Using Craigslist can be one of the best experiences when looking for a new home. You have to go into the process knowing that it could go good or bad, and certainly be prepared for anything. Just remember that you are going to see a lot of homes, but, there's a very good chance you'll find the one of your dreams.
Every apartment I've ever lived in I've found on Craigslist. Whether I was looking for a place by myself, with a random roommate, or with my significant other &mdash I've emailed, looked, applied and ultimately selected options I've found on Craigslist.
From an experienced Craigslist user, here are tips for finding a new home:
&bull Utilize the search options: Craigslist provides search options for a reason. If you utilize them by indicating your minimum and maximum price as well as how many bedrooms you'd like, you'll save a lot of time. You won't have to sort through options that aren't right for you.
&bull Pay attention to the neighborhoods: We all know which neighborhoods we want to live in, but make sure you have a backup. When you've selected those neighborhoods, try to focus on them and weed out the neighborhoods you know you don't want to live in.
&bull Pay attention to the pictures: When pictures are included, they are extremely important. Unfortunately for us, not everyone listing homes on Craigslist realizes the importance of them, so if they aren't comprable to ones you'd find on Apartment Therapy &mdash don't get discouraged. You can get a general idea of the space, and if there are interesting architectural details, they will feature them.
&bull Read and pay attention to every written detail: It may seem tedious, but you're ultimately looking for your next home.
&bull Don't be afraid to call: If you have any questions, call or email and ask whatever questions you might have. The more you know before seeing the home the better off you'll be.
Have you found your home on Craigslist? Have any tips to share? Let us know in the comments.
Images: Leah Ball Steen, Ellie Grover
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I found my house on Craigslist back in 2006. Actually, my friend found it for me, and sent me a link. I went to check it out that night, loved it, made an offer, and closed a couple weeks later.
I rented both my previous homes after finding them on Craigslist, and bought my home that I found on Craigslist too.
As long as you know what you want and know how to deal with the kind of stuff and people you find in Craigslist, this is the best resource to find pretty much everything you want/need.
VIVA CRAIGSLIST!
The last time we were looking for tenants for our rental property, I listed on Westside Rentals, which is sort of the old standby rental service in LA. We weren't getting as much interest as we would have liked, so I listed on Craigslist. I had never used Craigslist before for anything and was kind of aghast to find how awful the interface was. However, once I found out about templates, I was able to create a very nice-looking ad with lots of photos (I used Use.com, which is free). Within a few days we had more than 20 inquiries and quickly found our new tenants. It was a really great process.
Wow, I never would have thought to search for your house on CL! We found our current apartment, and will probably find our next one, on CL. We will have to keep our minds open when it comes to home buying.
We bought our first house after finding it on Craigslist. The previous owners made a blogspot for the home, which was a great idea on their part because they were able to put up a ton of pictures and descriptions. We were able to save a ton by not paying realtor feess, and it was actually kind of personal and nice to buy directly from the owners. Craigslist rules.
I'm all about Craigslist for everything. I found my current apartment there, and although we looked at about ten places before Mr. Hygebeorht liked one, it was a very pleasant process overall.
Another few things to keep in mind: not everyone can spell. Try a few common misspellings and abbreviations of the neighborhood or type of place you're looking for. I was looking for a place in Capitol Hill, so I also searched Cap Hill and Capital Hill.
The bad spellers are probably picking up less interest, because no one can find their listing, so they may be more accommodating if you feel you need to negotiate.
I love the power of Craigslist. My daughter and her husband have found every one of their apartments in NYC and most of their furniture through CL.
I've just listed my parent's house for sale on CL, too. You can find it here. http://ithaca.craigslist.org/reo/1893298945.html
(It's the sweetest house in the best neighborhood ever!)
I did not even up finding a home on CL, but I did find my office space... I did not even BOTHER to look elsewhere.. I knew that if I kept searching and searching I would find it... after 30+ viewings at different places I found a GREAT space to meet with clients for my biz and it was VERY reasonable considering it is NYC!
Trust your gut. If it seems a little run down in the photo, chances are it's a disaster IRL. If the owner seems persnickety on the phone, they're a controlling nut who weeps about grass length in person (yes, that happened to me). The positive side of this is applies, too. I moved into a group house with a bunch of strangers from CL and no official lease. I've been living here a year, I love my roommates, and I like my house a lot. When I walked in, I knew, and when I met the women living here, I was sold. Not that it's smart to be living without a written lease -- something we've fixed since then.
I know those seem like wild generalizations, but that's been my experience with several CL apartments and about a million emails/calls/meetings with potential landlords and roommates.
Have you considered searching craigslist with Craigseasy?
What I suggest is when there's an address at the bottom of the post or a general location or cross streets, I always google map the place! There was one place that sound awesome but when I google mapped it, it was close to a main street, which is undesirable and looked a bit dodgey.
I placed up an ad for wanting an apartment and my current place found me!
I found my most recent place using padmapper.com, which maps out craigslist postings. I'm starting graduate school and it was important to me to be in a certain neighborhood, but still walkable to campus. With Padmapper, you can tell it how many minutes by foot or by car you want to be from a certain address, and it will show you all listings in that range. Extremely useful. It's not just craigslist, it's also rent.com and some others, but I mostly went with the CL listings anyway.