How to Find a New Apartment on Craigslist

Hunting for an apartment? Try Craigslist, where people post and check out free classified ads for locations around the world. Craigslist has "for rent" ads from private landlords, so you can check out local listings for the place you are moving to without even getting out of your chair.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Internet access
• Computer
• Craigslist account

1. Get online. Visit the Craigslist Web site (see link below).

2. Use the lists of cities, states and countries to guide your search. Find the location you are moving to and click on it.

3. Look for the “Housing” section of the page and click on the type of property you want to rent. You can also hunt for sublet dwellings, if that’s what you need.

4. Screen results for your chosen location based on minimum and maximum rent, pets, number of bedrooms or whether the listing has any images attached to the ad.

5. Listings are presented with the most recent postings appearing first. Each underlined posting title is followed by the specific location in parentheses.

6. Click on a posting title to see the full description of the apartment. The description also provides an email contact for the landlord or current tenant if you would like more information.

7. Round up a few of the best apartments for rent and arrange for viewing times.

Tips & Warnings

• Locations for the United States have the most complete coverage.
• Organize many viewing times on the same day so you do not have to spend several days looking at apartments. Remember to include travel time between locations when scheduling viewings.
• Avoid site ping-pong. Postings that do not mention the rent are probably from a professional management company. Clicking on these titles will direct you to yet another Web site where you will have to start your search all over again.

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on 8/22/2009 Also, try using www.nearlots.com, it shows you available apartments on a map, tells you pricing statistics, and even lets you filter your results by commute time.