RentHop Because you gotta live somewhere

Surprisingly not just Antoine Walker's technique to avoid paying for the places he stays in, RentHop is actually an apartment search tool just now rolling out in the Chi. It streamlines legit listings posted directly by management companies and landlords (while cutting the shadier ones), ranks them based on quality, and makes brokers sad and broke-er.

Reasons you'll want to get in on this action:

• You know how some sites claim they've got a two bedroom in Wicker Park that Josh Hartnett actually lived in while filming the movie Wicker Park, but it's actually just a bait-and-switch to get you talking to them, and make you extremely excited? Well, they don't do that -- all of their available apts include an actual address, plus interior and street view photos, likely taken by Josh Hartnett!!! (NOTE: pictures definitely not taken by Josh Hartnett)
• Apts are browsable via either Gmap or list, and can be filtered by things like bedrooms/bath, min/max rent, amenities ("no fee", "roof deck", "once lived in by Josh Hartnett"), and favorite hoods.
• If you have an acute fear of talking to people on telephones, you can e-schedule viewings of apartments, though, on the negative side, then you don't get to talk to Josh Hartnett on the telephone.
• RH even crunches four years of historical rental data (factoring in things like how long an apt's been on the market) to give it a 1 to 100 "Hop Score", also what Antoine Walker says when he's successfully ditched out on paying his rent.