A House Hunting “Help!”
This boy is still in my house, still on my couch, still homeless.
He sends out emails, he goes to open houses, but yet rejected he is again. What might he be doing wrong? What might he do better?
I know you know the pain of looking for a place in DC. We’ve all been there, and hope not to be there again. And we all can at least image the how a month on a couch ain’t good for family relations.
So do me, do him, do all of us a favor: spill you [apartment, room, group] house hunting secrets, and spill them now!
Try homesdatabase.com
First, make sure you pick an agent on this site. It DOES NOT MATTER who the agent is, just as long as that agent’s ugly mug shows up on your screen when you search for properties. When you do this, you’ll get extra infomation (remarks, addresses, etc) for each property you view.
Oops, maybe I wasn’t clear enough – Jose needs to find an apartment/room to rent, not buy.
Craigslist, Craigslist, Craigslist. Craigslist some more.
Perhaps it’s time he broadened his horizons to the inner burbs, too?
I was in the exact same predicament last year. Tell him that you have a friend visiting in x number of days and that you need the space. They’ll get the message and hurry up their (likely so far lackadaisical) search and find a place. If they can’t find a decent place through craigslist they’re hopeless.
Wasn’t there an article in the WaPo on the travails of getting into a group house earlier this summer? I think one of the suggestions in that article was to bring a 6-pack of beer along.
I agree with Tom’s reccomendation to hit up Craigslist. Could also have something to do with his price range, preferences for where to live, the fact that colleges started up recently, etc.
There may also be something he could do to makea better impression at the open houses. Whenever I was renting out space in my house, I looked for people who were dressed well, spoke with clearly articulated thoughts, had a good sense of humor, and were easygoing. Compatability is key!
Send him out walking the streets, writing down the number of every “for rent” sign he sees.
The other thing I would suggest is looking under “rental management” in the yellow pages and call everyone listed to ask for a vacancies list. The important word there: call. Not email. Email is too easy for blowing you off, but a phone call means you have someone’s attention until they hang up.
HousingMaps.com makes looking at the craigslist entries about a million times more pleasant if you have anything resembling a location preference.