Renting an apartment in Rome

We used the VRBO website and had a pleasant experience. The apartment had overall positive reviews and the owner frequently commented on the comments. We did find that the apartment description was not entirely accurate. An example is the apartment description stated that there was a private hot tub with jets which turned out to be a tub in the bathroom with a faucet. The pictures helped to clarify most of the language confusion. Our apartment owner did speak enough English to explain how the appliances worked and provided us with local information about the area. I did note that there were no smoke alarms nor did I find a fire extinguisher.
We would say the experience was positive and an apartment worked well for us.

The Slow Travel website has numerous reviews of apartments by Slow travel members. You might want to check out their website.

Thanks! This past September we rented an apartment in Paris and had a very good experience. Unfortunately the company only rents in Paris or we would use them again.
I will check out slowtrav.com for reviews. So far it seems that sleepinitaly.com and rentalinrome.com have some nice apartments. Will see if I can find any positive/negative reviews on them.

I've used Sleep in Italy twice in Rome and had really good experiences. I second the Slow Travel recommendation, as well as flipkey for reviews. Lots of times if you google the name and agency of an apartment that interests you, some reviews will pop up.

Carefully read the descriptions and study the pictures. Don't assume anything. If it's not listed or pictured it doesn't exist. If there is no picture of an over- there is no oven. Contact the owner or rental agency and ask how old the pictures are. If they are more than a year old ask if you can see more recent photos. This can help eliminate some of the run-down places that you might not wish to stay at. Make sure you fully understand when payments are due and have phone numbers of several contacts from the company or owner in case of emergency. Donna

You may also want to look at Sleep in Rome .it.
We used them last march, and the apartment was just as described. My sisters' criteria is the bed coverings... if she doesn't like them, we don't rent it. The same would apply to paint color, if you don"t like orange, the apt will probably not be the one for you.

Not sure of your price range, but we had a fantastic experience using Internazionale Domus to rent a stunning apartment in an 18th century building overlooking the Piazza di Spagna. www.internazionaledomus.com

I keep hearing great things about the Palazzo Olivia apartments in Rome. They were our second choice, if we hadn't got our first. http://www.palazzo-olivia.it/

I just booked our apartment at Palazzo Olivia for March. It looked good on the web plus near Piazza Navona which is a good location.