Portland Neighborhoods: Finding an Apartment or Rental in Portland

If you don't yet live in Portland,it can be quite a struggle trying to rent a place remotely. Keep in mind that first of all, most vacancies are based on 30-day move-out notices from the current tenants. Also, many Portland apartments in the popular neighborhoods rely on walk-by traffic and "For Rent" signs. Many apartment buildings in the neighborhoods have a permanent "Apartment available" sign with a phone number hanging out front for people walking or biking by. You, from far away, don't have the advantage of seeing those, so online searching is your best bet.

Online Rental Resources

Your best online source for rentals is Craigslist . Beyond that, there's the classic route of newspaper classifieds. Try Oregonlive (The Oregonian) classifieds or Willamette Week, Portland's most popular free/alternative weekly paper.

You might also try American Property Management for rentals - they manage a whole bunch of apartment complexes in Portland's neighborhoods. There's a national search service called Rent.com (owned by eBay) that may have good listings as well.

For the suburbs and the big highrise buildings in downtown Portland and the Pearl District, you can also try For Rent magazine online - but these will mostly be limited to the larger, big corporate-owned complexes. However, you won't find much in the popular Portland neighborhoods in For Rent (but American Property Management does have some properties in the popular neighborhoods). There are tons of medium and smaller apartment buildings, even apartments and duplexes, in Portland's neighborhoods but they're not big enough to advertise in For Rent. Craigslist is free, so why pay?

One benefit of these bigger apartment complexes is that you can often reserve a place over the phone or via email, sight unseen, because they may know of several vacancies coming up.

Do your research about where you want to live, how much you want to pay, etc ahead of time. Do your homework! Here are some stategies for renting a place before you move to Portland:

Find a place before you arrive. Kind of scary to rent a place sight unseen! Try to get some pictures at least. Again, keep the 30 day thing in mind, and consider the type of neighborhood you want. Use For Rent for suburbs or downtown and Pearl District high rises; use the other online sources for Portland's neighborhoods.
Can you start looking more than 30 days before you want to move in? Yes, but don't expect much. However, you can try answering ads on Craigslist for vacancies that would work IF the timing were right - and see if that landlord owns any other properties. If so, ask them to contact you if they have a vacancy in your timeframe. Just prepare concise information on what you want and where, what price, etc. and save them time.
You can also post a free ad in the Craigslist Housing Wanted section. Nothing to lose in doing that!
Fly to Portland first, find a place before you actually move. You might be surprised how cheaply you can fly to Portland - check Southwest Airlines and others. Use Priceline.com or Hotwire.com for hotels. (Use BiddingForTravel.com and BetterBidding.com for guides on HOW to use Priceline and Hotwire! People post their successful Priceline and Hotwire results there, so you aren't totally blind using these services!)
Although this strategy may cost you more, you get the benefit of being able to walk around Portland neighborhoods and SEE the places you can't find online, plus you don't have to rent them sight unseen! And if you add up the cost of a round-trip ticket and a few nights hotel or youth hostel, it might not cost as much as you fear.

Move here first, stay at a hotel or hostel while you find a place. You might get lucky and find an immediate vacancy or you may have to wait a while. Do some research. Find a storage place where you could temporarily store your stuff (from a moving truck?) until you can move in. Portland has some excellent youth hostels in Northwest and in Hawthorne that can be a cheap way to stay temporarily instead of a hotel. And if you want to live in either of these neighborhoods, the hostels are perfectly located!
Instead of moving with a truck, you could use a moving service like PODS or U-Pack Moving which will move your stuff in a container (or two), potentially store it for you for a month while you look for a place, then deliver it to your new apartment once you find it.

Portland Neighborhoods Guide: Finding an Apartment or Rental in Portland

Online Rental Resources