in my state.

    I have never tried Zillow for rent collection, but I am sure it is fine. I used Cozy and now Apartments.com. I have never had any payment problems other than tenant generated NSF type issues. Although I do think Apartments.com could improve the interface a little bit, it works fine and reliably. I am not sure why so many people get outraged about the move from Cozy. I would say Cozy was far from perfect and it is clear Apartments is putting more resources into the platform than Cozy ever did. I believe Apartments.com is the largest rent collection platform in the USA right now by dollar volume. 

    I don't love everything Zillow does, but I am also not a Zillow hater. Their failure in the house flipping market has nothing to do with their core business. In fact, the house flipping business always lost money. Their services and lead gen business has always been very profitable. Dropping the flipping business will help them refocus, so it is a good thing. The loss they are taking on the flipping business is basically a years worth of profits on their core business, so not hard to recover from. 

    Quick Summery of what I do, but you could could use either one for all these things and it would be fine:

    Zillow for listing

    Apartments.com for application and screening

    Zillow for lease signing

    Apatments.com for rent collection

    13Reply
  • Chris Herrera
    Real Estate Agent · Addison, IL · Member since 2015 · 185 posts · 88 votes
    4y

    @Mike S. I really dislike apartments.com. Service is terrible and it’s not as fluid to list rentals but unfortunately you get what you pay for

    0Reply
  • Dorys Prentice
    Member since 2019 · 36 posts · 23 votes
    4y

    I am currently using for marketing, Apartments.com, Zillow and Avail.co.  I've had about the same amount of inquiries from all three.  I've had very very few people be able to pass my pre-qual screening questions, however, once I get an applicant that passes the pre-screening, I send them to the apartments.com for the credit/background check.

    This is my first public rental so I don't have a huge amount of experience.  I may use Apartments.com to collect monthly rent. I will use the Realtor lease agreement form for my state so it looks like I'll be meeting folks personally so they have to wet sign.

    0Reply
  • Mike S.
    OP
    Denver, CO · Member since 2019 · 16 posts · 5 votes
    4y

    @Joe Splitrock - Thank you very much for the in-depth insight. I ended up listing and the application/screening on Zillow, my own lease uploaded and rent collection on Apartments.com. My struggle was mostly with chasing people around - I drew a bunch of people on Zillow, so it was a bit strange to chase them to another site to do the next two steps. As you mentioned, I put my existing renter on Apartments.com and the process seems to work ok.

    Another question - with how long the ACH takes, do you have them schedule to pay before the 1st of the month so it arrives then, or just wait the several business days?

    0Reply
  • Joe SplitrockPro Member
    Moderator
    Rental Property Investor · Sioux Falls, SD · Member since 2015 · 9k+ posts · 18k+ votes
    4y
    Originally posted by @Mike S.:

    @Joe Splitrock - Thank you very much for the in-depth insight. I ended up listing and the application/screening on Zillow, my own lease uploaded and rent collection on Apartments.com. My struggle was mostly with chasing people around - I drew a bunch of people on Zillow, so it was a bit strange to chase them to another site to do the next two steps. As you mentioned, I put my existing renter on Apartments.com and the process seems to work ok.

    Another question - with how long the ACH takes, do you have them schedule to pay before the 1st of the month so it arrives then, or just wait the several business days?

     It takes 6 days for payments to post into our account. The tenant sees the payment leave their account the day they pay it, so a payment leaves their account on the 1st and you see it hit your account on the 7th. You can see in the portal that the payment is in process. The only time I have not received payment is if they tenant had non sufficient funds. That usually fails within a couple days if there is going to be an issue. We allow tenants to pay up until the 5th without late fee, according to our lease, but most pay by the 1st or 2nd. 

    1Reply
  • Mike S.
    OP
    Denver, CO · Member since 2019 · 16 posts · 5 votes
    4y

    @Joe Splitrock - OK - So it sounds like you do allow the automatic payment to start processing on the 1st (i.e. auto ACH coming through on Dec 1 and hitting your account on Dec 7th vs. auto paying on Nov 24th and hitting your account on Dec 1).

    I noticed that the key thing is it does say in the Apartments.com portal that the payment is processing (so you know that it is actually working)

    0Reply
  • Gregory Dillon
    Investor · Fayetteville, NC · Member since 2019 · 7 posts · 10 votes
    4y

    I was using Cozy before the switch and I hated that they didn’t have a way for tenants to submit maintenance requests. After the switch my tenants had some issues at first setting up apartments.com but after those hiccups it’s not bad.  I do hate that you cannot do month to month leases with apartments.com. So I use ezlandlordforms.com for my mid-term leases. 
    I’d switch to rentredi but it’s just to much of a hassle and some of my tenants are older so tech isn’t their thing.  

