If you’re new to Boston or aren’t ready to buy a home, I can help you find an apartment.

Apartments in the core Boston neighborhoods are considered “expensive” by just about everyone – new arrivals as well as long-time Boston residents.

It’s a tough situation.

Once you get past the sticker shock of the cost, you will then be faced with the common situation where the inventory in your price range is drastically low in number of available apartments. Overall, I think the downtown Boston apartment vacancy rate is 4% or less, meaning that the available supply is just 4% of all the apartments in the city.

And, most of the people are looking for an apartment when you are (say, for September 1).

Not to be discouraging, but be prepared for quite a feat of endurance.

Your first step is to take a look at what’s currently available, which will show you current inventory in all of Boston’s neighborhoods, broken down by location, size, and price.

Then, contact me for more information on these properties as well as about the entire rental process from searching, through visiting, through making offers, to signing leases.

If you’re looking to rent an apartment in Boston, you always have the option of going direct by using a website such as craigslist. If you have the time and patience to do the search yourself, you can sometimes save yourself some money. (Most real estate agencies charge a full-month’s rent as a fee should they find you an apartment you end up renting – the fee isn’t due unless you actually sign a lease, almost always you don’t have to pay to search with an agent.)

To save yourself the stress and time it takes to search on your own, consider using a real estate agent, perhaps me. What you lose in money you’ll more than make up in peace.