How do I access available housing?

▣ By checking the existing housing options against your own housing needs and creating a list of possibilities to pursue.

▣ By getting in touch with the housing providers, buildings, and rental agencies to find out what is available.
▣ By getting on waitlists for those housing situations and tools which could meet your needs.

▣ By gathering the necessary materials, documents, references, and so on (listed further in document) which you will need to pursue a housing application.

▣ By making sure that your finances and employment are in order in the months preceding seeking a new housing arrangement.

▣ By seeking guidance from friends, family and community members with experience in securing housing.

Sites, Databases and Tools for Looking for Housing

Street Easy, Zillow, etc: These are formal real estate listings sites, meaning that the listings and those posting listings are vetted by the website. You are less likely to find scams or suspicious opportunities on sites like these. ▣ The draw back to the reliability of these sites is that there are many eyes looking at these

listings, meaning that securing one of these apartments is more dicult due to higher competition.

Spare Room: This is a website where you can look for an individual room, rather than an entire apartment or unit, to rent. It is also a way that you can look for potential roommates who also want to rent a room, or where you could list an extra room in your own apartment which you are looking to fill.

Craigslist: This is a classifieds page, meaning that it is a collection of posts by local, private users. This means that the exchanges on craigslist tend to be more casual and potentially more affordable. This is a good way to find a room or a temporary housing situation.

▣ HOWEVER craigslist is not subject to the regulation that a conventional real estate listings sight would be, which means that you need to be wary of scams, dishonest, and suspicious listings.
▣ If you are looking into a rental opportunity through craigslist, it is important to meet your potential landlord or co-renters in a public place, and bring a friend, especially if you are going to check out the apartment.

Instagram: This is a way to look for housing through your personal network. People will often post apartment or sublet opportunities on their stories, and pass these postings around. If you are interested in moving, keep your eye out for what's happening in your social media network, and try posting on your story that you are looking for housing leads, as this will often bear fruit.

▣ this is an especially good way to find housing within your community and to potentially pay somewhat less than you would by locating an apartment on the general market.
▣ As in all cases, be aware that you are operating on a public site and take the necessary privacy and safety precautions as you make inquiries and posts.

Facebook Marketplace + Local Housing Groups:This is another good way of finding housing on a hyper-local level and which is not necessarily circulating in the general market. This may also be a way to find people interested in exchanging housing with people with certain common interests or values depending on the housing group you connect with.

Newsletters: Newsletters are a sort of hyper-local or semi-private classifieds page which circulate like old fashioned chain emails, they tend to cater to people with certain common interests or characteristics, like those living in a certain neighborhood or involved in a certain field of work. This is a good way to find housing and roommates within your wider community network.

Word of Mouth: As always, start with conversation. If you know that you are going to be looking for a place to live or people to live with in the near future, start conversations with friends and family about this, in doing so you will probably find both insight and leads.

The Housing Search

Housing Application Process

Leases: What to Know

Checklists for Housing

Glossary of Housing Terms and Considerations

Kingston Connections: Housing