Finding Housing

Apartment Complexes

ApartmentList.com, Move.com, Apartment Showcase, Apartment Guide, and abodo.com offer on-line searching of most area apartment complexes. They enable users to search based on desired facilities, services, etc. and provide floor plans, rental rates, and community features for matching complexes. Apartment Ratings provides reviews by current or past tenants. (Bear in mind that it seems likely that those who submit reviews are individuals with particularly strong opinions.)

Listings and Other Links

• Craig's List provides listings of all types of rental properties.
• HotPads College Park is a map-based internet listing service. HotPads also occasionally lists sublets.
• Trulia provides rental listings and community information.
• RoommateClick and MetroRoommates offer free on-line roommate locator services. Sublet.com is an apartment rental service that advertises apartments, sublets, subleases, roommates & houses for rent.
• Rent.com offers listings specific to College Park.
• Sabbaticalhomes.com and AcademicHomes.com are web sites that help faculty worldwide find houses or apartments for rent, exchange or house-sit when on sabbatical leave, research trip, exchange program, relocation or vacations.
• Zillow Rentals is a map-based internet listing service.

Using a Real Estate Agent to Search for Rental Properties

In some cases, searching for townhouses, condos and single family homes is best done by using the services of a real estate agent. Please contact Faculty Affairs, at (301) 405-0658, for a referral to an appropriate agent.

Realtor Referral Service

The Faculty Affairs Office can provide realtor referrals.

The web search services listed below will give you an idea of the type and cost of housing in various communities.

Search Properties for Sale

• realtor.com
• zillow
• trulia
• realestate.com
• homes.com
• redfin

This isn't intended to be a comprehensive list of the web search services available, nor is it intended to be any sort of recommendation.

The Washington Post and the Baltimore Sun also offer searchable listings of homes for sale.

Home Buying Advice, Checklists, and Tools

A quick Google search for "home buying advice" will bring you almost a billion hits in the blink of an eye, and almost all of them have something to offer. The important thing to remember, especially if this is your first time buying a house, is to take the time to look at that information.

Unfortunately, the University does not offer short-term housing on campus. However, there are many other possibilities for different forms of short-term housing.

• Domain College Park is located steps from campus and maintains a few units as short-term rentals for new and visiting faculty on a first-come, first-served basis.
• Sublet Information is an apartment rental service that advertises apartments, sublets, subleases, roommates & houses for rent. See also the Washington Post and the Washington City Paper on-line search processes for current classified ads. Finally, Craig's List provides subletting listings.
• Apartment Complexes generally offer 3, 6 or 9 month leases at slightly higher rents. On-line locator services allow searching for apartments that offer this option. NOTE HOWEVER that in practical terms many complexes often do not offer short-term leases since they prefer to lease by the year. (Furniture rental is also generally available.)
• Biz-Stay is another on-line resource. The preferred accommodation choices in their directory are short-term furnished apartments or homes, and apartment-style hotel rooms with kitchens. (Accommodations of this type are commonly referred to as corporate housing, temporary housing, serviced apartments, extended stay hotels, apart-hotels or self-catering apartments.) Preference is also given to hotels that offer extended-stay discounts, typically for 7 days or longer. There are a wide-variety of listings for the Washington D.C. metro area.
• PC Housing, a nationwide temporary housing provider.