Can’t sell your house? Rent it out on Zillow

Real estate site Zillow says it’s already attracting 8.3 million monthly visitors who want to search for (and see the estimated value) of a new home. Now the Seattle company is moving into the rental market.

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To be clear, Zillow won’t necessarily replace Craigslist when I decide to search for my next apartment. If you read the company’s blog post, it sounds like Zillow isn’t trying to become a general rental site but rather target a couple of specific audiences — homeowners who want to rent out their houses while they try to sell them (or until it’s a better market for selling), and shoppers who aren’t sure whether they want to rent or buy.

Zillow’s most interesting new feature should be a good fit for that second audience. Rather than forcing users to do an apples-to-oranges comparison between a home’s sale price and another home’s monthly rent, you can set a monthly payment range you can afford, and Zillow will bring up both for-sale and for-rent homes that fall in that range.

I went to the site to see what rentals I could turn up in Noe Valley (the San Francisco neighborhood where I live) or SoMa (where VentureBeat has its office). While there were plenty of sale listings, I ended up with zero rentals. In those neighborhoods, at least, potential renters will have to wait for homeowners to put up some rental listings.

Zillow has raised a total of $87 million in funding.