# Craigslist Housing Scraper | Apartments, Rooms & Rentals (`longanimous_bracken/craigslist-housing-scraper`) Actor

Scrape Craigslist housing rental listings by city. Returns address, price, bedrooms, bathrooms, sqft, neighborhood, and listing URL as clean JSON.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/longanimous\_bracken/craigslist-housing-scraper.md
- **Developed by:** [petteri mähönen](https://apify.com/longanimous_bracken) (community)
- **Categories:** Real estate, Lead generation, Automation
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $0.01 / 1,000 results

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/platform/actors/running/actors-in-store#pay-per-event

## What's an Apify Actor?

Actors are a software tools running on the Apify platform, for all kinds of web data extraction and automation use cases.
In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours,
and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store.
In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server.
Actors are written with capital "A".

## How to integrate an Actor?

If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects.
You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready.
The best way to integrate Actors is as follows.

In JavaScript/TypeScript projects, use official [JavaScript/TypeScript client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js.md):

```bash
npm install apify-client
```

In Python projects, use official [Python client library](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python.md):

```bash
pip install apify-client
```

In shell scripts, use [Apify CLI](https://docs.apify.com/cli/docs.md):

````bash
# MacOS / Linux
curl -fsSL https://apify.com/install-cli.sh | bash
# Windows
irm https://apify.com/install-cli.ps1 | iex
```bash

In AI frameworks, you might use the [Apify MCP server](https://docs.apify.com/platform/integrations/mcp.md).

If your project is in a different language, use the [REST API](https://docs.apify.com/api/v2.md).

For usage examples, see the [API](#api) section below.

For more details, see Apify documentation as [Markdown index](https://docs.apify.com/llms.txt) and [Markdown full-text](https://docs.apify.com/llms-full.txt).


# README

## 🏠 Craigslist Housing Scraper

Scrape rental listings from [Craigslist](https://www.craigslist.org) across US cities. Extracts apartment and room rentals with full detail pages — photos, descriptions, amenities, and structured housing specs.

### ⚡ Features

- **Multi-city search** — scrape multiple cities in a single run
- **Detail page extraction** — visit each listing's detail page for enriched data
  - Full description text
  - All photos (array of image URLs)
  - Amenities & attributes
  - Address & neighborhood
  - Post ID & posted date
  - Rent period (monthly/weekly/biweekly)
  - Listing type (apartment/room/house/sublet)
  - Reply URL for direct contact
  - Contact info hints (phone/email mentions from description)
- **Structured housing data** — beds, baths, sqft parsed from both search results and detail pages
- **Studio listings** — correctly handles "0BR" studios
- **Anti-detection** — PlaywrightCrawler with realistic delays
- **Configurable** — toggle detail extraction, set delays, limit results

### Input

| Field | Type | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| `locations` | string[] | `["San Francisco, CA"]` | Cities to scrape |
| `maxResults` | number | `0` | Max listings (0 = no limit) |
| `fetchDetails` | boolean | `true` | Visit detail pages for enriched data |
| `detailDelaySecs` | number | `2` | Delay between detail page visits |

#### Example: Basic search
```json
{
  "locations": ["San Francisco, CA"],
  "maxResults": 20
}
````

#### Example: Multi-city with detail extraction

```json
{
  "locations": ["San Francisco, CA", "New York, NY", "Los Angeles, CA"],
  "maxResults": 50,
  "fetchDetails": true,
  "detailDelaySecs": 3
}
```

### Output

Each listing includes:

| Field | Source | Example |
|---|---|---|
| `title` | Search | "Bright 2 Bedroom Apartment" |
| `price` | Search / Detail | "$2,455" |
| `beds` | Search / Detail | "2" |
| `baths` | Search / Detail | "1" |
| `sqft` | Search / Detail | "729" |
| `neighborhood` | Search / Detail | "Mission District" |
| `link` | Search | "https://..." |
| `thumbnail` | Search | image URL |
| `address` | Detail | "123 Main St, San Francisco" |
| `post_id` | Detail | "7947327024" |
| `posted` | Detail | "2026-07-15" |
| `photos` | Detail | \["url1", "url2", ...] |
| `attributes` | Detail | \["hardwood", "laundry", ...] |
| `description` | Detail | "Full description text..." |
| `listing_type` | Detail | "apartment" |
| `rent_period` | Detail | "monthly" |
| `housing_info` | Detail | "2BR / 1Ba 729ft2" |
| `reply_url` | Detail | "https://.../reply/..." |
| `contact_info` | Detail | \["Call: show contact info"] |
| `contact_websites` | Detail | \["https://example.com"] |
| `has_contact` | Detail | true |
| `location` | Input | "San Francisco, CA" |
| `scraped_at` | System | ISO timestamp |

