SpareRoom Property Scraper

An Apify actor for scraping property listings from SpareRoom.co.uk. It's designed for unlimited, frequent use without per-result costs, automatically handling pagination and filtering duplicates.

Overview

This actor collects detailed room and property listings from SpareRoom.co.uk based on your search criteria. You provide a search URL, and it returns structured data including price, location, description, and contact information. Data is stored in an Apify dataset for easy access and analysis.

Key Features

• Unlimited Usage: Run as often as needed; no per-scrape fees.
• Automatic Pagination: Scrapes all pages of your search results.
• Duplicate Filtering: Excludes duplicate listings by default (configurable).
• Proxy Support: Built-in configuration for Apify Proxy.
• Structured Output: Returns consistent JSON data for each property.
• Python Backend: Uses robust scraping and data processing libraries.

How to Use

1. Get Your Search URL:

   • Go to SpareRoom.co.uk, enter a location, and apply filters (price, room type, etc.).
   • Copy the full URL from your browser's address bar once results load. It should look like:
     https://www.spareroom.co.uk/flatshare/?search_id=1234567890&mode=list

2. Run the Actor:

   • In your Apify Console, locate the "SpareRoom Scraper" actor.
   • Click "Run", paste your search URL into the startUrls input field, and start the actor.

Tip: For regular monitoring, set up scheduled runs. The actor tracks new listings and handles duplicates automatically.

Input Configuration

Configure the actor using a JSON input similar to this:

{
  "startUrls": [
    {
      "url": "https://www.spareroom.co.uk/flatshare/?search_id=1363034394&mode=list"
    }
  ],
  "includeDuplicates": false,
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "useApifyProxy": true
  }
}

• startUrls: (Required) One or more SpareRoom search URLs to scrape.
• includeDuplicates: Set to true to disable duplicate filtering.
• proxyConfiguration: Configure proxy settings, typically using useApifyProxy: true.

Output

The actor outputs each property listing as a structured JSON object. Key fields include:

Results are saved to an Apify dataset in JSON format, ready for export to spreadsheets, databases, or other analysis tools.

Development & Deployment

The actor is built with Python. For local development or deployment:

1. Install dependencies: pip install -r requirements.txt
2. Run locally: python src/main.py
3. Deploy to Apify using the Apify CLI (apify push)

Related Actors

For other property data sources, see:
* Openrent Property Scraper - Scrapes property listings from OpenRent.co.uk.

License

MIT