Best method to find apartment in L.A.?

[jkennett]

Looks like I might be moving out to LA in a couple weeks. I need to find an apartment and have never had luck with craigslist. Any sites, agents, etc. I should check into?

I read something about westside rentals in an old thread, but a search via google and yelp showed that company to be a ripoff.

(I may also be looking at places in Las Vegas, if there are any location specific sites for that city.)

 

[lawyerdad]

Originally Posted by jkennett

Looks like I might be moving out to LA in a couple weeks. I need to find an apartment and have never had luck with craigslist. Any sites, agents, etc. I should check into?

I read something about westside rentals in an old thread, but a search via google and yelp showed that company to be a ripoff.

Honestly, when I was apartment hunting in LA I used to just use the newspaper, or just drive around the neighborhoods I was interested in. Do you know what part of town you want to live in?

 

[jkennett]

Originally Posted by lawyerdad

Do you know what part of town you want to live in?
Yeah. Parts of Hollywood, Los Feliz, Silverlake, South Pasadena are all on my radar.

 

[lawyerdad]

Originally Posted by jkennett

Yeah. Parts of Hollywood, Los Feliz, Silverlake, South Pasadena are all on my radar.

Well, the good news is that those areas are pretty well stocked with apartments. You'll see a ton of places with "for lease" signs just driving around Hollywood and Los Feliz. I work near Hollywood and cut through the north-south streets of Hollywood and WeHo a lot; I've been noticing lots of signs. Silverlake is trickier just because of the windy streets and whatnot make it a bit tougher to canvas, but I doubt you'll have much trouble there, either. I don't know South Pas that well, but friends who lived there always seemed to live in large-ish corporate buildings of the type that have fairly regular vacancies.

 

[matadorpoeta]

craigslist has worked for me. also, just drive around. it's that simple.

 

[whodini]

LD's advice is probably what I'd say. When I live(d) in Los Feliz, I'd see people driving around all the time taking down leasing info from buildings with vacancies. The parts of town you mentioned are so popular that they don't need to advertise aside from a sign out in front so I'm not too surprised that you haven't had luck on cl or other websites.

This is all assuming you have a car. If not, I'm not sure what you're going to do about living in LA.

Having grown up in Los Feliz I'm partial to the area. I have friends who live in apartments on Los Feliz blvd and there are constantly vacancies. Silver Lake can be kind of mess to apt hunt like LD said but if you're looking for something more quiet it'd be worth a look. South Pas is absolutely loaded with apartments/condos/etc, especially around where Fair Oaks hits the 110. Another good bet might Eagle Rock as it's been changing into the "new" Silver Lake over the past few years.

Welcome to the neighborhood.

 

[Xericx]

Get the NEIGHBORHOOD local papers in the coffee shops of the areas you want to live in. They have a lot of classifieds there. Driving around helps too, but it gets boring.

 

[jkennett]

LD- Thanks for the advice. I'll def. just drive around and see what I can find.

Whodini- The detailed advice on specific locations should be really useful. I have a car, though a european friend of mine might be accompanying me. She doesn't have a valid license, so I'll have to work something out for her.... like getting her a license and car asap.

Thanks everyone.

 

[Baron]

Craiglist is the best way to go, combined with driving around in the neighborhoods you like. Craigslist will have tons of listings. There's also this woman: http://www.therentalgirl.com/ whom I've met a few times and who usually have sevaral nice listings in the neighborhoods you're looking at.

 

[jkennett]

Baron- Thanks. i'll check the rental girl out. i've been looking at craigslist a bit and agree that it works better for LA than for Washington, DC. It was pretty much awful for that market.

 

[teddieriley]

my sister is looking around. just visit the neighborhood you are interested in and start driving around and calling the posted numbers. Many of these are not listed on westside rentals and craigslist.

Craiglist is a decent way to start your search, but be aware there is a lot of crap on there. I think it is free to post, so you will get some pretty ghetto ass listing there that you otherwise wouldn't with a service like westside rentals.

If anything, search CL for a used westside rental's password. Many times people find things faster than the 60-day subscription. You can get a password for 50% off or less as people want to recover some of their cost.

 

[jkennett]

teddieriley- Thanks for the info. I might have to check out that westside stuff on craigslist this week. I'm actually starting my drive west next sunday, and should arrive after a somewhat leisurely week and half trip in LA.

 

[the.chikor]

Originally Posted by jkennett

Yeah. Parts of Hollywood, Los Feliz, Silverlake, South Pasadena are all on my radar.


All good places to live, but where are you going to work? This is important, e.g., b/c if you live in South Pas-which is a great area-plenty of small apartments, homes for rent, etc (although, I used to live there and don't really know of any large corporate buildings for residential lease?)-but have to work in downtown, or worse yet, the "westside," you are looking at a substantial commute time and headache in the morning and the evening; provided you work normal business hours. So, you might justy want to try and find a place that is closest to your work or at least drive the route to work that you anticipate taking every morning; it might just change your mind about where you want to live. I wouldn't recommend leases (although a lot of places want year long leases) if you can help it b/c are new to the area and might sign, move in and then figure out a million reasons why you made a horrible choice-all of which were not reasonably foreseeable when you "drove by" or signed the lease. Also, ask someone who knows the areas to show you around, otherwise you could be driving fruitlessly for quite some time and spinning your wheels.

 

[Get Smart]

if yer here in a couple weeks you might be able to make it to an "LA area" SF meetup when whodini is back in town

 

[mrgoodeals]

You could literally drive around and find a minimum of two vacant apartments a minute. If you don't want to go through that; there is this company called westside rentals. They have a huge database and u narrow it down by everything you want in your apartment. They charge a membership; if it's worth it to you, check it out. I used it to find my apt about a year ago. It's free for owners to list their vacancies; so they have a lot for you to choose, and most of them have pics of the apt.