A map at the bottom of a Craigslist ad shows the location of a “spacious” townhouse in San Francisco’s South of Market district.

(Credit:
Screenshot by Steven Musil/CNET)

Not long after Craigslist cut off a mapping app that tapped its housing data, the popular online bulletin board has quietly begun embedding maps in certain real estate listings.

The maps, which appear on housing ads in the San Francisco Bay Area and Portland, Ore., harness data from OpenStreetMap, a service that offers free maps of the world compiled and edited by volunteers.

The new feature emerges a little more than a month after Craigslist sued PadMapper, an apartment listings aggregator that collects listings from Craigslist and other services and displays them on a Google map. Craigslist, which has become a popular portal for apartment ads, sued PadMapper and the data harvester it uses — 3taps — on copyright infringement grounds.

The battle began in June when Craigslist sent PadMapper a cease-and-desist letter that claimed the app violated its terms of use, which prohibit “copying, aggregation, display, distribution, performance, or derivative use of Craigslist or any content posted on Craigslist.”

For a short while PadMapper took Craigslist data off its site, but then earlier this month, it said it would resume using the data after it discovered a workaround PadMapper creator Eric DeMenthon described as “somewhat dickish” but “legally kosher.”

The solution was provided by 3taps, which created an API that harvests data from Craigslist postings by “indirect means,” meaning they aren’t subject to the Internet bulletin board’s terms of use.

Craigslist responded with a lawsuit filed in San Francisco’s federal court, accusing the two companies of “unlawfully and unabashedly mass-harvesting and redistributing postings entrusted by Craigslist users to their local Craigslist sites.”

CNET has contacted Craigslist for comment and will update this report when we learn more.

Article source: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57501390-93/craigslist-begins-embedding-maps-in-real-estate-listings/

“We started combing Craigslist, and when we filtered by the neighborhoods we want and our maximum price of $2,000 for a two-bedroom, there is almost nothing,” Austin said. “It was just shocking to me.”

They broadened their search to the East Bay. Even there, “You show up at an open house and it’s really intimidating,” he said. “There are 20 other couples already ready to apply.”

They decided to “get creative and get off the Craigslist merry-go-round,” he said, posting their search on Facebook and placing their own Craigslist “apartment wanted” ad. A Facebook friend shared a tip on an Oakland apartment that may work out for them.

Their story is typical of San Francisco’s overheated rental market, where well-compensated tech workers are flocking to desirable neighborhoods, driving up prices and locking out those who aren’t big earners. The chichi areas, which also are closest to convenient transit, are hardest to break into. And the competition is spilling over into the East Bay.

“The Bay Area is growing in an extraordinary, unprecedented way,” said Sarah Bridge, owner of Novato’s RealFacts, which tracks apartment prices nationwide at buildings with 50 or more units.

“It has to do with job growth,” she said. “It’s a gold-rush mentality where the best and the brightest come to the Bay Area. The trend is for Gen Y folks, which is mostly what employers are hiring, and that particular generation has a preference for the urban core.”

San Francisco rents rose 15.8 percent in the first quarter of this year compared with the same time last year, to an average of $2,663 for all size units, according to RealFacts. Studio apartments average $2,075, up 16.5 percent in a year. The steepest rise came in one-bedroom, one-bathroom apartments, which are now $2,611 – up 19.9 percent in the past year and up 30 percent from just two years ago.

Growth was also strong in San Mateo County, where units of all sizes average $2,003, a 15.6 percent annual increase, RealFacts said. In Santa Clara County, the $1,857 average rent is a 12.5 percent annual increase. For Alameda County, the $1,519 average rent is up 7 percent – still a big increase compared with other areas of the country.

“When you see markets like Oakland with rental growth, it’s because it has proximity to San Francisco rather than in and of itself doing anything,” Bridge said.

San Francisco is the most expensive metropolitan area in the country for renters, according to a recent report from the National Low Income Housing Coalition, which compared rents to wages. The going rate for a two-bedroom apartment in the counties of San Francisco, Marin and San Mateo requires a $76,200 annual income, the report said. By contrast, the New York metropolitan area, which includes eight counties, requires a $56,950 annual salary.

Even well-paid workers can find it hard to navigate San Francisco’s blood-sport rental market.

That’s spurred the creation of services targeting them. Real estate agent Wendy Willbanks last year decided to become a scout, or “rental concierge,” for apartment hunters, calling her business She Moves You (shemovesyou.com).

“I swoop in and beat the competition,” Willbanks said. “It’s a fast track to jumping them ahead of the long lines of other applicants (and) landing a rental property in San Francisco without wasting time.”

After nailing down her clients’ wish lists, Willbanks sifts through listings and attends open houses, armed with her clients’ credit reports and renter profiles. She photographs and videos the spaces. Some clients, such as people moving from elsewhere in the country, decide on apartments based purely on her scouting.

Article source: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/05/09/BU551OD1PL.DTL&tsp=1