I find it difficult to believe that you have searched for an apartment in a tough rental market on Craigslist and consider their interface "fast and simple." If you've never had the task of finding an apartment within a mile of a given spot in a big metro area, you're not looking for what PadMapper offers. If you have had that problem, and you've never sworn out loud at Craigslist, you're a saint.
I was looking for an apartment 6 month ago in Reston, VA and I used craigslist for that purpose. I looked for a couple of zipcode (that I heard were good, since I was just moving in the US at that time) and honestly it worked great. Wouldn't it be the same in a big metro area ? just looking for interesting zipcodes ?
The other issue is where I live, people put all kinds of random keywords in their Craigslist apartment ads to try to get attention. "Just 25 minutes' walk to Foo Square, Bar Square, and Baz Square! Four hours by horse to Lexington, and a short plane ride to London!" If I want to know what's within a 10-minute walk of a given location, I basically have to read every listing with my town's name in it every day and see if they included an address. Or spend 5 seconds glancing at PadMapper.
