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How should I go about my apartment or roommate search?

I'm a 20 year old college student in New York, transferring to CUNY Hunter College in NYC for the Fall. I currently live in Long Island, and have been searching for either an apartment or roommate for a couple months now. My budget is $1100 a month, since I'm taking out a Sallie Mae student loan for my living expenses. I've been using Craigslist and roommates.com to find places, but haven't had any luck. Either people want me to sleep in the living room or something else. I'm thinking about trying to rent a place for a week, just so I can spend that entire time searching, and hopefully will land something. How should I go about my apartment search? What am I doing wrong, what am I not doing?

Public Comments

1. drat, i was going to suggest craigslist, but you've already tried that route. You could go back to craig and look for those who are looking for a roomie, and maybe get lucky--though you know by now, the weeding out process is a pain. Did you make your own post on craig? that might get you leads. How about on campus housing? does hunter college have dorms? It might be wise to live on campus for the first year or until you get a better "feel" for where you might want to live. Or does the college have a housing assistance program? If you are searching for decent housing, you gotta figure there are others in the same boat and maybe the college housing office has a way of uniting all the "searchers". Good luck in your search!
2. I am a 20 year old attending CUNY Hunter college this year too, and found your question on yahoo because I googled "hunter college roommates". I'm not having any luck and I am in manhattan. I'm currently subletting from my cousin in Washington Heights, but his area is a pain to get to school. I have used roomster, craigslist, easyroommate.com and also word of mouth is the best probably. Ask people you know if anyone else is looking for a place, that is the most reliable. Craigslist- it's surprising how many never follow through and the ones who do are ussually scams. Roomster-very few people with rooms seem to use it. Easyroomate- not good at all. Besides if you've noticed, so many ads have the stipulation of no undergraduates, professionals only, etc. Annoying. I even went to Hunter today and talked to three information people trying to find a bulletin with other students who have/want to rent rooms and didn't find anything. If worst comes to worst before school starts maybe we could room together, do you have a myspace or anything? I know that's weird but I'm sick of looking on craigslist at this point.