Apartment Hunting

[Joffrey]

I plan on moving from home in a few months and I'm looking for a place in downtown DC (NE around Capitol Hill, SE right next to CH, NW relatively along the red line). Apart from craigslist anyone have ideas on good sites to find available rentals online? I'm probably a month from actively searching (responding to ads, getting in my car and checking places out) so for now I'm looking for good resources to see whats available in the city at my price point (800-1100 a month depending on whether its 2-3 Bedrooms).

 

[ken]

apartments.com, rent.com, the local newspaper's site

 

[shoreman1782]

It's a shame, but craigslist is a joke.

In that area you might want to check out/get in touch with Yarmouth management, who manage mostly apartments within houses in Capitol Hill. I have no experience, but have heard good things from friends.

I've found that the best way to find out what's around is to just pound the pavement where you want to live. The red line corridor is full of apartment buildings that don't bother advertising; just spend a Saturday walking around and getting brochures/info. If 800-1100 is your price range and you want to live by yourself, be prepared to live in a studio or small "ground-level" apartment and park on the street.

You might want to look into getting a roommate and sharing a place, which can open up your options a lot. Assuming you don't live in the district, don't forget to factor in the costs of registering your car there so you can park on the street (and the increased insurance rates that come with a DC address).

Good luck! My gf and I will be looking for a 1br this spring, though we're resigned to staying in MD, so let me know if you find anything great.

 

[scnupe7]

I never found much here, but there is also 4wallsinDC.com. I don't know about NE and SE rents, but I think it would be nearly impossible to find a place the size you want on the redline in NW for $800-$1100/month.

 

[ken]

Originally Posted by scnupe7

I never found much here, but there is also 4wallsinDC.com. I don't know about NE and SE rents, but I think it would be nearly impossible to find a place the size you want on the redline in NW for $800-$1100/month.

Midwest love.

 

[aybojs]

I actually avoided places like craigslist and the local classifieds on the grounds that, these days, they basically offer little more than spam from apartment locators. In other words, they're pretty much five pages of cleverly worded listings for the same few complexes, with all relevant details intentionally hidden so you're forced to contact a locator and suffer through their incessant spamming and shilling, where they only care about getting a paycheck for just knowing the name and rates of a complex as opposed to actually helping you. Sorry to sound bitter, but my experience was that using craigslist and the classifieds only resulted in my being thrown on the spam list of several very sleazy and annoying wannabe realtor types, some of whom still send e-mails to me every day despite being begged not to solicit anymore.

What worked for me was making a careful outline of how much I wanted to spend, what sort of place (e.g. hi-rise, large apartment complex, small duplex/fourplex type setting) would appeal to me, and what part of town I would look at. Then, as shoreman said, it helps to visit places in person, ask friends where they stay and try checking them out yourselves, and just get out there and see what might work for you. It took a while and was a pain **********, but I ended up in a place that fits me a lot better than anything I would have found doing a half-assed search through the classifieds.

 

[tiecollector]

If you are patient, some real gems pop up on craigslist, that is where I found my place, but god did I get shown some shitholes.

 

[esquire.]

Originally Posted by aybojs

I actually avoided places like craigslist and the local classifieds on the grounds that, these days, they basically offer little more than spam from apartment locators. In other words, they're pretty much five pages of cleverly worded listings for the same few complexes, with all relevant details intentionally hidden so you're forced to contact a locator and suffer through their incessant spamming and shilling, where they only care about getting a paycheck for just knowing the name and rates of a complex as opposed to actually helping you. Sorry to sound bitter, but my experience was that using craigslist and the classifieds only resulted in my being thrown on the spam list of several very sleazy and annoying wannabe realtor types, some of whom still send e-mails to me every day despite being begged not to solicit anymore.

What worked for me was making a careful outline of how much I wanted to spend, what sort of place (e.g. hi-rise, large apartment complex, small duplex/fourplex type setting) would appeal to me, and what part of town I would look at. Then, as shoreman said, it helps to visit places in person, ask friends where they stay and try checking them out yourselves, and just get out there and see what might work for you. It took a while and was a pain **********, but I ended up in a place that fits me a lot better than anything I would have found doing a half-assed search through the classifieds.

From the perspective of a landlord since I was helping somebody rent out their place, I was really pleased with Craigslist. We got more hits and traffic from Craigslist listing then we did from posting it in the local paper on Sunday even though Craiglist was free. And, with the paper, since you pay more for the more you write, I was reluctant to put in too much information. I just put the rent, location, size, and phone number in the newspaper ad. With Craigslist, it gave me the freedom to put in more details and try to build a story about the place that I would not have been willing to pay for in a newspaper ad.

And, with my place, you would have never heard about it with your methods and it would have been a shame since it was a good place. The condo assocation management was very, very anal and wouldn't allow any rental signs except in the window. But, my place was in a cul de sac, where you had to make several turns off the main road in the assocation complex to find. You could have lived in the same complex, and would have never known my place was for rent.

 

[Joffrey]

Sorry, I meant 800-1100 a person. Thanks for the suggestions though. A colleague of mine mentioned going to a realtor, i'll probably give that a shot.