

Ask HNs: Realtime apartment listings? - samfisher83

I go to apartments.com and their listing seemed to be off. Is there no site that has real time apartment listings. It seems you have to call them. Are apartments just unwilling to share this data? or is their some other issues?
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cbhl
In my experience, an apartment being "taken" happens once signed PDFs are
exchanged via email (or worse, dead-tree paper forms are signed in person).

The notion of a computer system having an accurate idea of the "real-time"
state of apartments available for rent requires you to actually know what
inventory is available before you can integrate it with the listing website.

That said, apartment pricing is also supposed to be opaque -- bigger
communities appear to raise or lower prices algorithmically like airlines
(raise the price of available units right before existing leases are up; lower
the price when nobody is looking to rent; account for how much rent for
"comparable" units has gone up; sell cheaper, less desirable units before more
expensive ones).

In most cases the phone call is the bare minimum you should be doing -- you
want to go visit a community in person to get a "feel" for it anyway, and to
let them do their sales pitch (what are the amenities; what is the best, most
expensive unit you can afford versus cheaper ones, and what trade-offs are
there; etc).