#### Supported cities

San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles, Seattle, Chicago, Austin, Denver, Miami, Houston, Phoenix, Philadelphia, San Antonio, San Diego, Dallas, Atlanta, Portland, Nashville, Las Vegas.

### Use Cases

- **Rental market research** — track prices and availability across cities
- **Lead generation** — find properties matching specific criteria for clients
- **Price monitoring** — run weekly to detect market trends
- **Data pipeline** — feed structured housing data into analytics or ML models
- **Competitive analysis** — monitor rental supply in target neighborhoods

### Performance

- \~1-2 seconds per search page load
- \~3-5 seconds per detail page visit (network + delays)
- 4 GB RAM allocation (PlaywrightCrawler)
- Supports 18+ US cities via slug mapping

### Limitations

- Craigslist does not support pagination URLs — results are dynamically loaded via scroll
- Listings may expire between search and detail fetch — handled gracefully with warnings
- Some listings lack detailed specs (no sqft, no housing\_info) — those fields will be `null`

### 💬 Quick Start for AI Assistants

Copy and paste this into ChatGPT, Claude, or another AI assistant to get help using this actor:

***

You are helping me use the "Craigslist Housing Scraper" on Apify (actor ID: udJ1lSFPz264RxA17). It extracts rental listings (apartments, rooms) from craigslist.org across US cities.

Input fields:

- locations: string array, e.g. \["San Francisco, CA", "New York, NY"]
- maxResults: number, max listings to return (0 = no limit)
- fetchDetails: boolean, visit detail pages for photos, descriptions, amenities
- detailDelaySecs: number, seconds to wait between detail page visits (default: 2)

Output fields per listing: title, price, beds, baths, sqft, neighborhood, link, address, post\_id, posted, photos\[], attributes\[], description, listing\_type, rent\_period, thumbnail, h1\_text, housing\_info, reply\_url, contact\_info\[], contact\_websites\[], has\_contact, location, scraped\_at.

## Help me with the right input, output processing, or troubleshooting.

### 📋 Changelog

| Version | Date | Changes |
|---------|------|---------|
| 0.0.19 | 2026-07-15 | Fixed reply\_url extraction — Craigslist uses `button.reply-button` with `data-href` attribute instead of `<a href>`. Now extracts reply URL from both button data-href and legacy anchor links |
| 0.0.16 | 2026-07-15 | Added contact extraction — reply\_url, contact\_info (phone/email hints from description), contact\_websites (URLs in listing description), has\_contact flag |
| 0.0.13 | 2026-07-15 | Added AI assistant prompt block, enriched README with use cases and comparison table, updated actor title with keywords |
| 0.0.11 | 2026-07-15 | Fixed beds/baths extraction — parse from `housing_info` spec line (`1BR / 1Ba 729ft2`) instead of h1 title. Studio listings now report 0 beds. Decimal baths (2.5BA) supported |
| 0.0.7 | 2026-07-14 | Added detail page extraction — photos, descriptions, amenities, attributes, full address, listing type, rent period |
| 0.0.6 | 2026-07-14 | Cloud-verified extraction across multiple cities, 200 listings, 27s runtime |
| 0.0.1 | 2026-07-13 | Initial release — search result extraction, PlaywrightCrawler, multi-city support |

# Actor input Schema

## `locations` (type: `array`):

US cities to search. Examples: San Francisco CA, Seattle WA, New York NY.

