We only got ours because we were very nice to the agent after losing out on an apartment (thanked her, asked her to keep us in mind if anything else comes up etc).

A week later she phoned us before she listed a new one, and we went to see it 3 hours later and took it.

It goes to show the human aspect still matters, a lot. That one email thanking her was probably worth way way more than eg hours spent on a bot to automate applications.

Many apartments also don’t even make it to an agent because people have friends they promise it to and refer them to the landlord.