It’s pretty well accepted that the economic downturn killed the housing market in 2008.Few people will take issue with the idea that the recession has damaged the housing market. Most analysts and media have focused their attention on construction and home purchasing markets as opposed to rentals.But the state of the rental market is fairly important in a college town like Baton Rouge, and renters must deal with more than inflating rental rates — they must also face a lack of information and the dreaded Craigslist scam.The housing recession was one of the first areas — outside of layoffs — that people really started thinking seriously considering the realities of an economic downturn.USA Today reported in early 2009 that the number of new housing permits issued in 2008 decreased by 36 percent compared to the 2007 numbers. The same report also showed 2008 had the lowest number of new homes constructed since 1959.Several major news outlets have published similar stories In the last year or so about the state of the housing market, but have rarely published information on rentals.The truth is it’s easy to find information on new construction and housing sales.These sections of the housing market are easy to track and often involve financial dealings that are notarized or recorded. Information on housing rentals is not scarce because it’s unimportant or a minor issue — data from the 2005-2007 U.S. Census American Community Survey shows more than 36.5 million Americans rent their homes.  But rental information is difficult to find and collect.The most pressing reason is that a large portion of the people renting are transients that are difficult to track in general and in some circumstances don’t want to be tracked at all.However a large portion of those who rent their homes are not transients. They’re average people who currently are not in a position to purchase a home or don’t really see the utility purchasing a home.College students happen to fall into both of these categories. Given that rental information is often hard to find, many students are forced to look for rental information in only a few select ways.Local newspapers used to be a great resource for finding real estate information, but people are using the Internet to post real estate information more and more frequently.The theoretical benefits of rental information online are pretty impressive.  Interested renters can browse advertisements, look at pictures and even find ratings of various apartment complexes and landlords.I was a little surprised to find the amount of rental information online was somewhat limited.Sure there are some newspapers that post their classified ads online, and those sites were pretty solid. There were also a few sites dedicated to aggregating rental information — such as the highly advertised Apartments.com — but their listings were primarily limited to large scale complexes and the reviews were not as fleshed out as one would hope.With that in mind, I, like many other potential renters, turned to the popular online classifieds site Craigslist.com.I was surprised to find a vast sea of rental information, and I was even more surprised to see how much of it was completely false.Just like the old Craigslist furniture scams, the new housing scams tempt renters with the promise of a great deal. Many of them list prices significantly lower than the local average and use pictures that are clearly not local. One picture even featured a scenic mountain backdrop — I challenge anyone to find a scenic mountain backdrop in Louisiana.These scams are pretty transparent. But given how poor online housing rental information is, it’s fairly easy to see why people would be taken in.I’m one of those people who like to use the Internet for anything I can, but the ease of Internet searching has yet to really enter all aspects of life.Despite the large number of renters in the United States, rental information — online or other —is still difficult to find and probably won’t be any better for a while.In the mean time, it looks like the old fashioned ways of word-of-mouth advertising, newspapers and just driving around may be the best source for rental information.It’s also important to remember that old adage, “if it looks too good to be true, it probably is”.Skylar Gremillion is a 26-year-old sociology graduate student from Plaucheville.
 
 
 
—–Contact Skylar Gremillion at [email protected]