I need to find an apartment • Hacker News Board

Re: I need to find an apartment

#221

Post by vanilla_nut » Sat, Apr 09, 2022, 9:51 PM UTC

asoneth wrote: post #207

ghaff wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While true, I suspect most of the people who are looking for walkability want something more than a small town with a pub, a small market, and maybe a couple other stores/cafes/etc. I've stayed in many of those small towns and they can be very pleasant--but there's not a whole lot within easy walking distance.

My partner and I were looking for a walkable urban neighborhood but ultimately ended up in a small town with a pub, market, cafe, store... and a train to the big city. Couldn't be happier, but I wouldn't recommend it to someone who is single.

Likewise, chose a cute little New England town when I realized that the benefits of living in a city are mostly... drunks, drugs, and concerts that are neat, but I'm unlikely to attend.

There's culture and museums and lots of different food in cities, but all I really need is a small smattering of decent establishments in exactly the vein you just mentioned. And of course a good environment for working from home.

Re: I need to find an apartment

#222

Post by dan-robertson » Sat, Apr 09, 2022, 9:56 PM UTC

6gvONxR4sf7o wrote: post #188

extesy wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The simple answer is rent control: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-03-02/berlin...

Rent control needs means testing. It suppresses mobility when the googler making $300k doesn’t move to a place they’d rather have because their current unit is so far below market rate, which hurts the minimum wage worker who could have lived there.

Are there many googlers making $300k in Berlin?

Re: I need to find an apartment

#223

Post by bsder » Sat, Apr 09, 2022, 10:01 PM UTC

sonicggg wrote: post #49

aqme28 wrote: post #34

I'm currently searching in Berlin and the market has become insane. Here's a response I got yesterday: "With more than 1200 prospective tenants, it was really difficult for the landlord to make a decision. Unfortunately, we have to inform you that the landlord has decided on other prospective tenants. Thank you for your understanding! "

The pandemic allowed remote work to flourish. Why are people still crowding the cities? And of all the places, specially Berlin. Not even that great of a city. A lot of my friends fled the city.

> The pandemic allowed remote work to flourish. Why are people still crowding the cities?

Because the top employers by number of people are all about schlepping shit from A (where population isn't) to B (where population is), and that can't be done remotely. Then you have the manufacturers, and that can't be done remotely either.

Most jobs cannot be done solely using a computer keyboard.

Re: I need to find an apartment

#224

Post by throwawayboise » Sat, Apr 09, 2022, 10:25 PM UTC

timr wrote: post #133

edmcnulty101 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What kind of agent? Just a. real estate agent?

Essentially. In NYC, many real estate agents will represent the renter for a service fee, just like they represent the buyer in a purchase transaction. It supplements the income that comes from the higher-value (but much less regular) money that they get from sales. There are agencies that make most of their business in this area, and generally have better rate structures (typically a month or two of rent, flat rate)…

If the agent is in any way getting compensated when you sign a lease, or as a percentage of the rent, or anything like that, they are not working for you.

The only way they might be working for you is if you are paying them an hourly rate or per showing or something like that.

Re: I need to find an apartment

#225

Post by throwawayboise » Sat, Apr 09, 2022, 10:28 PM UTC

novocantico wrote: post #43

aqme28 wrote: post #34

I'm currently searching in Berlin and the market has become insane. Here's a response I got yesterday: "With more than 1200 prospective tenants, it was really difficult for the landlord to make a decision. Unfortunately, we have to inform you that the landlord has decided on other prospective tenants. Thank you for your understanding! "

You gotta get creative. Walking down the street I met this one guy who's like 70, eccentric, military vet, owns the house, and rents it out individual rooms for $550/month. He's paid off the mortgage, just needs to pay taxes, and he's clearly making a profit since he's retired and constantly has new projects working on the house. For context that's 1/3 asking price out here.

In the past I've done something like this: pick the neighborhood you're interested in. Go there and walk or drive around looking for "For Rent" signs. Look at public bulletin boards in markets and laundromats. Start making calls.

