Whether you’re looking to buy or rent apartments in London, you need to know where to look. Given the size, range, and fast-paced nature of the capital’s property market, some targeted guidance can make all the difference. That’s why we’ve ranked our top picks for the best websites for London apartments. If you want to find a flat, then follow us as we flip through the finest fixtures of the online property search world.
Best websites for London apartments: Our Top-10 picks
To point you in the right direction, we’ve put together a list of our favourite sites for buying and renting London apartments. Between these 10 sites, you should be able to find the place of your dreams. At the very least, they can narrow down your options.
Please note: This is a broad range of sites covering what is a massive property market for buying and renting. It’s meant to be a starter set of sites to help get your search going. So, don’t be disheartened if you don’t find a perfect match straight away. Once you have a firm idea of your area and apartment type in mind, there are plenty of more specialist sites to explore. But for a starter search, we think that these are the 10 best websites for London apartments.
1: Zoopla
Due to its property portfolio size, range and user experience, Zoopla enjoys the top spot on our list. As one of the ‘Big Two’ UK property sites, Zoopla enjoys a vast number and variety of London apartment listings. Wherever you’re looking, you’ll find good options for that area on this site. Add in an extremely user-friendly interface, lots of extra advice and guides for added perspective, and you’ll see why Zoopla gets a big thumbs up from us.
2: Rightmove
The other member of the ‘Big Two’, Rightmove offers similar benefits in terms of its massive portfolio of apartments drawn from across all major London estate agencies. We like its simple, integrated view that shows you everything you need to know about a given property without endless scrolling and clicking.
3: Foxtons
Not only is Foxtons a highly respected source of property market advice, it’s also the largest single London estate agency. It maintains over 50 offices across the capital. This coverage means that its agents have great local knowledge, wherever you choose to search. This is vital for getting an insider’s view of specific London boroughs and districts, whether you buy or rent.
4: PrimeLocation
If you’re looking for more premium listings in the London apartment market, this is a great place to start. PrimeLocation focuses on the middle-to-upper budget market and offers tens of thousands of apartments in London. As an offshoot of Zoopla, it features a similarly clean and simple UI.
There’s also a fair few cool search features and added extras to explore here.
5: SpareRoom
As the name suggests, this is a rental-only specialist site. But we love SpareRoom’s innovative approach to pairing up renters looking for a single room with the ideal flatmates. The site lets both homeowners and potential lodgers advertise themselves. Both sides can enjoy a simple, intuitive account setup process that gets them listed within minutes.
You simply tell SpareRoom what you’re after (i.e.: what kind of room or lodger you want) and the account creation process helps you add some personality to the ad with targeted descriptions, photos and even a video attachment if you fancy it!
6: HomeViews
The London property market is a key focal point of HomeViews – we provide a near-exhaustive list of guides for every London borough and popular districts within them. We list hundreds of new build and build-to-rent apartment developments across London, suitable for practically any budget. We also maintain a large (and expanding!) set of advice guides on everything you need to know about buying and renting in London.
And, of course, every listed London apartment development on HomeViews comes with comments and score rankings from the very people living there. This gives you an unbiased, objective view of what it’s really like to live in that specific development. This is an invaluable aid to picking the right place, and avoiding the wrong ones.
7: Boomin
Boomin has gone from strength to strength since its launch in April 2021. It’s another rental-focused website, but one with a bit of an edge technology-wise. It offers a very data-savvy search approach, giving would-be renters more relevant and targeted properties to choose from. It also offers lots of nice extras, including a strong social presence, and great tips and general advice sections.
8: GLP – Greater London Properties
GLP is the only estate agency based in Soho, London. This rather more boutique agency has a great site with simple, enjoyable search functions and an appealing portfolio of central London properties to rent and buy. If this is your area of focus, then GLP has excellent local knowledge to share.
9: Rentify
Rentify is, funnily enough, a rental specialist site with tonnes of properties across the capital. It focuses on making rental property management as simple as possible both for landlords and tenants. For renters, there are plenty of added bonuses on offer, including deals on the site’s approved list of cleaners and tradespersons. The site even claims to help build tenants’ credit scores, through its partnership with leading credit ratings agency Experian.
10: OnTheMarket
Smart, uncluttered UI, lots of cool features, decent coverage – OnTheMarket is always worth a look. We really like the ‘Travel Time Search’ feature. You set the start point to your workplace, child’s school or any other significant location in your life and the site adjusts the search from that point.
How can I find the best London apartment website for me?
Like any other property type, you have to know what you’re looking for before you set off searching. Do you want a super-smart Canary Wharf flat with unbeatable views? How about a trendy pad tucked into Soho? Or do you want to be able to step out into some green space in Putney or Richmond?
Whatever your budget, tastes or commuter needs, it’s important to have a clear idea about the kind of London living experience you want. This will help you decide which areas and apartment types are best suited to your search efforts. In turn, this will let you recognise which websites will be the most useful in your quest for the perfect London apartment.
Websites for London apartments: What to look for
There are dozens, if not hundreds, of London property websites revealed with a quick online search. To make sure you’re on the right track with a specific site, it’s best to check if they have a particular focus or speciality. For example, if you’re on a tight budget, don’t bother with luxury segment estate agencies. Likewise, if you’re looking for an ultra-luxe riverside London apartment costing £1 million+, you can probably skip the mass-market sites.
In most cases, it’s easy enough to understand a site’s target audience. Their homepage should make it plain what kind of property they have to offer. Review their introductory message, have a couple of trial searches – if you don’t get a good sense of the site within a few minutes then they’ve not done their job well!
Other than the property portfolio of a site, it’s important to take the user experience into account. You may have to make hundreds of searches before you find the right London apartment. Therefore, you want every search to be as smooth, simple and informative as possible. London property websites do their very best to make this happen, given how competitive the market is. Still, everyone is different, so it’s worth experimenting with a few different sites rather than sticking to just one or two.
We hope that our list of the best websites for London apartments is useful in kickstarting your search. We have plenty of other great guides for exploring different aspects of the London property market, as shown below.
HomeViews provides verified resident reviews of the UK’s housing developments. We’re working with developers, landlords and the Government to recognise high performers and help to improve standards in the built environment.
