Following the simple steps detailed in this how to, you can within minutes find an apartment using Craigslist. Craigslist is an extremely popular venue for posting housing rental ads due to the high traffic the site gets, and the fact that with the exception of brokered apartment ads in NYC housing ads on Craigslist are free of charge. Craigslist has regional sites covering over 700 regions and cities in more than 70 countries, so it is very likely you can find an apartment on Craigslist that will match your needs.http://www.craigslist.org/about/factsheet

Whether you’re looking for a studio apartment, or a 3 bedroom one, a townhome or a single-family house, this how-to will show you how to do all that, and even how to exclude things like having a pool in the apartment complex if you feel that isn’t the kind of community you’d feel comfortable in . If you’re considering buying, you can read a related article on how to buy a house on Craigslist.

The seventh highest traffic English language site in the world, Craigslist serves over 20 billion page views per month. Craigslist publishes over 50 million new ads each month.http://www.craigslist.org/about/factsheet Craigslist is a community-moderated bulletin-board, with mostly free, local classified ads. Craigslist hosts over 100 topical forums where you can find over 120 million postings by the 50 million US users and many more international ones.http://www.craigslist.org/about/factsheet Craigslist ads include used car ads, new car ads, jobs ads, textbooks for sale, etc. You can even find free stuff on Craigslist. Craigslist is also a good place to make some money, by selling items you no longer use or need, or by buying items (e.g. used computers) and reselling them at a profit.

Craigslist Terms of Use (TOU) disclaim any liability for the content of ads posted by users, or for the behavior of users in their interactions with each other.http://www.craigslist.org/about/terms.of.use For the benefit of its users, Craigslist thus provides advice on how to avoid Craigslist scams.http://www.craigslist.org/about/scams Craigslist has also posted important tips on how to stay safe while interacting with other users, which is especially important when looking for an apartment to rent, as you are going to meet the poster of the ad you are responding to in their privately-owned location.http://www.craigslist.org/about/safety In such circumstances it is advisable that you take with you a friend or relative, both to help check out the apartment, and to deter any potential violence.

The first step in finding an apartment to rent is obvious. You have to decide where you want to live. Are you looking for an apartment in Alexandria, Virginia, Georgetown, Fairfax County, or Bethesda, Maryland? With Craigslist you can easily restrict your search to one town, or look over the inventory in the entire region. You can even start several separate searches, each centering on one community. Craigslist has over 700 regional sites. This does not all localities, but especially in the US the coverage is extensive. For example, in the Washington DC area, the site includes Northern Virginia and Maryland.http://washingtondc.craigslist.org/apa/ Once you specify the region, and if applicable, the sub-region (e.g. Washington DC area, North Virginia sub-region), you can further specify the town or neighborhood you’re interested in using the search tool.

If you’re looking for a bachelor pad, you can rent a studio apartment, or a larger one. However, if you’re in the market for a rental place for a family with children, you will most likely not be interested in a 1 bedroom apartment. In the search tool area, use the pull-down menu to select the number of rooms you’re interested in.

The search tool allows you to specify a minimum and/or maximum rent. While the maximum rent part is obvious – you do not want to look at apartments you cannot afford, the minimum is almost as important. Rents that are much lower than you’d expect to pay for the apartment you’re interested in can indicate a less desirable neighborhood, a problem with the apartment itself, or possibly even that it’s a scam. Enter values in both these boxes that provide a range from a bit under what you’d expect to pay (for those cases where the landlord may not be aware of the market price, or more likely in case you’re over-estimating the market price) to a bit over what you’re interested in paying. The latter is to account for those cases where the rent is perhaps only a few dollars over your target, but this would get you a much better place to live.

If you have a dog or cat, you can click on the relevant check-boxes in the search tool area. If you want a place with access to a pool, put the term “pool” in the search bar. If you specifically do not want a place with a pool, put in a minus sign in front of the word: “-pool”. The minus sign will only work if you have at least one search term without a minus sign.

For example, on January 29, 2010, searching for a 3 bedroom apartment in Alexandria, VA where dogs are allowed, the rent is between $1500 and $2000 monthly, and there are no pools, yielded 8 results. These included two apartments, three townhomes, and three detached or single family homes.

One of these is the following (contact information removed for obvious reasons): - quote - $1850 / 3br - 3BR End unit town home (Alexandria, Va – Mount Vernon Sq) 3BR 4Bathroom end unit town home for rent. Available Feb or March 1. Recently renovated with updated appliances & bathrooms. 3 level fully carpeted. Fenced in back yard. This townhouse is located in Fairfax county portion of Alexandria. 2 reserved parking spots. 3 miles north of Fort Belvoir, couple miles to hunting Metro station. Interested parties contact (name removed) at (phone numbers removed). Must sign 1 year minimum lease. (Address removed) • cats are OK - purrr • dogs are OK - wooof • Location: Alexandria, Va - Mountvernon Sq • it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests - end quote -

At this point you read through the ads and select which are worth your time to contact the poster and possibly visit the apartment being offered. As stated above, do not provide personal information beyond name and phone number at this stage, and make sure to take someone with you when visiting the apartment or apartments you’re considering.