Facebook Expands Apartment Rental Category in Marketplace With 'Hundreds of Thousands' of Listings

Just over one year after Facebook replaced the Messenger tab in its iOS app with "Marketplace," the company today announced that the tab will now support an expanded section for listings related to house and apartment rentals. United States users looking to rent will be able to browse "hundreds of thousands" of listings in Marketplace thanks to Facebook's partnership with real estate sites Apartment List and Zumper (via Engadget).

To begin with, the rollout will feature filters for location, price, amount of bedrooms and bathrooms, type of rental, pet friendliness, and square footage. Landlords renting the locations will be able to add 360-degree photos to each listing so interested renters can get a better view of the inside of each unit.

"Marketplace is a popular place for people to look for a home to rent," said Facebook's Bowen Pan. "Now that we're adding listings from Apartment List and Zumper, people can search even more options in the U.S. to find a place to call home. First with vehicles and now with housing rentals, we're partnering with businesses to bring more ease and convenience for consumers."

Before today's update, house and apartment listings on Marketplace were exclusive to those posted manually by Facebook users, so the partnership with Apartment List and Zumper will allow Marketplace to automatically populate with nearby listings from local real estate agents.

Facebook has been releasing frequent updates to its iOS app that aim to keep users on the social network, most recently adding in mobile food ordering and a "Work Histories" feature to profiles. A few weeks ago the company introduced another Marketplace expansion in the form of vehicle listings through partnerships with automotive dealerships.