That worked in the 1990s. Not sure it's viable today.

Re: I need to find an apartment

#226

Post by pipeline_peak » Sat, Apr 09, 2022, 10:30 PM UTC

> TL;DR: I hate apartment hunting, I’ve tried to make it as interesting as possible by creating a pipeline with different tools and languages to scrape data…..

Grow up, learn to take on boring tasks without playing with toys

Re: I need to find an apartment

#227

Post by foobarian » Sat, Apr 09, 2022, 10:36 PM UTC

jean-malo wrote: post #42

In highly competitive markets the good apartments don't even make it to the websites that aggregate listings before someone takes them. The ones that do are either very expensive or will have 20+ people showing up the next day (sometimes the same day) for a visit. It's crazy and while this article is very neat I'm not sure a bot that scrapes listing in batch is the answer.

A long time ago I knew someone who's parents found them an excellent apartment at a great price in Boston. Great neighborhood, 2BR, nicely kept, off-street parking, you name it. Few years later they had to move since the owner was selling the place, and went on an apartment search by themselves (using an agency). Could not find anything anywhere near nice at that price point, and settled on something a lot more expensive.

I decided that their parents must have tipped/bribed the original agent to get at that listing (since none of these ever made it to any search site, not that there were many at that time).

Re: I need to find an apartment

#228

Post by kurthr » Sat, Apr 09, 2022, 10:36 PM UTC

haswell wrote: post #4

I'm in the middle of an apartment search. I was reflecting the other day on how much searching for an apartment has changed over the last 10 years. Conclusion: it hasn't changed much at all. It's still necessary to search on a myriad of sites. Most of the time, by the time you inquire, a place is gone. Or the ad was misleading and that "$2000 2BR" is actually "$2000 for the cheapest Studio we have, but we also have 2…

In really competitive markets it seems like you either get lucky, or you basically know someone in the area who can hook you by word-of-mouth.

In the ancient "before times" there were also actual rental agencies where a human would look for an appropriate apartment for you. I didn't know about them, but a local NorCal person turned me on and it was the only way to find things. They followed all of the different local listings daily and knew the area fairly well (e.g. how parking, transport, different commutes would be). It was $25/mo and ~$100/yr for them to go through the listings call the renter, if necessary. They usually also collected $100 fee, if they hooked you up (though I'm sure you could work around it) with one of their (usually several times a week email of 5-10) available recommendations and usually a $50+ fee for running a "credit check". The reason it seemed to work was that the renters trusted the rental agency to only send them real referrals, and the agency knew all about scammers and fake listings, and daily follow-up. It only worked due to the relatively small area and and high volume. Each agent was looking for ~50-100 people during a month and making several $k/mo themselves, filling them typically in a few months.

Like travel agents used to be an actual thing... but now you either do it yourself on-line, or you're going on some giant family cruise thing.

Re: I need to find an apartment

#229

Post by Gigachad » Sat, Apr 09, 2022, 10:45 PM UTC

golergka wrote: post #186

barnabee wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why companies must be forced to make their data available. The value that could be unleashed is insane.

How would bankrupting these companies would unleash value, exactly?

How is mandatory data reporting linked to bankruptcy? The more information available to the market, the better and more efficient they run.

Re: I need to find an apartment

#230

Post by asdff » Sat, Apr 09, 2022, 10:50 PM UTC

Despite all the fancy new websites that crop up every couple of years in the apartment rental space, imo the best place to find an apartment remains craigslist. I've only ever leased spaces through there. For the mom and pop landlords who you really want as your landlord, they might get a new client every 10 years. 10 years ago, they were using craiglist, and it works exactly the same as today, so that's what they continue to use. If it gets them a tenant its good enough to not bother learning some other new website. For the large corporolandlords who have those bougie amenities that perhaps you crave, they will be posting on all the major websites including craigslist anyhow, so you might as well use craigslist for that use case too if only to use a less bloated website.