How to find an apartment in Austin

Type "Austin apartments" into google and you'll get a splurge of sites offering to tell you about what's out there.

They may be giving you a skewed result though. As Abe points out in his own site, many of the apartment sites are sponsored to show you certain results first. The sites have no fiduciary duty to show you what you ask for.

So how do you find the right apartment in Austin? There are plenty of apartment locators out there, and the same as the website search results, they're the target of apartment complex marketing. Some apartments pay more finders fees than others, and get a larger mindshare in the locator community.

That's why I like Abe's Austin Apartment site. I came across it last week. It's like a craigslist version of an apartment mls. All it has is data on apartments. No fees change hands.

The site is still working on the data feed to keep the content fresh - prices vary rapidly to address changes in housing supply. I hope the model works and it grows in popularity.

Garreth Wilcock is an Austin EcoBroker. You can search Austin homes for sale at his website.