What to do when you can’t find your listing

If you have an active listing but don’t see it when you search, that doesn’t mean it’s hidden from potential renters. Here’s why listings don’t always show up immediately.

Why can’t I find my listing when I search by city?

When searching on Rentler, anything you type in (city, neighborhood, zip code, etc) is turned into a shape, representing the boundaries of the area in which you’re looking. We use that shape to center the map like a picture in a frame, and then fill the map with listings.

The only problem is that when the page is first loading, we don’t know how big the map is yet; the customer could be searching on anything from a tiny smartphone to a movie theater screen. We do know the location, though, so we grab results that are inside that shape.

In other words, when you first get to Rentler search it’s a bit more conservative about what listings it shows you. After that, it’s more relaxed, showing you listings around an area. So, while your property may be considered part of a certain city, it might not be inside that shape. Once the customer moves the map or adjusts some filter, we use the map and you should show up.

Why can’t I find my listing when I search by ZIP code?

If you’re searching for your listing on KSL the results are based on zip codes, since there’s no map on KSL. For example, searching in Park City translates to 84060, 84068, and 84098.

If you don’t see your property, it may be because you are using a new zip code. When a new one is issued by the United States Postal Service, it takes some time for the world to catch up. We update our location stuff quite regularly, but sometimes some of the services we use (Google is one of them) lag behind.

If this happens to you, contact Rentler support. They’ll change your listings zip code temporarily so you show up where you should.

What’s the best way to make sure my listing is showing up?

Go to https://www.rentler.com/listings, type in your city, choose your property type, and a conservative price range (if your listing is $850 a month, set it to something like $840-860). That should be enough to filter down to a few dozen listings, and yours should be easy to spot.

Then, feel free to play with more/less specific search terms to see how you show up. Also keep in mind that renters won’t necessarily search the same way you are.

Why do you do it this way?

It’s because we don’t know how large the map is when the page is first loading, since you could be browsing on anything from a small smartphone to a giant theater screen (try looking at Rentler listings with your browser in fullscreen, it’s pretty cool!). We mitigate the problem by loading results that are strictly within the area you’ve given us. Once the page has loaded and we know the size of the map, we switch to using that.

This doesn’t make a real difference for the typical person searching for a place to live; we’ve found they like to explore, searching dozens of times in a single session, often by just moving the map around. This actually helps expose less ‘popular’ areas like unincorporated towns they might not be aware of.