For all of its faults and frustrations, Craigslist is still the place many of us go for tickets, jobs, furniture and especially apartments. After the jump you'll find some tips on making the most of your online apartment search:
1. Know what you want. In this post, I talked about having a Must Have, Nice to Have, Gravy list. Have yours at the ready (for neighborhood and apartment) before attempting a search.
2. Your budget is a range. Having a set number that you can spend on housing is important for your finances and your search. But on Craigslist, some apartments come with all, some or no utilities included in the rent. Make use of the rent range search option. If you live in a city with a seasonal rental market like Boston, you can search a bit higher than you're willing to spend if you're moving in the off-season. Landlords don't want empty apartments in the winter and may negotiate.
3. Get specific. Doing a general search for 2 bedrooms in the South End is going to give you too many pages and too much information. It is much better to be as specific as possible and do multiple searches than to try to find your way through the weeds. Try searching "2BR, South End, hardwood, heat included, cats" instead. The results are easier to manage. Not finding any gems? Switch up your search terms, try another neighborhood on your list, edit your budget.
3b. Quotation marks are your friend. Spammers got you down? Add ( -"Suzie Spammer" ) to your search terms, and voila! Less noise. This is also useful if you don't want a ( -cozy ) or ( -"walk up" ) apartment. Once upon a time, you could just search in the "apartments by owner" section, but if a realty or management company owns the property, they can post in By Owner.
4. Set up alerts. Now that you have these hardworking search terms, let Craigslist come to you. Set up email alerts or your RSS feed to receive new listings that fit your qualifiers (the RSS button is in the bottom right corner of the search results). Use this tip after you move in to make sure you get that perfect sofa before anyone else.
5. Still overwhelmed? Hire an agent. Don't work with one of those spammers-- use my tips for finding a real estate agent, as they generally apply to rental agents as well. Hiring an agent is like hiring movers-- sure, it's going to cost you some cash, but you save in time and aggravation.
What are your tips for navigating Craigslist?
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Use Padmapper! http://www.padmapper.com/
It searches through Craig's List along with a bunch of other sources, compiles them, then lets you filter what you do/don't want, and displays all the results on an easy-to-use map. Seriously, not sure how I lived before this thing.
Much easier not to use "naked" Craigslist. I use a great Firefox plug-in that makes the process much more pleasant. It probably also exists for Chrome. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/craigslist-helper Padmapper is great, but sometimes you miss good listings if the post doesn't include enough info to map it.
Hi there, Could you PLS ask the owners of the site to consider a site or a tab here for mid-century. Some of us dont like it at all and it is now flooding postings on here. Very disappointing. I respect that some do like it. Thanks
Never knew about padmapper - fantastic! I always try to search based on location anyway, and this makes it so easy.
@Edin: If you have such a problem with this blog's content, then you should email the editors instead of posting comment after off-topic comment about how much you loathe MCM. It's your opinion, man. Get over it. Or else just stop reading the blog.
Getting back to the point, the Firefox plug-in sounds great. I had no idea there was anything like that out there. Thanks for the tip.
This applies more to if you're looking for a room/shared apt - but it helps to post on "housing wanted" with a good description of yourself and what you're looking for. Alot of picky folks use that to find a new housemate rather than the other way around.
My experience is purely with Craigslist Chicago, but using keywords is really hit or miss. There are great apartments with poorly written posts (usually they are being rented by the owner without the help of a broker or management company). You might be searching for wood floors, but the ad says all new oak floors, or you search for washer and dryer and the ad says w/d.
I used to totally disregarded any ad without pictures (under the logic that if the apartment looks nice why not have pictures?) until my husband came across a post for an apartment meeting all our requirements in our budget in our desired neighborhood (first one we'd ever come across), but it didn't have pictures. We went to see it anyways and it turned out to be really nice, the owner just didn't really understand how to use craigslist.
Contact the lister even if the ad is crappy and doesn't give all the information you may want. A crappy ad will probably mean less competition and more chance you will be able to negotiate on the price (although it might just mean a crappy apartment). Go see as many places as you can, don't trust pictures alone (I know in Chicago many brokers repost pictures of other units in the same building, etc.).
Get a sense for the area you are renting and how long apartments stay on the market. In a hot neighborhood you might not need to wade through any post more than a day old.
Also if you see and ad that strikes your fancy pick out a unique phrase in it and search for that in quotes. If it shows up over and over again, it's probably either overpriced, not as described or a spammer..
I second the suggestion for Padmapper-- it made this year's apartment search infinitely easier.
You can find great places on CL, but be sure to check them out. Use CheckYourLandlord.com to make sure the person you are renting from actually owns the place and isn't going into foreclosure.
CheckYourLandlord.com and http://www.padmapper.com
not very useful outside USA...
Also, the very best time to search clist is in the morning, around 10 or so, and then again in the evening, around 6. Landlords usually have regular jobs too, so they'll take photos after work hours, and either post in the evening, or maybe from their office in the morning.
Also, in general, I don't waste a click on the posts in all CAPS! It's usually the same lackluster apartment complex posting different "features" to snare you.
From the landlord perspective, read the ad, and use keywords from the ad in your response. If I have all the relevant info in my ad, and you ask something like what neighborhood or the price (both of which are in the title), I'm less inclined to want to rent to you. It's different when you're at the place looking at it and need a reminder of the details, but reading comprehension is important!
Also, if you're moving to an area and will not be able to visit beforehand, send a friend to look at the place or set up a Skype interview (preferably both). This is especially important in a roommate situation, where you have to deal live with a person or people, and really need to get along with them.