Apartment hunting is awfulânot that the sentiment is in any way shocking to anyone who has ever had to undergo the arduous process. The phone calls, the listings, the disappointment, and none of the good cheer envisioned by our childhood selves.
I had always imagined myself moving out with my brother into a bright red house. Well, Grade 1 me, that is. Weâd have a bunk bed and watch TV while eating junk food all day long. Having to actually find the place never crossed my mind. Other hopefuls never occurred to me. The price was even further still from my mind. Oh, to be young.
Now a wizened and all-knowing 22-year-old, Iâve seen the folly of my previous thinking. Putting aside the fact that neither my brother nor myself could possibly put up with the arrangement now, pint-sized me was short-sighted on a number of issues, issues that have since been exacerbated.
Though Iâve since moved from the dreary doldrums of Delta and am now a happy resident of the ever-growing-hipper East Van community, I couldnât help but have a peek for what else was around the other day. And so, I hopped onto the Internet and headed to Padmapperâs site.
The name Padmapper is easily recognizable to those whoâve flown, or tried to fly, the coop. With the tagline âMaking apartment hunting suck less,â Padmapper has traditionally been something of a godsend to the rental market. For the uninformed, the website essentially takes listings from various sites and places them all on one map. The listings can be sorted by price, location, number of bedrooms, etc. Already-viewed entries are shaded, making spotting the new ones rather easy.
Upon first revisiting the site, I thought it looked a bit sparse. Dismissing this initial observation as my not being zoomed in enough to a specific area, I proceeded to input my search parameters before zeroing in. I found nothing. Zilch.
It turns out that Padmapper and Craigslist finally brought their three-year lawsuit to a conclusion at the end of June, with part of the settlement being that Padmapper would no longer post Craiglist listings.
Having breathed a sigh of relief that this news wonât affect me in the short-term, empathy for the less fortunate quickly set in. Vancouver is hard enough to find a place to live without one of the major tools severely handcuffed. Granted I was dead-set on where I wanted to be, I looked for over a year before managing to land a placeâhilariously through none of the sites I had used, but rather through a friend. Iâd only actually seen maybe a handful of apartments, with the majority resulting in one-way emails. My true discouraging moment came when the owner of a place that was over my budget, not in my desired area, and not that attractive, sent out an en masse response that over a hundred people had contacted her about the listing and that if she hadnât already replied to you personally, she wasnât going to.
With Vancouver ranked by the Mercer 2015 Cost of Living survey as the most expensive Canadian city to live in, it really makes you wonder if our gorgeous backdrop is all worth it. For anyone who used to flip through those old Lego magazines, a budget-friendly apartment has become that little âhard-to-findâ graphic with the magnifying glass.
Itâs not impossible to find a place though. Keep an ear out for friends who are moving or know people who are moving. Take strolls through your hopeful future neighbourhood, watching out for apartment signs with listed vacancies. And, of course, search the web. Pound the pavement and pound the web for all youâre worth.
Danke danke,
Eric Wilkins
