Apartment Hunting - Which Service to Use if any... (Chicago: apartments, relocation company)

[J-CityRelo]

OK here's the situation: my fiance and I are relocating from Houston (Montrose), we have 1 weekend to choose a neighborhood and an apartment. We're looking for a 2 bd/1ba (2 bath if possible) with laundry-in-unit, a decent kitchen (space-wise, we don't care about ss), a deck/porch, lots of light and hopefully parking for around $1800. It would be really awesome if there was a wood-burning fireplace, but if not it's not the end of the world. We haven't actually seen any of the neighborhoods, but Lakeview, Lincoln Park, Wicker Park, Bucktown, Lincoln Square and Roscoe Village have been recommended. I have a friend in Ukranian Village so we might check that out too. She recommended Lincoln Square and Roscoe Village.

Question: Since we're so short on time I'm thinking we might want to have an agent or someone from an apartment-hunting service show us some places. Does anyone have any recommendations of people they've used? Or maybe services not to use? We'll probably look on our own a la craigslist/the reader too, but I wanted to get some ideas. I've been google-street-viewing and walk-scoring my face off so hopefully we won't have too much trouble finding our way around!

Thanks in advance!!

[Vlajos]

Check out the reader as well.

http://classifieds.chicagoreader.com...tion=oid%3A122

[J-CityRelo]

I was looking at the Reader today and it had some listings that weren't on craigslist... definitely good to compare, thanks!!

[Drover]

The Reader isn't a very comprehensive source of apartment listings. But unlike Craigslist, they're paid ads and they're categorized by neighborhood (meaning they can't just throw in keywords to make their listings show up in your search results even when they're 5 miles away from the neighborhood you're searching), so there's a lot less BS to wade through in the Reader classifieds.

[UICJohn]

I found my place (in Roscoe Village) on Craigs List pretty easily. I tried Apartment Hunters and they were horrible! The guy took me to horrible apartments that were nothing like what I wanted and then tried to force an apartment that was in a neighborhood I didn't want and not in my price range and then gave me attitude when I wouldn't take it.

[asdollardawg]

From what I hear of the big name companies (e.g apartment hunters, apartment people, etc), it is less about the company than the individual broker you get.

I haven't used them, but some of my friends did and they told me that the biggest thing is to be firm with your broker. Know each neighborhood and what you can get for your money (through craigslist, etc), so that you can recognize if your broker is jerking you around. People who have been shown real dumps have told me that the words "I will not go in another apartment like that...Either show me a better place or I'm going to another company" have worked wonders.

Oh and it might not hurt to schedule with two companies (either morning with one and afternoon with the other) or, more likely, one day with one, next day with another.

[Aleking]

craigslist is just useless these days, totally overrun with spam.

[J-CityRelo]

Originally Posted by asdollardawg

From what I hear of the big name companies (e.g apartment hunters, apartment people, etc), it is less about the company than the individual broker you get.

I haven't used them, but some of my friends did and they told me that the biggest thing is to be firm with your broker. Know each neighborhood and what you can get for your money (through craigslist, etc), so that you can recognize if your broker is jerking you around. People who have been shown real dumps have told me that the words "I will not go in another apartment like that...Either show me a better place or I'm going to another company" have worked wonders.

Oh and it might not hurt to schedule with two companies (either morning with one and afternoon with the other) or, more likely, one day with one, next day with another.

Thanks! We plan to be honest and firm with whoever is helping us. My fiance spoke with someone from our relocation company who is supposed to be helping us with housing in Chicago. He explained what we are looking for and the neighborhoods that have been recommended and she said we won't be able to find anything for less than $2,600! When he told me this I immediately brought up amazing apartments that I've found on craigslist, the reader, apartment people etc that were $1,900 max and have everything we want. And I cross-research with walkscore and google maps street view to prove that they are good areas of the neighborhood.

When someone says something like that it makes me want to ditch them. The whole point of agents/services is to make this easier. If they can't do that or if they're not adding anything except non-constructive, sweeping generalizations then we don't need 'em! So, yeah, that's where I'm at! (Ending exclaimations with prepositions)

When I came here to post about neighborhoods you all said I would probably spend less than $2,000 and I tend to believe you all since you're not trying to "sell" me.

[Drover]

Originally Posted by J-CityRelo

Thanks! We plan to be honest and firm with whoever is helping us. My fiance spoke with someone from our relocation company who is supposed to be helping us with housing in Chicago. He explained what we are looking for and the neighborhoods that have been recommended and she said we won't be able to find anything for less than $2,600! When he told me this I immediately brought up amazing apartments that I've found on craigslist, the reader, apartment people etc that were $1,900 max and have everything we want. And I cross-research with walkscore and google maps street view to prove that they are good areas of the neighborhood.

When someone says something like that it makes me want to ditch them. The whole point of agents/services is to make this easier. If they can't do that or if they're not adding anything except non-constructive, sweeping generalizations then we don't need 'em! So, yeah, that's where I'm at! (Ending exclaimations with prepositions)

When I came here to post about neighborhoods you all said I would probably spend less than $2,000 and I tend to believe you all since you're not trying to "sell" me.

Nothing for less than $2,600? Tell whoever told you that to eat a sack of monkey balls. Where do they think you're moving to, Park Slope?

[MassVt]

Jesus, you can find plenty of apts in Chicago with all/almost all of your amenities for < $1500; $2600 is a load of crap; try another broker..