How legit is PadMapper? (San Francisco, Oakland: sublet, apartment, for rent)

[TO12]

I'm currently looking at jobs in the SF area, but before I get too serious, I want to make sure I can even afford to live there.

I've done a ton of reading on these forums, and by the sound of it there is no way that I can afford to live alone in SF, and that is where PadMapper comes in.

A quick search on the site and I find a ton of places for rent, many in nice spots, for less than $1000. However, the catch is that they are pretty much all shared rents, whether it be a house or apartment.

My question is, are postings like this for real? I am only a year out of college, so I don't really have an problems having roommates, even if they are crappy I can stand 'em for a little while. But are these real postings? Are there people that try to scam with these listings like many other CL listings?

And also, how is the competition for these shared housing listings? Is it anything like other listings, where I hear 100 people can show up at an openhouse?

Thanks for any advice.

[mayorhaggar]

I dunno, what's your budget?

[TO12]

Originally Posted by mayorhaggar

I dunno, what's your budget?

?

Not sure why that's relevant when I'm asking about PadMapper.

[mdwstrnkid]

Padmapper uses Craigslist as its source of data, so the validity is as good as the data in CL.

[mayorhaggar]

Originally Posted by TO12

?

Not sure why that's relevant when I'm asking about PadMapper.

Well if your budget is under $1000 a month, you're not going to find anything but roommate shares in SF or Berkeley, and maybe some studios in Oakland.

[TO12]

Originally Posted by mayorhaggar

Well if your budget is under $1000 a month, you're not going to find anything but roommate shares in SF or Berkeley, and maybe some studios in Oakland.

Exactly.

I'm curious if the shared listings tend to be more trustworthy than the individual apartment listings, or if you have to worry about scammers just as often.

[rkwalton]

As others have said, padMapper is pulling in data from CraigsList and other sites. You'll have to evaluate each ad to get a feel for whether it's reliable or not.

[Malloric]

SRO for a month. Most apartment shares, and any you would want to consider, are going to want a face-to-face meeting. Don't expect to find one right away, either. Competition is pretty stiff, so they'll just rent to someone in the area they can meet over someone out of the area.

Sweden House or Cable Car Court are two that don't entirely cater to homeless housing. They're SROs, not hotels: 10x10 or 10x8 room, shared bath, and lots of "characters" for neighbors, for the low price of $800-1200 a month. Welcome to San Francisco.

[BVitamin]

I happened to use Padmapper when I was looking for a place a couple of weeks ago and I was looking at Craigslist in conjunction, like others have said, Padmapper pulls their listings from Craigslist though I've found that they don't list everything and also don't update on deleted posts from CL.

However I found my new place by walking by it by chance, which was not advertised anywhere else other than a sign posted outside of the building.

Good Luck, I know apt. hunting sucks.

[beb0p]

Originally Posted by TO12

Exactly.

I'm curious if the shared listings tend to be more trustworthy than the individual apartment listings, or if you have to worry about scammers just as often.

Shared listing is like listing for vacant places, most are legit, some aren't.

I think most of the sub-$1000 shared is due to the city law that prevent the existing tenants from charging a new tenant more than what the new person's share of the unit is worth. That means if two dudes have been renting a two-bedroom since 1998 and only paying $1,800 a month due to being protected by rent control; and let's say there are no master bedroom and the two bedrooms are of equal size - when one leaves and the other takes on a new roommate, he cannot make the new roommate pays more than share of the space, which should be $900. Before this law was passed in 2001, a lot of rent controlled tenants pay dirt cheap rent to the landlord and turn around and sublet the place out for market rent. So the city put a stop to that.

Latching on to someone's rent control unit is one way to beat the system, so to speak. But if the unit is in a desirable part of the city, it can get very competitive. When I moved out of my room shared situation in the Marina, about thirty people came to see my room.

.