Apartment Rental Scraper Tracker

Apartment Scraper to Google Sheets

This workflow automatically searches the internet for current apartment rental listings (specifically configured for two-room apartments in Berlin, though fully customizable), scrapes detailed information from selected listings, and organizes the data into a Google Sheets spreadsheet. It runs daily and sends a summary email with new and updated listings.

What this workflow does

1. Triggers daily at a specified time.
2. Uses an AI agent to search the internet for relevant apartment listings on multiple real estate sites.
3. Visits each listing URL to extract detailed apartment information.
4. Parses the extracted data and prepares it for Google Sheets.
5. Retrieves existing listing URLs from the Google Sheet.
6. Compares new listings with existing ones to identify new and updated entries.
7. Upserts new and existing listings into the Google Sheet and sends a summary email.

What you need

1. Needle platform account with permission to schedule workflows and use AI tools.
2. Google Sheets account with API access and a spreadsheet created to store apartment listings.
3. Gmail account connected for sending summary emails.

Extracted Data Fields

The AI agent extracts the following details from each listing:

How the flow works

1. Scheduled Trigger: Starts the workflow every day at 9 AM.
2. Needle AI Agent: Runs a controlled search on the web with specific queries. It filters out invalid or unavailable listings and extracts key details into a structured format.
3. Code Step: Parses the AI text output to extract a structured array of listings and prepares each listing for insertion into Google Sheets.
4. Google Sheets (Get Existing URLs): Fetches the URLs of listings already stored in the sheet to detect duplicates and updates.
5. Merge Step: Combines the new listings data with existing Google Sheets URLs for comparison.
6. Comparison Code: Analyzes which listings are new and which are existing based on URLs. Computes counts of total, new, and updated listings.
7. Google Sheets (Upsert Rows): Updates existing listing rows or inserts new rows in the spreadsheet based on the URL key, ensuring the sheet stays current without duplicates.
8. Gmail (Send Email): Sends a daily summary email with counts of new and updated apartments, includes a link to the spreadsheet, and lists new apartment details for quick review.

Notes

1. This workflow relies on text recognition of apartment availability. Listings that use unusual phrasing for unavailability might not be filtered perfectly.
2. The AI agent is limited to publicly accessible listings and cannot bypass login walls or paywalled content.
3. Be sure to set up the Google Sheet with the correct columns to match the data array order for proper upsertion.
4. The scheduling and timezone can be adjusted to better fit your availability or apartment search pattern.