[5] Los Angeles Times writer Leigh Haber called the book "one of the most nuanced, astute critiques of America now I’ve read in years" and "frequently hilarious".

[1] John Warner, writing for the Chicago Tribune, says that the author is "three for three on delivering sharp, funny, sneakily emotional stories" and that the book is "driven by Wang’s devastating deadpan wit" and is "truly a marvel".

[6] In a review for The Washington Post, Porter Shreve calls the novel "funny, deceptively keen and artful" and says that the overly staged houses gives the book a "quiet depth and sadness" with its lack of personality.

[7] In an article for The New York Times, author Alexandra Kleeman calls the structure "elegantly off-kilter" with a "disruptive quality" that "peel back the layers of the central relationship".

She says that unlike the author's prior works, Rental House is "rarely enlivened with humor or wit" and called the use of third person narration "rote" and having a "clocklike regularity".