Where can I find a list of privately owned apartments in the Philadelphia area?

Try this: www.phillyblog.com and head for the forums. It's a Philly website where the forums are broken down by neighborhood. It's relatively normal site, and if you ask this there, you should get a ton of responses. Also, if you're into this area (or think you would be): www.northernliberties.org and go to the forum page there. You can try asking realtors, but I don't know how far you'll get. When things were good in Real Estate, they wouldn't give renters the time of day, but things have changed a lot. There's a woman by the name of Brooke who knows that area very well (and Fishtown, just to the north...cheaper). I'm sure her name and site is mentioned 100x on the site, and you could probably ask in both links I put up and get honest responses about her from both places. Also, go to Apartment.com (I think) where it rates places. I know it seems like it'd be a crap site, but I've looked before and compared the places I've lived, and it's honest for the most part. People give their honest reviews on there...I have before too. Finally, in all honesty, you may do better going "corporate". What you're saying makes some sense, but I know of some private renters whose property is garbage and the landlord doesn't care. It can all depend on real estate law and what people are getting in the area. I know of some who own places, but also have Section 8 places, and their focus is on doing the song-and-dance for the government so that they can get their free money, and they could care less about their normally-income producing properties.