Newbie - listings a bait and switch game??

If you hung up after they told you the apartment you called about was rented, how do you know they were going to "pitch you the switch"?
If the answer to the above is that you've been around the block before and are sophisticated, then why weren't you sophisticated enough to know in advance that an apartment listed for "weeks and weeks if not months" wasn't highly questionable to begin with?

half of the photo's you see for a rental apt online aren't the actual unit. it can be the same layout or line on a seperate floor

OP, asshole...do you need a place to live or don't you? if you do, find an agent through a referral, suck it up, pay the fee. don't bitch on an internet forum.

the velocity of the market creates what uninitiated stupid people refer to as "bait and switch".

I agree with Jim.

Las - If you need a referral, I used a great/honest agent that always previews apartments so there are no surprises. I can forward you her contact info.

las80123,
To answer your specific question: its a combination. Both you are having bad luck, and also that there is a great amount of bait and switch out there. Bit don't feel too bad about this bad luck -- it's difficult to avoid bait and switch completely. It's a sleazy tactic used by lazy agents (lazy because they don't feel like updating their listings and staying on top of things) and agents who can't get good listings.

But that's not to say you can't, or shouldn't, go see ANY bait and switches, who knows, you might get lucky. It really cones down to timing, I believe. If you are in a time crunch, it might behoove you to just see as much as you can. If you're not with a time constraint, then you are more free to pick and choose what you do and don't see.

use no fee site nybits.com and save yourself dough

also nakedapartments.com

good apartments rent so fast that agents rarely have a chance to take photos. There are brokers (I mean the managers of brokerage firms) that teach agents to do bait and switch, I know this for an absolute fact. But the good places don't do that.