It's works fine for me. If you see an apartment you want after seeing it just say "I like this place, I want to rent it, can I put down a deposit so you don't rent it to someone else in the meantime?" If they say no they weren't going to rent you the apartment anyway. Yeah do the app, but that won't hold the apartment for you and there's no point paying the fee if they aren't going to rent to you anyway
That's what the deposit is for genius.