RentCafe Scraper

RentCafe Scraper

Scrape apartment listings from RentCafe — one of the largest apartment listing networks in the US, covering thousands of managed communities across every major metro. Point RentCafe Scraper at any city or filtered search page and get structured data back: rent prices, bedrooms, bathrooms, square footage, amenities, photos, and leasing contact info.

Reads RentCafe's own search-results data directly from the page, so every listing comes back with real numeric rent ranges, bed/bath counts, square footage, amenity lists, and a full photo gallery — not just the text shown on the card.

Copy to your AI assistant

Copy this block into ChatGPT, Claude, Cursor, or any LLM to start using this Actor.

RentCafe Scraper (parsebird/rentcafe-scraper) — Scrapes RentCafe.com apartment listings by city or search results URL. Input: {"startUrl": "https://www.rentcafe.com/apartments-for-rent/new-york-city-ny/", "results_wanted": 20, "max_pages": 1}. Key inputs: startUrl (string, a RentCafe city or filtered search page — apply filters on rentcafe.com first, then paste the URL), results_wanted (integer, default 20, max number of listings to save), max_pages (integer, default 1, safety cap on how many result pages to fetch), proxyConfiguration (object, default {"useApifyProxy": false}, Residential proxy recommended for larger runs). Output per listing: identity (property_name, property_short_name, property_id, company_name), location (address, city, state, zip_code, full_address, latitude, longitude), pricing (min_rent, max_rent, price_display, beds_display, baths_display, area_display, min_bedrooms/max_bedrooms, min_bathrooms/max_bathrooms, min_area_sqft/max_area_sqft), media (image_url, image_urls, image_count), signals (amenities, available_units_count, specials_available, is_fully_occupied, featured_property, has_online_leasing, verification_type), links (site_url, detail_url, phone). API: POST https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/parsebird~rentcafe-scraper/runs?token=YOUR_TOKEN. Get token: https://console.apify.com/account#/integrations

What does RentCafe Scraper do?

RentCafe Scraper turns a RentCafe city or search page into structured, spreadsheet-ready apartment data. Give it a URL and it:

• 🏙️ Accepts any RentCafe city page, or a search page with your own filters already applied (price, beds, pet policy, amenities — whatever RentCafe.com's own filter UI supports)
• 💵 Returns real numeric rent ranges (min_rent / max_rent), not just the display text — ready to sort, filter, or average without re-parsing strings
• 🛏️ Extracts bed and bath ranges and square footage as both numbers and the original display text
• 📸 Collects the full photo gallery for each property, not just the thumbnail
• 🏷️ Surfaces amenities, specials, featured status, online-leasing availability, and verification signals as filterable fields
• 📍 Includes latitude/longitude and full address for every listing, ready to drop on a map
• 📄 Paginates automatically — set results_wanted and max_pages and it keeps fetching result pages until it has enough listings or hits the safety limit
• 🌐 Runs a real browser under the hood, routed through Apify Residential Proxy by default, to get past RentCafe's Cloudflare protection
• ⚡ No RentCafe account, no login, no manual copy-pasting from listing cards

RentCafe Scraper reads the same structured listing data RentCafe's own search page uses to render its property cards and map pins, so prices, bed/bath counts, and amenities match exactly what's shown on rentcafe.com.

What data can you extract from RentCafe?

Field	Description
property_name / property_short_name	Community name and its URL slug
full_address / city / state / zip_code	Location, split and combined
latitude / longitude	Geographic coordinates
min_rent / max_rent / price_display	Advertised rent as numbers and as shown (e.g. "Ask for pricing" when unlisted)
min_bedrooms / max_bedrooms / beds_display	Bedroom range, numeric and as shown (e.g. "Studio-3 Beds")
min_bathrooms / max_bathrooms / baths_display	Bathroom range, numeric and as shown (e.g. "1-2.5 Baths")
min_area_sqft / max_area_sqft / area_display	Square footage range, numeric and as shown
amenities	List of published amenities (Washer/Dryer, Pool, Garage, ...)
image_url / image_urls / image_count	Primary photo and the full gallery
phone / company_name	Leasing contact and management company
available_units_count / specials_available / featured_property	Availability and marketing signals

That's 14 of 34 output fields. See the output example below for the complete record.

