Craigslist is a fascinating concept. It successfully digitized a part of the print newspaper industry. Some have argued that Craigslist is largely a part of newspaper’s decline, but at the end of the day what is important is that there is an online classifieds section for me to browse and post to for free when I need to offload some stuff. Fascinating.

Ellie and I are currently trying to offload our apartment. Our lease is up at the end of July but for some reasons, we want out now. Nothing is wrong with the place, in fact it’s a hell of a steal for its price and location. We just need to move on. So naturally, I posted our apartment to Craigslist.

We did the same thing last year and had little success. Most of Madison rentals are on the UW cycle of August 15 to August 14. So anyone looking for a place or trying to sublet outside that time frame, has a heavily diminished pool of people to choose from. Getting a handful of people to come look at the place is a success. Getting someone to actually take over a lease, is akin to a unicorn. 

So far, we have had a pretty darn good response rate. A lot of people are interested and want to come see the place. Because I just posted the other day, there hasn’t been enough time for people to fit it into their schedules. But even though I’ve had five to ten people contact me, I’m not hopeful that many will actually show up. Even the ones who did set up times, not hopeful. Craigslist is great, but it happens to attract very flaky people. If you’re not going to show, just let me know instead of having me wait around for an hour when I could be doing something else. Please.

Anyway, wish us luck! We really need a subletter to move on to the next great thing.