Finding rentals near public transit is easy with new tool

Update (2/2/17): Trulia has expanded the Rent Near Transit feature to these seven U.S. cities: Atlanta, Dallas, Los Angeles, Miami, Minneapolis, Portland, and San Diego. Additionally, the Rent Near Transit tool can now be used in conjunction with the Commute Heat Map feature to both filter for properties within a 15-minute walk to transit stations and visualizing estimated commute times. This release does not include a map of median rents by transit station for each city, but that feature may be incorporated directly into search results on Trulia in the future.

Real estate site Trulia has unveiled a handy new tool for urban dwellers who’d like to take advantage of one of the best things about cities: robust public transportation. With the new Rent Near Transit tool, which has launched in six major cities—Boston, Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C.—you can browse all the rentals within a 15-minute walk from any subway station, as well as see the median rent around each subway station and narrow down to available listings near that specific stop.

This feature combines the very satisfying (but often depressing) "median rent by subway station" maps that have been popping up around the internet with real listings you can scope out immediately. Trulia plans to open up the tool to more cities in the future.

The two screenshots below show what happens when you search for rentals in one of the six markets and turn on the "Near [Transit]" option. All the rentals within comfortable walking distance from a subway station—which are labeled with larger symbols than found on the typical mapping platform—will show up.

The series of Chicago screenshots below show how you can see median rents near all subway stations and then select to see listings near one specific stop—in this case, the Cermak-Chinatown station.

Rent Near Transit and Commute Heat Map in San Diego