Why can so many people get away with overposting on craigslist?

July 28, 2011 6:28 AM

Apartment hunting in NYC is a major pain for almost everyone. But lately it seems that craigslist overposters are winning the battle of keeping their listings on top, and posting the same property an obscene amount of times each day. If your looking for a particular neighborhood and price range, you will click and see the same aprartment over and over, sometimes for weeks at a time. They must be getting flagged. I flag people when it is obvious. Why are they not banned? I guess the question is, what can I do? Is flagging really helping, or is it just a placebo?

2. Also, what are some other good alternates to CL? (FAQ, I know, but new resources appear all the time)

Thanks all...

posted by shimmer to Computers & Internet (6 answers total)

Response by poster: Also, feel free not to directly divulge specific technology to help other people do this.
posted by shimmer at 6:34 AM on July 28, 2011

I flag them, too. I don't know why it happens.

If you have the money, go through a broker.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 6:40 AM on July 28, 2011

You can try Padmapper which is a nice interactive google map that drops in pins in for available apartments and sublets. It scrapes CL and other rental websites for its data. I've used it very successfully.
posted by firetruckred at 6:56 AM on July 28, 2011 [4 favorites]

Seconding padmapper. It's how my boyfriend and I found the place we're moving to this Friday.
posted by ocherdraco at 7:06 AM on July 28, 2011

Best answer: @ shimmer. I think the problem is not the listing itself, but the fact that numerous brokers have access said listing and then post it under their account. Meaning, if you have one listing and twenty brokers, you will probably have twenty postings for that one listing, all from different people.

The reason for this is that these are probably open listings and not exclusives. Meaning, a landlord will tell a firm, "hey, I have a new apartment, all of your brokers should come and check it out." So then you have all the brokers come and then post pics. Sure, the pics (or entire layout) may be the same because the firm is giving the listing to all its brokers, but at the end of the day, you are probably dealing with lots of different people instead of one person with the same listing a million times (for the most part).

My suggestion is to find a search that you like and turn it into an RSS feed. That way you can breeze through duplicate listings with ease and quickly find out about the new ones.
posted by darkgroove at 8:25 AM on July 28, 2011

Padmapper, streeteasy, hotigloos.com (owned by a friend), etc. I know lots of people here love Craigslist; personally I hate it. For most of the reasons you mention above.

Also you don't mention your budget but Craigslist may not be the best resource if you're looking at higher end rentals in Manhattan.
posted by dfriedman at 8:26 AM on July 28, 2011 [1 favorite]