What to know
- Toronto realtors are using TikTok walkthroughs to showcase rentals and neighbourhoods, turning apartment hunting into a scrollable experience.
- For agents, it’s working: some say over half of their recent clients found them through TikTok.
- For renters, the videos offer a quick visual feel for units and areas—but listings often move faster than the comments.
- Watch out for scams: verify agents through official websites, reviews, and MLS listings before engaging.
In a TikTok-obsessed society, real estate agents are advertising apartments for rent and sale through short-form videos, but are they a legit way to find a home?
Realtor-led apartment tour videos have become an unexpected resource in Torontonians’ house searches, suggesting renters get realtors and supplement traditional rental sites with an added visual: TikTok.
Now the question is: does it really help – and do people actually use it? For realtors, it means visibility, and for some, it’s working. For renters, it can mean a visual feel of the place.
Toronto real estate agent Jenelle Tremblett admits she noticed that cold-calling, one of the methods realtors are taught to find clients, doesn’t work very well anymore.
“I thought to myself, like I never answer a phone call if I’m not expecting someone to call me. So, basically, why am I trying to cold call people if I wouldn’t personally answer the phone myself?” Tremblett told Now Toronto.
Coming from a sales and marketing background, specifically in influencer marketing, she decided to use that experience to her advantage in the real estate market. Three years after switching from that position into real estate, she realized she could benefit from her eight years of experience in the influencer world to make a name for herself in the real estate community.
Three years on TikTok, she already has 17.9K followers and reveals that 67 per cent of her closed deals in 2025 came from social media, primarily TikTok.
But what does that mean for renters? For them, they can visualize a building or a neighbourhood without necessarily stepping outside. Tremblett also added that renters learn their likes and dislikes through reviews. For example, she did a series of “condos my clients did not like,” which showed her clients’ perspectives, and another called “30 days of condos I would buy,” both of which received positive feedback, gained clients, and helped renters get an idea of the market and their preferences.
As easy as it sounds to use TikTok to find an apartment, she doesn’t recommend using it to get a particular unit, especially in Toronto’s fast-paced rental market.
“I’m doing content for a post, for a listing and getting it out and also using that as a virtual tour on the listing at the time, and people are commenting, and they don’t have a realtor yet, there were already seven offers by the time someone was commenting and asking about it,” Tremblett said.
@jenelle_tremblett Finding a rental in Toronto when moving from another country or city 🫶🏼 #torontorealtor #torontorealestate #torontocondos #torontorentals ♬ original sound – Jenelle | Toronto Realtor 🗝️
Renters tend to complicate their already difficult apartment search by trying to find their new home themselves, without a realtor. There’s a common misconception that finding a realtor can be expensive, but for rentals, it costs nothing.
“The landlord always pays both agents, and, in my opinion, why wouldn’t you use a realtor? You’re not paying anything for it… You’re getting free expertise, and you’re getting someone in your corner that actually cares to get you a good place,” Tremblett said.
Tips to avoid getting scammed
Beyond getting free help, Toronto realtor Yael Bunting explains that TikTok can be beneficial for discovering properties outside your search area, but emphasizes that traditional MLS systems like realtor.ca are still helpful for finding your new home.
With eight years in the industry, she noticed a significant change in her business statistics once she started her TikTok page in early February 2023, and has since gained 161.3K followers. Over the last two years, Bunting says around 50 to 60 per cent of her business came from TikTok clients.
Though it’s not always so easy and ideal, she warns prospective renters about the importance of verifying a realtor’s authenticity to avoid getting scammed.
“I’m in a field related to finances… people pretend they’re me, steal my content, and then they use that account to DM people, they use my likeness and my credibility to DM people and say that they’re me and get to like, scam them in some way,” she shared.
@yaelbunting ‼️ I only have one account, and I will never ask you for money! ‼️ #scammers #scamaccounts #psa #torontorealtor #realestateagent ♬ original sound – yael | toronto realtor + mama
If facing a potential scammer, Bunting recommends going outside of TikTok to contact a realtor, and verifying their authenticity by checking whether they have a website and reviews.
So, can you find an apartment on TikTok? Maybe. But it’s best to use it as a browsing tool to accompany your search, and find a realtor who you can verify is real, and that you can trust.