## `maxResults` (type: `integer`):

Stop after this many listings. 0 = no limit.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "locations": [
    "San Francisco, CA"
  ],
  "maxResults": 0
}
```

# API

You can run this Actor programmatically using our API. Below are code examples in JavaScript, Python, and CLI, as well as the OpenAPI specification and MCP server setup.

## JavaScript example

```javascript
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

// Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
// Replace the '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("longanimous_bracken/craigslist-housing-scraper").call(input);

// Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if any)
console.log('Results from dataset');
console.log(`💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/${run.defaultDatasetId}`);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((item) => {
    console.dir(item);
});

// 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs

```

## Python example

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

# Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
# Replace '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = {}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("longanimous_bracken/craigslist-housing-scraper").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print("💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/" + run["defaultDatasetId"])
for item in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(item)

# 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{}' |
apify call longanimous_bracken/craigslist-housing-scraper --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "command": "npx",
            "args": [
                "mcp-remote",
                "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=longanimous_bracken/craigslist-housing-scraper",
                "--header",
                "Authorization: Bearer <YOUR_API_TOKEN>"
            ]
        }
    }
}

```

## OpenAPI specification

```json
{
    "openapi": "3.0.1",
    "info": {
        "title": "Craigslist Housing Scraper | Apartments, Rooms & Rentals",
        "description": "Scrape Craigslist housing rental listings by city. Returns address, price, bedrooms, bathrooms, sqft, neighborhood, and listing URL as clean JSON.",
        "version": "0.0",
        "x-build-id": "K39vVmd669OMXILeo"
    },
    "servers": [
        {
            "url": "https://api.apify.com/v2"
        }
    ],
    "paths": {
        "/acts/longanimous_bracken~craigslist-housing-scraper/run-sync-get-dataset-items": {
            "post": {
                "operationId": "run-sync-get-dataset-items-longanimous_bracken-craigslist-housing-scraper",
                "x-openai-isConsequential": false,
                "summary": "Executes an Actor, waits for its completion, and returns Actor's dataset items in response.",
                "tags": [
                    "Run Actor"
                ],
                "requestBody": {
                    "required": true,
                    "content": {
                        "application/json": {
                            "schema": {
                                "$ref": "#/components/schemas/inputSchema"
                            }
                        }
                    }
                },
                "parameters": [
                    {
                        "name": "token",
                        "in": "query",
                        "required": true,
                        "schema": {
                            "type": "string"
                        },
                        "description": "Enter your Apify token here"
                    }
                ],
                "responses": {
                    "200": {
                        "description": "OK"
                    }
                }
            }
        },
        "/acts/longanimous_bracken~craigslist-housing-scraper/runs": {
            "post": {
                "operationId": "runs-sync-longanimous_bracken-craigslist-housing-scraper",
                "x-openai-isConsequential": false,
                "summary": "Executes an Actor and returns information about the initiated run in response.",
                "tags": [
                    "Run Actor"
                ],
                "requestBody": {
                    "required": true,
                    "content": {
                        "application/json": {
                            "schema": {
                                "$ref": "#/components/schemas/inputSchema"
                            }
                        }
                    }
                },
                "parameters": [
                    {
                        "name": "token",
                        "in": "query",
                        "required": true,
                        "schema": {
                            "type": "string"
                        },
                        "description": "Enter your Apify token here"
                    }
                ],
                "responses": {
                    "200": {
                        "description": "OK",
                        "content": {
                            "application/json": {
                                "schema": {
                                    "$ref": "#/components/schemas/runsResponseSchema"
                                }
                            }
                        }
                    }
                }
            }
        },
        "/acts/longanimous_bracken~craigslist-housing-scraper/run-sync": {
            "post": {
                "operationId": "run-sync-longanimous_bracken-craigslist-housing-scraper",
                "x-openai-isConsequential": false,
                "summary": "Executes an Actor, waits for completion, and returns the OUTPUT from Key-value store in response.",
                "tags": [
                    "Run Actor"
                ],
                "requestBody": {
                    "required": true,
                    "content": {
                        "application/json": {
                            "schema": {
                                "$ref": "#/components/schemas/inputSchema"
                            }
                        }
                    }
                },
                "parameters": [
                    {
                        "name": "token",
                        "in": "query",
                        "required": true,
                        "schema": {
                            "type": "string"
                        },
                        "description": "Enter your Apify token here"
                    }
                ],
                "responses": {
                    "200": {
                        "description": "OK"
                    }
                }
            }
        }
    },
    "components": {
        "schemas": {
            "inputSchema": {
                "type": "object",
                "properties": {
                    "locations": {
                        "title": "Locations",
                        "type": "array",
                        "description": "US cities to search. Examples: San Francisco CA, Seattle WA, New York NY.",
                        "default": [
                            "San Francisco, CA"
                        ],
