Saturday, October 9, 2010

PadMapper, the best Alternative to Westside Rentals


The birth of Westside Rentals
In 1996, Mark Verge saw an opportunity and pounced on it. He put all the disparate Los Angeles landlord postings into one database and charged users to search it. In the day, it made sense, LA Times, LA Weekly, Pennysaver, and more were all needed to start your rental search.

Today, Craigslist is the clearinghouse that more and more tech savvy landlords are turning to for apartment listings. Unfortunately, Craigslist has its flaws.

Many in LA can't seem to figure out that Hollywood is in Central LA, not the Westside/Southbay. Mis-categorized items make your search much more difficult.

Padmapper "Making Apartment Hunting Suck Less"
The solution I relied on during my latest rental search is PadMapper. They overlay Craigslist postings on an easy to use Google Map. You can filter for keywords and even look at the postings / photos without going to Craigslist.

There are a few Local LA sites that you may want to try, but PadMapper is definitely the way to go:

General LA
TheRentalGirl.com- All Around the LA Area

Central LA
Art Deco Apartments- For those looking for an architecturally significant rental in Central LA

Southbay