7 of the Best Landlord and Apartment Review Sites Out There

Apartment hunting is tough. On top of moving costs, finding a place to live, and setting up utilities, you have to worry about whether or not your landlord is actually trustworthy — and whether your apartment complex is in good shape. Having a handy resource to check on those concerns would certainly help, wouldn’t it? That’s where sites specializing in apartment building and landlord reviews come in.

Apartment review sites can really come in handy if you want to learn about common problems tenants have had in your potential new building, as well as how quickly management dealt with them. For decades now, landlord review sites have been popping up all over the internet, offering reviews and insights from tenants across the globe. But they’re often gone before they get up and running, proof that a landlord rating isn’t quite an exact science. Of course, you have to take any review with a grain of salt. One person’s experience isn’t likely to be exactly the same as another’s, especially when it comes to moving to a new city. 

To help make apartment searching a bit easier, we’ve listed some of the most popular apartment landlord review sites on the web for your consideration. Kind of like Yelp for landlords, the sites listed here can be a great resource when apartment hunting. And while we can’t promise the perfect landlord, we can guarantee you’ll at least have a heads-up on a crummy one.

The first site of its kind, Rate My Landlord allows you to search through an online database of landlords starting with a name, company, city, or ZIP code. Designed as a “reference check for landlords,” the site offers ratings, comments, and other qualities about the landlord in question, as well as forums for discussing tenant-related issues. 

It’s completely free to join and encourages you to sign up for specific landlord alerts, so you can be immediately notified of a new landlord review or rating. The only thing Rate My Landlord asks is that “If you’re angry at your landlord, then please wait a while before you rate them. Ratings or comments added while you’re upset won’t benefit anyone.” Fair enough (and probably true).

Open Igloo started as a New York City landlord and apartment review hub — and you can still search for available apartments throughout the five boroughs on the site — but it’s now expanded across the nation. 

One of the most useful tools on Open Igloo is the city data they have for any address — from the number of units in the building and pet-friendliness, to its public history of bedbug complaints, legal violations, litigations and more. They also offer tips and resources on their blog.

Arguably the MVP of the landlord-review sites, WYL — formerly known as Whose Your Landlord — is part apartment search engine, part landlord rating site, and part blog. Offering an array of search tools ranging from neighborhood insights to renter photos of apartments, WYL lets you search by either landlord or property, with breakdowns on everything from landlord responsiveness to pest control. 

Additionally, the site doubles as a tenant-friendly blog, full of helpful how-tos for apartment hunting, as well as renter resources such as moving tips and roommate advice. WYL might very well be the one-stop website for finding your next apartment.

Better for finding an apartment than a landlord review, ApartmentRatings.com has a long history and a comprehensive database of information. And since an apartment is only as good as the landlord who answers your call about a clogged toilet at 2 a.m., ApartmentRatings deserves at least a mention on our list of landlord review sites. 

If you search an address into Google, you might find that people have left reviews of the building. Google reviews aren’t necessarily a primary go-to for people leaving reviews, but what’s nice is that the search engine will aggregate reviews from across the web, showing you what the building has been rated on sites like Apartment Ratings, Rent.com, and elsewhere.

It sounds silly, but Yelp, where everyone reviews everything from doctors to restaurants to hair salons, has also become a place where people have started to leave reviews for their landlords and management companies. If you can find your landlord or management company on Yelp, and they have reviews from tenants or former renters, this can be a good place to gather information — though it won’t be as thorough as other options. 

If you live in New York City, JustFix is a really useful platform to see the types of complaints that are filed in the building you’re thinking of renting. The website pulls data from various city-run websites and aggregates it into easy-to-read charts and graphs. 

You can see how many evictions your landlord has carried out, how many complaints have been made in the building to 311, and more. The site also provides links to other websites (city-run, mostly) for you to dig deeper into your future landlord, and provides resources to help you ask for repairs, get your apartment’s rent history, and more.