Rent.com's design was both functional and visually appealing. Performing a search for both an apartment and a roommate was pretty standard and the site features allowed us to filter our results by our specific needs.

The listings on the site provide an address, phone number and a detailed description with professional photos, floor plans and 360° virtual tours.  Star Reviews loved the 360° tour; forget wasting your time, as you get a feel for the place without having to go see it in person.

We weren't able to restrict our results to "downtown" Chicago, but rather into neighborhoods. We thought this was fine for those living in suburbia, but college students seeking apartments near their designated schools may not find this to be easy or effective.

• $100 Rent.com reward when you find and rent an apartment through Rent.com.
• Use the site to get free quotes from movers.

Rent.com is feature-packed, offering more options than their competitors.  We weren't as pleased with the functionality of the site.  It worked great, but we would like a little more flexibility within the listing results.  After our one day wait on their email-only support, we felt that Rent.com deserved 5.0 Stars.

When we visited Sublet.com, we found this apartment rental service's site layout rather busy.

We were disappointed to see that only a paid membership gives you access to all of the Sublet.com listings in your selected area. The cost of a paid membership varies depending on what geographical location you are interested in. The membership prices generally range from $25 to $100 for a 90-day period.

As far as the search mechanism is concerned, Sublet.com's were easy to use, allowing us to locate the apartments in our specified area in just under a minute.  No digging here; as cities and districts were fairly easy to find.  The site, in all its chaos, proved to be rather effective.

• 25% off- paid memberships by providing Sublet.com with the email addresses of those who may be interested in the website's services.
• Sign up for daily listing updates.

Sublet.com didn't win us over nor turn us away.  In our eyes, this site is average.  They offered a fair selection that was simple enough to locate results on.  We don't love their pricing structure, as we feel these services should be free.  Our email to customer support was replied to in a few hours, but they don't offer any phone support.  Star Reviews gives Sublet.com 4.5 Stars.

Metro Roommates seems to be geared more towards leaseholders looking for roommates rather than those looking to rent an apartment. However, once we were on the site for a few moments, we found the link that allowed us to search for a room.

The search feature was very straightforward on their apartment rental site. We just entered our search criteria and in just a few seconds, we were presented with a list of possible matches. Navigating our search results was also easy and the listing details included pictures, as well as a detailed description of the apartment.

Star Reviews was disappointed that we would have to pay for a 90-day subscription if we wanted access to all of the Metro Roommates listings. With larger competitors offering free, full access searches, we can't believe Metro Roomates maintains such a loyal following.

• Receive new listing updates by mail.
• Post Listings or Search for roommates

With many apartment seekers unwilling to pay for an apartment rental service that is often free, we can't give high ratings for effectiveness.  We will say that the site was easy to use and had it been a free service, we would have ranked MetroRoommates higher.  We must admit that they do offer phone support, which is a huge plus in our eyes. However, our questions weren't answered in a manner we like and expect out of telephone support. We give MetroRoommates 4.0 Stars in our apartment rental reviews.

When we visited Rentals.com, we were impressed by its fluidity and easy-to-access search mechanism located right on the home page.

The layout of Rentals.com is very intuitive, providing links to customized category searches such as lofts, vacation homes, college housing, senior housing, corporate housing, etc.  The only negative opinion we have about the site is the design being a bit cumbersome, littered with many links and text.

Performing a search on Rentals.com was very easy. However, the site did not let us narrow our search to specific sections of metro areas, leaving us digging through hundreds of results to find what we were looking for. We did not appreciate how much of our time was eaten up because of this.

• Customized off-campus college housing search.
• Search the site for vacation home rentals.

Out of all of our reviews, we were least pleased with Rentals.com's website design. We were very distracted during our searches.  The selection was decent, but not very easy to find exactly what we were looking for. Between this issue and our non-existent customer support encounter, we give Rentals.com 4.0 Stars.