Advanced Apartment Searching on Craigslist

Rachel and I are looking for apartments again. The market’s tight - not a lot of home buyers these days, so rental demand blew up. Apartments disappear within 24 hours of being listed. You’ve gotta scout the new listings like a hawk… but there’s so much noise.

To make life easier, use Craigslist advanced search operators:

Exclusion: -lakeview

Exact match: "wicker park"

Or: lakeview | bucktown

Our lease expires June 1. If we found a kickass coach house, we might try to sublet our apartment a month early, but we’re not going to move in April.

-april (june|coach) (bucktown|"wicker park"|"logan square")

Once you’ve fine-tuned your search, bookmark it. Then, plug it into If This Then That to get an email whenever a relevant listing pops up.