Why does apartment hunting still suck? | Hacker News Reader

Why does apartment hunting still suck?

3 pointsSkywing5 comments

There are so many apartment hunting websites, but they're all so terrible. Most are just covered with ads and redirect to listings created on other sites. Rent.com is decent, but it's still a little "meh" - it just feels like it has no heart. Padmapper is decent, but it just feels like a pet project that isn't innovating any more.

I feel like this is a market with no real great tool for this. I can't say that anything that I've used has given me a "wow what a great experience" reaction.

I don't know what the "best" way of doing this would be, probably very similar to how other sites do it, but just with minor tweaks to make them more relevant or something.

Just some thoughts from somebody currently looking for an apartment!

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Have you explored MapThatPad (www.mapthatpad.com) ? It's not your everyday listing site, but an apartment hunting organizational tool. It takes 2 steps to easily pull in and map as many listings from Craigslist, streeteasy, Oodle, NYtimes and other sites. You can share your maps and invite friends to collaborate on your hunt. Not to mention, that you can see all important nearby amenities such as restaurants, groceries and transit (for NYC and SF).

Simple: almost all listings are from agents / agencies. Their incentive is to rent as many apartments as possible, as often as possible, at as low a risk as possible.

This is why I only rent directly from private owners who have 1-3 units total. Then the negotiation can proceed among equals, and there's a far higher likelihood of getting treated like a human being.

Of course, finding apartments becomes much more difficult under these constraints, but it's been worth it to me.

I agree with you 100%. I went to an agency that said they help you find an apartment free and turns out there is a total of $400 in fees, so much for free. I'm going to go back to the old school way, looking in the newspaper at least they are somewhat straight forward!

it sucks because the data they all aggregate sucks. landlords are lazy and agents purposely withhold information so you have to contact them directly.

house hunting sites are usually much better because most of their data comes from a standard source (the mls) with defined fields.

padmapper.com helps relieve a lot of the pain, but not all of it.

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