

I’ve had decent luck with CL in the past for rentals, but understand that it’s generally: an illegal listing (eg no windows or the like for fire egress), sex traffickers targeting desperate women, or scammers - and you need to be able to jump on the legit leads ASAP.
But yes as a renter, sifting through Craigslist was vastly preferable to paying whatever some private equity firm decided “market rates” are (we are the market, teehee 🤭) for a hovel in a 1+5 complex, or dealing with the myriad of cutouts that paywall listings or communications like the OP.
Ding ding ding
The same is done with commercial property too. Holding out (or more correctly, withholding a property entirely) vacant for X months is more profitable overall as it keeps the supply low for office/light industrial space, driving the same demand to fewer units until ✨ a
newly renovatedunit ✨ is available on the market.Until X months inoccupancy exceeds the profit of Y units generating Z extracted profit each, they come out ahead. And not even ‘we covered the mortgage and local tax’ ahead of break even, but the potential earnings if all were listed and rented.
They literally make more money keeping housing vacant. And that needs to change.