Should I pay for an apartment listing service?

October 21, 2005 6:43 PM

Should I pay for an apartment listing service?

I'm looking on craigslist and these guys keep showing up. Is it legitimate/worth it?

posted by jclovebrew to Home & Garden (5 answers total)

No. They're all scams.

If you were listing your apartment for rent, would you:

a) post an ad on Craigslist, costs nothing, LOTS of readers
b) post an ad in the Village Voice (or local equivalent), cost $50, LOTS of readers
c) give an exclusive to some shit-ass apartment listing service with a grand total of two subscribers? Do you think your apartment is going to get rented if you do that?

Ergo, they have no exclusive listings. Ergo, they provide no service to you that you can't get on your own. Ergo, you should read Craigslist or your local weekly for apartment listings.

Note: I signed up for one of those once. It was a scam. They faxed me listings copied out of the Village Voice, several days afer the Voice came out, for a week or two, then stopped and I was never able to contact them again.
posted by jellicle at 9:12 PM on October 21, 2005

When I moved to my current location, housing was incredibly tight, and I was having a huge problem trying to find places to rent that were actually available within the next 3 months.

It didn't help that I got transfered here 1 month after college restarted for the year and there were 12,000 extra students in town.

I did end up using a service, and found a great place to rent.
If I moved here today, I wouldn't consider using a service because our area now has an oversupply of rentals and there are vacancies everywhere.
posted by whoda at 6:01 AM on October 22, 2005

You might get one or two good stories from people about listing services, but in my experience, you'll get far better and far more stories about Craigslist, the Village Voice, and networking with friends. They listing services are either legal rip-offs or illegal frauds. Jellicle's advice is right on target.
posted by Mo Nickels at 7:51 AM on October 22, 2005

Just to add that listing services aren't frauds everywhere -- here in LA there are a couple of services that are actually quite decent (the second one escapes me). I've lived here for ten years and every apartment I've ever gotten has been through westside rentals. And I always scour craigslist, the papers, everything until eventually breaking down after a week or two and spending the money, at which point I find a great place at a decent price in a couple of days. I'd never use one in NYC, but here in LA, I think it's worth it.
posted by incessant at 10:54 AM on October 22, 2005

Since vacancy rates in Toronto jumped a lot of appartments have been using viewit.ca
posted by Chuckles at 10:25 PM on October 22, 2005