First and foremost, I look for listings. pictures. and a fast and intuitive way to see exactly what I m looking for in an apartment.

Having feature upon feature isn t all that helpful in that sense. At the end of the day, users looking for a new place to call home want to be able to find listings that are aligned with their taste and price range, and then be able to call / contact the broker or landlord in order to begin the application process.

craigslist. while it s been getting a bad wrap lately, is still incredibly popular to find a new place to live. It s a testament to how sheer simplicity and the volume of listings go a long way.

To that end, while not a feature, having an extremely low barrier to entry to view listings is pretty important. In the past when I was looking for a new apartment, I would immediately leave a site if I had to sign up and set up an account to even start looking - I just want to see listings and am not really interested in setting up another account on another site.

The next important thing I look for is pictures. A lot of time can be saved just by seeing pictures of the place. Otherwise, imagine taking all the time to view 40 places when you could have immediately ruled out 23 of them had you seen pictures of them beforehand.

Next, I think being able to pinpoint listings on a map is a pretty good feature, especially if you re moving to a new city. It ll really help to contextualize where you may be living and you can even start to plan out how you can get around and see what things are nearby - a listing of all the nearby essentials and sundries on the listing would be really great too.

When actually searching, though not imperative, a mobile counterpart can really be helpful. Being able to access things you like and keep notes as you look at a place would really aid the search experience, especially if you find yourself in a situation where your application is being accepted at every place you applied for and it s time to make a decision. Nestio does a really good job of this.

As a full disclosure, I m continually evolving blockShift as a product to gather listings from all over the web and then making it so people can quickly and easily narrow those listings down into just what they re looking for.