How to scrape RentCafe with RentCafe Scraper

1. Open RentCafe Scraper on Apify
2. Go to RentCafe.com, search a city, and apply any filters you want (price, beds, pets, amenities)
3. Copy the resulting URL from your browser's address bar and paste it into Start URL
4. Set Results wanted to how many listings you need
5. Set Max pages as a safety cap — the Actor stops once it reaches Results wanted or this page limit, whichever comes first
6. Leave Proxy configuration on Residential (the default) — RentCafe blocks most requests without it
7. Click Start and wait for the run to finish
8. Export your data as JSON, CSV, or Excel from the dataset tab, or pull it via the Apify API

Basic apartment collection:

{
    "startUrl": "https://www.rentcafe.com/apartments-for-rent/new-york-city-ny/",
    "results_wanted": 20
}

Larger market dataset:

{
    "startUrl": "https://www.rentcafe.com/apartments-for-rent/chicago-il/",
    "results_wanted": 200,
    "max_pages": 8
}

Filtered run with Residential proxy, for a recurring collection:

{
    "startUrl": "https://www.rentcafe.com/apartments-for-rent/austin-tx/",
    "results_wanted": 100,
    "max_pages": 6,
    "proxyConfiguration": {
        "useApifyProxy": true,
        "apifyProxyGroups": ["RESIDENTIAL"]
    }
}

Output example

{
    "property_name": "SKY",
    "property_short_name": "sky",
    "property_id": "1737527",
    "address": "605 West 42Nd Street",
    "city": "New York",
    "state": "NY",
    "zip_code": "10036",
    "full_address": "605 West 42Nd Street, New York, NY 10036",
    "phone": "(833) 391-1704",
    "company_name": "Columbus Property Management",
    "detail_url": "https://www.rentcafe.com/apartments/ny/new-york/sky/default.aspx",
    "latitude": 40.7615,
    "longitude": -73.9986,
    "min_bedrooms": 0,
    "max_bedrooms": 3,
    "min_bathrooms": 1,
    "max_bathrooms": 3,
    "min_rent": 4636,
    "max_rent": 8695,
    "price_display": "$4,636 - $8,695",
    "beds_display": "Studio-3 Beds",
    "baths_display": "1-3 Baths",
    "amenities": ["Washer/Dryer", "Patio/Balcony", "Garage", "Hardwood Floors", "Fitness Center", "Pets Allowed"],
    "image_url": "https://cdngeneral.rentcafe.com/dmslivecafe/2/206960/Moinian-SKY-Sky-Pool-Lounge.jpg?width=480&quality=90",
    "image_count": 5,
    "specials_available": false,
    "featured_property": true,
    "has_online_leasing": true,
    "source_page_url": "https://www.rentcafe.com/apartments-for-rent/new-york-city-ny/",
    "scraped_at": "2026-08-21T12:15:11.312167Z"
}

(Some always-present fields trimmed from this example for brevity — the full row carries every column in the data table above, including image_urls, min_area_sqft/max_area_sqft, available_units_count, is_fully_occupied, verification_type, and more.)

Use cases

• Market research — Compare rent ranges, unit mix, and amenities across a city or between neighborhoods
• Competitive analysis — Track competitor pricing, specials, and availability over time with scheduled runs
• Lead generation — Build a contact list of leasing offices and management companies in a target market
• Investment analysis — Feed rent comps and occupancy signals into an underwriting model
• Relocation and apartment-hunting tools — Power a search or comparison feature with structured, current listing data
• Mapping and visualization — Plot listings by latitude/longitude on a map, colored by price or amenities

How much does it cost to scrape RentCafe?

RentCafe Scraper uses pay-per-event pricing — you're charged per listing saved to the dataset, not for compute time.

