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Learning, Sharing, and Teaching => Ask a Mustachian => Topic started by: Joel on May 27, 2013, 04:50:01 PM

Title: Finding affordable apartment in Sacramento? (or any city for that matter)
Post by: Joel on May 27, 2013, 04:50:01 PM
How do you guys find an affordable apartment to live in?

I live with my girlfriend in the Sacramento area, and we are hoping to move to an area closer to my work (and her new job).

Currently we have a nice 750 sq ft apartment that includes air conditioning, a washer and dryer, fits a king size bed, and is cat friendly.

I am having an absolutely terrible time trying to find something comparable near downtown sacramento. I am attempting to find apartments using craigslist, but the problem is whenever I look for downtown sacramento or east sacramento, I get all sorts of crap that does not fit what I am looking for.

How do you guys go about finding a place to live near your work that has the amenities you want?

We found our current apartment with forrent.com but I am having a terrible time being able to narrow down our radius to the area I am actually interested in.
Title: Re: Finding affordable apartment in Sacramento? (or any city for that matter)
Post by: Ellen on May 27, 2013, 07:41:26 PM
I'd consider doing three things:

1) walking around the areas of midtown Sacramento that you're interested in and following up on any For Rent signs. A lot of landlords are older and not inclined to use craigslist.

2) posting an ad in the Housing Wanted section of craigslist to let landlords come looking for you (I've never done this but friends of mine have with great success).

3) when searching on craigslist, put in very specific names of streets (I know it's hard in Sacramento because they're usually numbers or letters), restaurants, or parks that you want to be close to--that should narrow down the pool quite a bit.

Good luck.
Title: Re: Finding affordable apartment in Sacramento? (or any city for that matter)
Post by: cosmie on May 27, 2013, 08:01:43 PM
2) posting an ad in the Housing Wanted section of craigslist to let landlords come looking for you (I've never done this but friends of mine have with great success).

This. I was able to find a fantastic place this way. My landlady said she felt a bit uneasy posting an ad on Craigslist, but she had less of an issue perusing through the Housing Wanted and responding to the ones that articulated well and fit what she was looking for.
Title: Re: Finding affordable apartment in Sacramento? (or any city for that matter)
Post by: velocistar237 on May 28, 2013, 08:24:15 AM
Have you tried the map view?

http://sacramento.craigslist.org/search/apa?useMap=1