OneStopHousing.org can help you find housing that you want quickly and easily. Here are some tips and hints to help you use OneStopHousing.org to find the right housing. Go to our Renter’s Guide for step by step instructions on how to search for housing.
Advanced Search Options
You can expand the search options by clicking on the “Show Advanced Options” link near the left side of the screen. This will allow you to customize your search to a greater extent. It is important to know, however, that any field you leave blank/unaltered will act as though you’ve selected “any or all” for that particular option. (For example, if you would like to search for both non-smoking and smoking listings, leave the “Smoking Permitted” option untouched and you will get results for both options.) Please note that the more specific your search criteria, the fewer properties will appear in your search results.
Where do you want to live?
You can tell OneStopHousing.org where you want to live in your area in 3 different ways.
- Location: This list allows you to search for housing within specific areas in the county such as a city or town. You can select multiple locations simply by clicking on them. To deselect a location, click on it again. (If you leave the location list unchecked it will include all locations in your search!)
- Address: Typing in this field allows you to look for housing at a particular address. Another helpful way of using this field is to type a street name with no numbers, which will give you results of properties at any address on that street.
- School: This list allows you to search for housing within a specific school attendance area or an entire school district. Currently, the OneStopHousing.org school datasets are available throughout the Spokane County.
How Soon Do You Need Housing?
You can tell OneStopHousing.org to look for Housing based on when it will become available. If you select “Today,” OneStopHousing.org will only show you housing that is listed as vacant right now. If you have more time to consider moving, you can pick a longer time period to see housing that will be ready soon in addition to housing ready right now. If you select “Waitlist only,” OneStopHousing.org will show you housing that are not available now, but have an open waitlist that you can get on. If you leave this option unaltered you will see all the units and then can sort your list by availability so that the most available units show up first.
Hint: Some of the lowest rent housing is available only by signing up for a waitlist. Consider a search for “Waitlist only” if you really need lower rent. You may have to show that you qualify and wait a while for your housing, but you may end up in housing you can really afford.
How much rent can you afford?
How much rent you can pay is often a tough question. You can set OneStopHousing.org to search for housing where the rent is below your limit. The lower you set the maximum rent in your search, the fewer options you will be shown. You can try raising your rent limit to see more units at higher rents and then compare the differences between the units on your list.
Too few units returned?
If your search criteria returned too few properties, then the following search tips:
- Location: Look in different location or more locations.
- Availability: Try a longer move-in period if you can or leave this option unaltered.
- Rent: Consider searching for slightly higher rent units. You can sort your list by rent to see the lowest rent ones first.
Too many units returned
A long list of properties can be narrowed down by using the Advanced Search Options feature on the search form. Clicking this will provide you with more options you can use to refine your search. You can also try searching in narrower area or by being more specific about the availability or rent level you are searching for.
To better manage a longer list, you can sort by rent to see the housing with the lowest rent first or by availability to see the housing that will available the soonest at the top of your list.