How to find a San Mateo / Burlingame Apartment from afar (San Mateo: apartments, for rent)

[PraetorianGuard]

I only see 7-8 listings for apartments in San Mateo/Burlingame/Millbrae in the $1500-$1600 range and this is through Craigslist. Can anyone recommend other on-line places to search that may have more results? Or is the best thing just to head up there one weekend and drive around looking for places with "For Rent" signs?

Thanks

[HockeyMac18]

Originally Posted by PraetorianGuard

I only see 7-8 listings for apartments in San Mateo/Burlingame/Millbrae in the $1500-$1600 range and this is through Craigslist. Can anyone recommend other on-line places to search that may have more results? Or is the best thing just to head up there one weekend and drive around looking for places with "For Rent" signs?

Thanks

If an apt opening is going to be advertised online, it's almost always advertised on Craigslist. Some larger complexes will show up on sites like "rent.com" or "apartments.com," but often you'll find that these places will also advertise on Craigslist.

However, I have found that there are also some complexes/apartments that don't advertise online on places like Craigslist (they might have websites, but they won't advertise openings). And there are also some places for rent that are pretty much only by word of mouth or advertise by putting out a "for rent" sign (this is how I found my apartment in the downtown San Mateo area).

If you're not finding things in your price range, you can try checking it out in person. But I also imagine that there might be more apartments if you had a higher range (I'm assuming you're looking at 1BR apts). Unfortunately, rents have gone up quite a bit in the last year and a half. In 2010, you could have certainly found a lot of listings in your range, but things have gone up a bit.

Either way, it can't hurt to look in person either at the Craigslist ads (open houses, etc.) or to look at areas that might have apartments with "for rent" signs throughout some of the denser neighborhoods (near downtown San Mateo and Burlingame you'll find a lot of this). Also, it might help if you can try to generate a list of apt complexes in the area (advertising on Craigslist or not) so if you do check out the area, you can call or visit them to see if they have any openings.