Help me search Craigslist Housing More Efficienctly

July 26, 2015 8:25 PM

I am currently searching for housing on Craigslist and have found some really good places and gotten good responses from them. The one thing that determined whether people responded was if I reached them on their cell phone or could text them. Those who permitted you to contact them via the craigslist-coded email almost never responded

Is there a way to search for housing, in say Boston or NYC, for rooms shared in such a way that it will seek out those listings where the preferred method of contacting the individual includes a phone number or is hidden behind a "Show Contact Info" link.

posted by RapcityinBlue to Technology (5 answers total)

RapidcityinBlue, I can not see anything in Craigslist that would allow you to filter out ads without direct phone numbers in your search criteria. The fact that you are seeking sublets or shared space indicates it is probably not the landlord/owner placing the ad, and therefore it is very possible that the mind-set and responsiveness you are encountering is therefore much different than what I subscribe to as a building owner. Have you tried reaching out to your Social Media Networks to see if anyone you know might know someone looking for a roommate or subletter in NYC or Boston? Best of luck.
posted by Lylo at 9:53 PM on July 26, 2015

Mod note: A couple of comments deleted; let's just stick to the actual question, please. OP has affirmed they are specifically asking about this form of of contact. If you disagree with the strategy, or are a landlord who doesn't include cell phone, that's fine, but doesn't help answer this question.)
posted by taz (staff) at 10:23 PM on July 26, 2015

Have you tried looking for advanced craigslist search engines? Unfortunately, I don't think the third-party search engines will be designed to only include listing with phone numbers. Here are some examples of what they look like. Craiglist doesn't have this feature built in that I know of or can find, even in their own advanced search. You could try using craiglist's phrase search for something like "text" or "call" - a word that should appear in an ad with a phone number, but not in one without.

For what it's worth, I just got an apartment recently by emailing the anonymous craigslist email thing in the ad. I always include my phone number to make it clear it's a serious inquiry. I also think that a phone call/voicemail identifies a lot about you instantly, so you need to do that in email. The person hearing you on the other end can tell if you're male or female, young or old, educated or not, just by listening to you talk. When I email someone about an apartment, I always include a brief "about me" letting them know who I am and what my situation is.

I think more fake ads don't include numbers, which may explain why phone seems more successful to you, too. I also think people who list ads with just an email are more likely to leave the ad up and let it expire rather than remove it once an apartment is taken, because ignoring unwanted email is easy.
posted by AppleTurnover at 11:56 PM on July 26, 2015

My first thought was to set up an If This Than That (IFTTT) recipe for Craigslist and have it do the work for you. I see that people have set up scripts based on anything for which you can search, and have created recipes to email when an apartment is listed and even to create a Google spreadsheet to document to view rather than go to the original listing.

Here is a list of some of the recipes currently listed:
https://ifttt.com/recipes/search?q=Craigslist&ac=true
posted by terrapin at 5:18 AM on July 27, 2015

Advanced search is the only thing that makes CL housing searches tolerable in my mind.
e.g.
~neighborhood~ (cell|phone|call) -email -mail
Live example here
posted by Jack Karaoke at 11:51 PM on July 27, 2015