    1Reply
  • Joe SplitrockPro Member
    Moderator
    Rental Property Investor · Sioux Falls, SD · Member since 2015 · 9k+ posts · 18k+ votes
    4y
    Originally posted by @Mike S.:

    @Joe Splitrock - OK - So it sounds like you do allow the automatic payment to start processing on the 1st (i.e. auto ACH coming through on Dec 1 and hitting your account on Dec 7th vs. auto paying on Nov 24th and hitting your account on Dec 1).

    I noticed that the key thing is it does say in the Apartments.com portal that the payment is processing (so you know that it is actually working)

     Right, I can see that they made payment which is fine for me. If I had a PM company, they wouldn't send payment to me until the end of the month, so the 7th is still better. You can pay extra money for faster ACH, but I don't see the reason for me or the tenant to bear this cost. Other platforms cost money and may process faster, but no real benefit to me. 

    0Reply
  • Joe SplitrockPro Member
    Moderator
    Rental Property Investor · Sioux Falls, SD · Member since 2015 · 9k+ posts · 18k+ votes
    4y
    Originally posted by @Gregory Dillon:

    I was using Cozy before the switch and I hated that they didn’t have a way for tenants to submit maintenance requests. After the switch my tenants had some issues at first setting up apartments.com but after those hiccups it’s not bad.  I do hate that you cannot do month to month leases with apartments.com. So I use ezlandlordforms.com for my mid-term leases. 
    I’d switch to rentredi but it’s just to much of a hassle and some of my tenants are older so tech isn’t their thing.  

     Apartments.com does have a maintenance request feature, but I have never used it. I have leases setup as both month to month and term in Apartments, but I do actual lease signing through ZIllow because they let you upload your own lease template. Try Zillow for lease signing, it works great. You load the PDF and insert where digital signatures go. We have every page initialed by the tenants too.

    0Reply
  • Gregory Dillon
    Investor · Fayetteville, NC · Member since 2019 · 7 posts · 10 votes
    4y

    I thought they did before and was trying to do a new month month lease and couldn’t find the tab to do it so I called. The guy I spoke to said we can’t do month to month leases.  It seems like there isn’t just one perfect platform! If anyone knows of one I’d love to hear about it. 

    0Reply
  • Thomas Huberton
    Member since 2021 · 10 posts · 4 votes
    4y

    I like Zillow for listing rentals but I'm not a fan of either Zillow or Apartments.com for ongoing rent collection.  Lots of good alternatives out there now! 

    0Reply
  • Mike S.
    OP
    Denver, CO · Member since 2019 · 16 posts · 5 votes
    4y

    @Gregory Dillon On Apartments.com, I clicked into one of my residents and got this option in the top right under "Edit Lease Option." Here's a screenshot

    0Reply
  • Mike S.
    OP
    Denver, CO · Member since 2019 · 16 posts · 5 votes
    4y

    @Thomas Huberton - what are these other platforms and why do you like them better? Cost is also another consideration

    0Reply
  • Thomas Huberton
    Member since 2021 · 10 posts · 4 votes
    4y

    @Mike S. I liked Innago and TurboTenant as free options, but ended up going with RentRedi, which does have an annual fee.  

    0Reply
  • John Kirincich
    Real Estate Investor · Philadelphia, PA · Member since 2015 · 4 posts · 1 vote
    4y

    I am going to have to switch away from EZLandlordforms. They make the landlord sign the lease first. I don't know about your market, but in mine, a tenant is not going to give you money before they even have a lease to sign! This can leave the landlord in the situation where there is a lease signed by both parties, but the tenant has not paid you anything. Of course they don't have the keys yet, but it's still a mess.

    Worse, they seem unwilling to address it. They say that this is the terms of their deal with HelloSign. Their brilliant idea is to collect all the money first. Not possible in my market, without giving the tenant a lease to sign. It's not my fault they made a bad deal.

    0Reply
  • Andy SabischPro Member
    Investor · Jackson, MS · Member since 2021 · 657 posts · 559 votes
    3y
    We have found that Zillow Rental works well for getting potential tenants.  You can use their screening but it is pretty light.

    We use Innago for tracking rent, expenses and leases . . . and they have a much better screening tool.  This is also a free to landlords service.

    Stessa is another tool you may want to look at for property management
    0Reply
  • Drew SygitBusiness Member
    Property Manager · Royal Oak, MI · Member since 2012 · 12k+ posts · 9k+ votes
    3y

    @Andy Sabisch why are you relying on software to screen applicants? 

    You should know how to do your own screenings, as software always makes mistakes.

    [email protected]248-209-6824
    Logical Property Management4.9458 Reviews
    WebsiteView Page
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