                        "items": {
                            "type": "string"
                        }
                    },
                    "maxResults": {
                        "title": "Max results",
                        "minimum": 0,
                        "type": "integer",
                        "description": "Stop after this many listings. 0 = no limit.",
                        "default": 0
                    }
                }
            },
            "runsResponseSchema": {
                "type": "object",
                "properties": {
                    "data": {
                        "type": "object",
                        "properties": {
                            "id": {
                                "type": "string"
                            },
                            "actId": {
                                "type": "string"
                            },
                            "userId": {
                                "type": "string"
                            },
                            "startedAt": {
                                "type": "string",
                                "format": "date-time",
                                "example": "2025-01-08T00:00:00.000Z"
                            },
                            "finishedAt": {
                                "type": "string",
                                "format": "date-time",
                                "example": "2025-01-08T00:00:00.000Z"
                            },
                            "status": {
                                "type": "string",
                                "example": "READY"
                            },
                            "meta": {
                                "type": "object",
                                "properties": {
                                    "origin": {
                                        "type": "string",
                                        "example": "API"
                                    },
                                    "userAgent": {
                                        "type": "string"
                                    }
                                }
                            },
                            "stats": {
                                "type": "object",
                                "properties": {
                                    "inputBodyLen": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 2000
                                    },
                                    "rebootCount": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "restartCount": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "resurrectCount": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "computeUnits": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    }
                                }
                            },
                            "options": {
                                "type": "object",
                                "properties": {
                                    "build": {
                                        "type": "string",
                                        "example": "latest"
                                    },
                                    "timeoutSecs": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 300
                                    },
                                    "memoryMbytes": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 1024
                                    },
                                    "diskMbytes": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 2048
                                    }
                                }
                            },
                            "buildId": {
                                "type": "string"
                            },
                            "defaultKeyValueStoreId": {
                                "type": "string"
                            },
                            "defaultDatasetId": {
                                "type": "string"
                            },
                            "defaultRequestQueueId": {
                                "type": "string"
                            },
                            "buildNumber": {
                                "type": "string",
                                "example": "1.0.0"
                            },
                            "containerUrl": {
                                "type": "string"
                            },
                            "usage": {
                                "type": "object",
                                "properties": {
                                    "ACTOR_COMPUTE_UNITS": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "DATASET_READS": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "DATASET_WRITES": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "KEY_VALUE_STORE_READS": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "KEY_VALUE_STORE_WRITES": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 1
                                    },
                                    "KEY_VALUE_STORE_LISTS": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "REQUEST_QUEUE_READS": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "REQUEST_QUEUE_WRITES": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "DATA_TRANSFER_INTERNAL_GBYTES": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "DATA_TRANSFER_EXTERNAL_GBYTES": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "PROXY_RESIDENTIAL_TRANSFER_GBYTES": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "PROXY_SERPS": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    }
                                }
                            },
                            "usageTotalUsd": {
                                "type": "number",
                                "example": 0.00005
                            },
                            "usageUsd": {
                                "type": "object",
                                "properties": {
                                    "ACTOR_COMPUTE_UNITS": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "DATASET_READS": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "DATASET_WRITES": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "KEY_VALUE_STORE_READS": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "KEY_VALUE_STORE_WRITES": {
                                        "type": "number",
                                        "example": 0.00005
                                    },
                                    "KEY_VALUE_STORE_LISTS": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "REQUEST_QUEUE_READS": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "REQUEST_QUEUE_WRITES": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "DATA_TRANSFER_INTERNAL_GBYTES": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "DATA_TRANSFER_EXTERNAL_GBYTES": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "PROXY_RESIDENTIAL_TRANSFER_GBYTES": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "PROXY_SERPS": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    }
                                }
                            }
                        }
                    }
                }
            }
        }
    }
}
```