As you probably know, finding a place to live in Vancouver is not easy. The rents are high, the cheapest places are often the farthest from campus and you have to compete with thousands of other people in the search to simply find a place to sleep at night.
We’ve previously published a guide explaining the process for beginners, but if you want to get a step ahead in your housing search, you’ll need to dig through a lot of rental sites and contact as many suitable places as you can to guarantee that you can secure a place. You might think that a place is perfect for you — but it’s still very likely that the landlord could give it to someone else.
To keep you ahead of the curve, we’ve compiled a list of housing websites that can give you a large grasp on all the listings available for rent in Vancouver.
Craigslist:
If you know of just one place to find housing, it’s probably Craigslist. Its accessibility and well-recognized name have made it a go-to website for housing in Vancouver, which means that it’s full of postings. However, its popularity also means that you’ll have to stand out among dozens of other applicants, so be sure to browse other websites as well.
Kijiji:
Like Craigslist, Kijiji is a large website for classifieds that’s become something of a household name. It doesn't have as many postings as Craigslist, but it’s still a good place to check out.
Rentsline and UV Rentsline:
Rentsline and UV Rentsline — formerly known as AMSRentsline — are both excellent resources for finding housing. They have plenty of listings near campus and their layout lets you see exactly what kind of features a place has. Curious if a place has a dishwasher or a microwave? These sites will tell you. Both sites are almost identical, but UVRentsline specifically focuses on rentals in Vancouver and around UBC.
Zumper:
Zumper is a pretty simple resource for finding housing — you just type in your city, set a few specifications and then your results come up. It’s a pretty new resource that’s been steadily rising in popularity, so it’s definitely worth trying out.
Padmapper:
Padmapper’s website is amazingly accessible. You simply type in where you want to live, set a few preferences and then they pinpoint available listings for you on a map that doesn’t freeze or lag every time you adjust it.
Rent BC:
Much like Padmapper, Rent BC allows you to see all of your options on an accessible map once you’ve selected your settings. However, my attempts to narrow down my search settings to “2 bedrooms” still gave me one-bedroom places, so note that their website doesn’t always function well.
Search4StudentHousing:
Search4StudentHousing’s search format is especially good for figuring out the distance of a property from UBC. When you go to its search function and set your preferences, you can choose to organize your results by either price or distance from campus.
Walkscore:
Walkscore may sound like it’s based on a novelty concept — its main selling point is its “Walk Scores” and “Transit Scores” which determine if a place is “walk-able” or close to transit — but it’s actually one of the best websites on this list. For one, it absorbs its postings from other sites such as Kijiji and Zumper, so there’s plenty of listings to check out. Likewise, its interactive maps show you what kinds of stores and services are near the place that you’re interested in.
Vivaliva:
Vivaliva specializes in housing for Vancouver and Calgary, and their website is very easy to navigate. They don’t have as many postings as other resources, but at least they have a nice website and logo?
Various Facebook groups:
There are a lot of groups on Facebook in which people will post ads for housing, especially students wanting to sublet their place. If you want to respond to an ad, send the person who posted it a message and publicly comment on the ad itself that you’ve messaged the them — that way they know to check their “other” mailbox, which receives messages from people they haven’t added on Facebook. Here are some of the more popular groups out there:
- UBC students searching for roommates/house/apts rental/sublet
- Vancouver Rent/Buy/Sell a room/apartment/house/condo/property/flat/roommate
- Vancouver House Hunting Network
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