Zillow Adds Individual Room Listings to Its Portal

The U.S. real estate portal Zillow has announced the addition of individual room for rent listings to its portal.

The move comes as the Seattle-based portal operator releases a report claiming that rent prices have increased nearly 30% across the country since the pandemic with over 50% of renters spending more than 30% of their income on rent.

"We know finding the right place to call home isn't one-size-fits-all," said Michael Sherman, vice president of Zillow Rentals. "By introducing room listings, we're crafting a robust marketplace of options that truly reflects the varied needs of renters. We're committed to providing a platform where searching for a room, a house, an apartment or anything in between is as easy as clicking a button."

Zillow users will be able to select the "individual room" filter option alongside a "whole place" option when searching for rentals.

The move to include individual room listings now puts Zillow in direct competition with specialist marketplaces like Padsplit and Roomster, rentals generalists like ApartmentList and Zumper as well as the generalist classifieds behemoth Craigslist which still has a sizeable share of the market.