I am looking for apartment recently. I found a very nicewebside and it is very easy to find a good apartment.
http://www.padmapper.com/
About PadMapper
PadMapper is a web application by TopHat Monkey Software that makes it easy to browse through and pick out apartment and house rental listings that you want to follow up on. Instead of having a big list and then using a map as a helper for the list, like most of the real estate sites, I threw out the list and gave the map as much room as possible.
This means that the amount of the map that you can see is limited only by the size of your browser window. This also means no tabbing through pages of listed results and having those results appear on the map – everything is controlled seamlessly as you wander around the map. When you pan, PadMapper loads new listings automatically in the background. When you zoom out, PadMapper loads the surrounding areas, when you zoom in, PadMapper loads more listings for that smaller area. You can start your search at a high level, and then zoom in as you figure out what areas appeal to you more.
If you’re particularly interested in a place, you can zoom in very close, and nearby restaurants, bars, shopping and more will show up on the map (in most cities), and you can click on them to see their Yelp Ratings. Or, you can save that listing to your favorites list for later.
One thing to remember as you use PadMapper, there should never be a link on the screen that will navigate your screen away from the map – all links are either functionality related, or they will open something in a new tab/window in your browser, so you can click without fear of ruining your PadMapper session. If this ever turns out not to be true, it’s a bug, and I’d appreciate it if you’d alert me to it by emailing me at padmapper@gmail.com.
Thanks very much for visiting, and if there’s anything you think of that will help PadMapper make people’s real estate searches easier, please email me and let me know (padmapper@gmail.com)
And now, some pro-tips:
* The number of markers that can be displayed onscreen at once is limited to roughly 100-175, since it becomes choppy in some browsers with more.
* Zooming in will cause areas to fill in more.
* You can zoom in and out using your mousewheel (go slowly)
* Filtering and zooming reserves those 100-175 spots for listings that you’re more likely to like.
* If there’s a big area that’s empty that probably shouldn’t be, zoom in on that area. If that doesn’t help, try easing up on your filters. Also, try moving any large clusters of markers you’re not interested in offscreen by dragging the map or zooming (they count against the point limit).
* Zoom in very close, and you can see the location of bars, restaurants, stores, gyms, and other places that are rated highly on Yelp. (not available in all cities)
* PadMapper runs well in Google Chrome, Firefox 3, and Mac’s Safari (I haven’t tested Windows Safari, and I haven’t tested 4 Beta). PadMapper runs terribly in IE 6/7, thanks to IE’s anemic javascript engine. IE 6/7 weren’t made for rich web applications. Maybe 8 is better.
* Only Mac users see the intended font… sorry, I want to make it good for the majority of the visitors, I just haven’t found a Windows-standard font that I like as much. If you’re a Windows user and you’re into fonts or want to download it, it’s called Myriad Pro. If anyone knows of a similar font with high-penetration in the Windows PC market, please let me know. Also, Linux.
