I've always rented. It sometimes takes more time finding a place, but, if you use the resources available (online apartment finders, or the book of apartments that you can get at your grocery store), it's not that hard. It prevents you from driving around getting told that you can only have one pet, and, they have to weigh ten pounds or less...there are a lot of funny restrictions. Heck, my cat Dusty weighed 24 pounds at one time. But, you can find places. I searched hard online each time and always managed to come out with a great apartment. I won't pay pet rent if I can avoid it, so, I try to find places that have the smallest fee to move in and with no pet rent. The last place I lived where it was an issue was in Dallas...it was $150 per pet, but, they were really cool and only made me pay for one. I had two elderly small pets at that time. The fee was non refundable, but, there was no extra monthly rent. And, some of the other places I'd looked at were as high as $600 per pet ($300 refundable). It can get crazy. But, you can find places.