Ask HN: What besides Craigslist is a good way to find an apartment in the Bay Area? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What besides Craigslist is a good way to find an apartment in the Bay Area?

9 pointsgruseom21 comments

I'm looking on Craigslist and a few other sites Google dredged up, but can't help feeling there's a better way to go about doing this. Anybody?

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Yeah, bay area apartment searching is a bitch. CL is by far the best tool though, you just have to learn how to do it right.

The biggest tip is to post a 'room wanted' ad - most people will only post a room if they don't find a fit there. Make your post stand out - don't give the same boring life story that everyone does - it's not relevant for a house. Post your phone number and the times you're available. When you inspect, make sure you're prepared to write a check on the spot (and say that you can in your post).

It's easy to get desperate and take anything that is offered, but don't let desperation convince you to settle for something that will piss you off in a months time. Short term hotels are a good solution while looking for a place - you can get a small dorm-style room for around $500 per month, month-to-month rent.

Good luck!

Thank you kindly, that's just the sort of tip I was hoping for.

I want to know too -- I'm moving there in January.

I've been looking on housingmaps.com and using earthify.org w/ Google Maps, trying to find a place that looks like it would be a feasible commute.

I can't decided if I'd be content to just rent a room from someone with an apartment (like I've always done in Boston), or if it's better to go for a full-fledged apartment of my own.

Depending on the city, look for local management companies that own multiple complexes. I'm in Palo Alto and Vittoria Management has like 10 buildings (vrent.com). They will post them on their website before posting them on Craigslist. Things go so fast on CL that's it's not even worth it.

For what it's worth, I live in a Vittoria Management apartment in Palo Alto, and I've been satisfied with their management.

Same here, except they yelled at me once for doing laundry after 10pm :-P

CL is pretty definitive, although walking around and looking for signs or working your network can yield results. If you have a smart HR department they're often helpful as well.

Especially in San Francisco it's going to be brutal and pretty much a full-time job. Keep a rental resume (metrorent app, credit report, letter of reference, etc) handy and try offering to pay the move-in cost on the spot if you fall in love with a place.

It's significantly easier to find a place if you're (a) willing to share an apt (there are tons of professional people around splitting fairly nice apartments) or (b) willing to live in a professionally-managed apartment complex/tower/whatever. If you go with an apt complex in SF, avoid Skyline/CitiApartments.

I used http://www.apartmentratings.com when I first moved here.

And based on the reviews of the apartment complexes I decided to go with something private. The best way to find that was Craigslist. I live in a cottage behind someone's house in the middle of Mountain View. The rent is reasonable, I get along great with my landlord, and it's a very comfortable situation.

It's a shame things aren't set up more like Australia. Most apartments there are all privately owned, generally between 8-40 per complex, and a far nicer overall experience.

Slightly OT, but can we expand this question to the Seattle area as well?

I just moved to Seattle using Craigslist. That's how I found Stanford (http://www.stanfordatuw.com/). Pretty cheap and in an awesome location in the U-district. Good luck.

I wrote a blog post about moving to the city a couple months back, it might be helpful to some people: http://is.gd/9sPS

I got a copy of the Apartments For Rent magazine from a friend (I believe you can get it from ForRent.com) and found a lot of places that weren't there on Craigslist or Rent.com. It's useful to just call up the apartments directly to find out if they have anything.

Kind of old school but find a local real estate agent that lists rentals or manages properties. They can give you a list of apartments that fit you needs and you won't have to spend so much time dealing with flakes on CL. Worked for me.

I'm not living in the bay but HotPads.com seems like it would be useful anywhere.

When I had to find a place, I wrote a script to alert me to new worthwhile postings.

I find an RSS reader is pretty good at this too.

I don't believe craigslist has RSS for apartment listing searches, FYI.

I have an apartment in SF with a room opening up in January. Email is in my profile.

Walk around the neighborhoods you like, look for 'for rent' signs.

That's what I do when I'm already living in the area. In this case, it's harder - I'm in Canada - but may take a trip down just for this purpose.

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