Event	Price per event	Price per 1,000
listing-scraped (Free plan)	$0.0009	$0.90
listing-scraped (Bronze/Silver/Gold plans)	$0.0008	$0.80

Cost examples (paid plans):

Scenario	Listings	Cost
Quick city check (default results_wanted)	20	$0.02
Market comparison (Example 2 above)	200	$0.16
Large multi-city collection	1,000	$0.80

The Apify Free plan includes $5/month in platform credits — enough for roughly 5,500 listings a month at the free-tier rate, no credit card required.

RentCafe Scraper runs through Apify Residential Proxy by default to get past Cloudflare, which is billed separately from PPE against your Apify plan's proxy allowance. You can switch proxy groups or turn it off in the Proxy configuration input, though runs will likely fail without it.

Integrations and API access

Use RentCafe Scraper programmatically via the Apify API, the JavaScript client, or the Python client.

Python:

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("YOUR_API_TOKEN")

run = client.actor("parsebird/rentcafe-scraper").call(run_input={
    "startUrl": "https://www.rentcafe.com/apartments-for-rent/chicago-il/",
    "results_wanted": 200,
    "max_pages": 8,
})

for item in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(item["property_name"], item["price_display"])

JavaScript:

import { ApifyClient } from "apify-client";

const client = new ApifyClient({ token: "YOUR_API_TOKEN" });

const run = await client.actor("parsebird/rentcafe-scraper").call({
    startUrl: "https://www.rentcafe.com/apartments-for-rent/chicago-il/",
    results_wanted: 200,
    max_pages: 8,
});

const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((item) => console.log(item.property_name, item.price_display));

You can also connect RentCafe Scraper to Google Sheets, Slack, Zapier, Make, and other platforms via Apify integrations. Schedule runs with Apify Schedules to track rent changes and new listings over time.

Is it legal to scrape RentCafe?

Scraping publicly available data is generally considered legal, based on the 2022 US appeals court ruling in hiQ Labs v. LinkedIn. This Actor only reads listing data that's already publicly visible on RentCafe.com search pages — it does not log in, bypass paywalls, or access any non-public account data.

Always review RentCafe's Terms of Service and comply with applicable laws in your jurisdiction. For guidance, see Apify's guide to web scraping legality.

FAQ

Why does this need a browser and proxy, when some scrapers don't? RentCafe.com is protected by Cloudflare, which blocks plain HTTP requests with a JavaScript challenge and blocks most requests from datacenter IPs outright — including Apify's own default IPs. This Actor runs a real (headless) browser routed through Residential proxy by default to get past both.

What counts as a "page" for max_pages? One RentCafe search-results page, typically 25 listings. max_pages is a hard safety cap — the Actor stops fetching new pages once it reaches this limit, even if results_wanted hasn't been met yet and more listings exist.

Can I use search filters (price, beds, pets, amenities)? Yes. Apply any filters you want on RentCafe.com itself, then copy the resulting URL into startUrl. The Actor scrapes whatever results that URL produces.

Why are some fields null? RentCafe doesn't publish every field for every listing — for example, area_display is null when a property doesn't list square footage, and available_units_count is null when the site only shows a generic "Available" badge instead of a unit count. property_code is always null: RentCafe's public search results don't expose a separate property code field. These are genuine gaps in the source data, not scraping errors.

Does this scrape individual property detail pages? No. All output fields come from the search-results page itself, which already carries rent ranges, bed/bath counts, amenities, and a photo gallery per property — so results come back fast without an extra request per listing.

Can I schedule recurring runs? Yes. Use Apify's scheduling feature to re-run a saved search daily, weekly, or at any interval, and track how pricing and availability change.

Can I use this with my AI assistant or MCP server? Yes. Copy the AI assistant block from the top of this page into ChatGPT, Claude, or Cursor, or connect it to any agent framework through the Apify MCP server.

Something isn't working. How do I get help? Open an issue in the Issues tab on the Actor page. Include your input configuration and any error messages.