r/uiuc_housing

You know that thing where you have 12 tabs open, one per leasing company, trying to remember which one had the unit under $900, and giving up halfway through?

Yeah. That's over now.

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UIUC Housing AI is live🎉🎉🎉 Here's what it does:

🌽 Two ways to search

If you already know what you want (beds, budget, move-in date), there‘re card/table/map filter views.

If you don't know yet, or you just have general questions like "is it too late to find a place" or "what's the average price near Grainger", there's a chat mode where you can ask instead of digging through dropdowns.

🌽 Price per bed, finally, not "starting at"

No more "starting at $X" that's actually for the studio while the unit you want is double that per bed. Every listing shows the real price per bed for that exact unit.

🌽 Every company in one search

Green Street Realty and University Group are both in there. Compare across companies instead of switching tabs.

🌽 A map that actually helps

Every listing plotted relative to campus, so "0.4 miles" isn't a mystery that turns into a 20 minute walk in January.

Free, built for UIUC students!!!!

Two years ago in mid-June I got my UIUC transfer offer.

Two years ago today, July 3rd, I signed the 4B4B that turned into a total nightmare. If you saw my earlier post, you know the story.

Two years later, on this exact date, I used the CS I've been learning at UIUC since then to build something that hopefully saves other people from spending hours across a dozen tabs just trying to figure out what's actually available!

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Coming back with an update on this project. It's basically done at this point, just made a bunch of changes recently.

Biggest one: search is now split into two modes.

1. If you're not sure what you want yet, or you have general questions like "when should I start looking," "when are prices lowest," "do prices go up after the semester starts," you can just type it in plain language and it'll walk you through it.
2. If you already know exactly what you're looking for, you can go straight to map view or card view and filter from there.

Been polishing the UI too, and messing around with AI to generate some nicer visuals for the project page.

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The project is launching very soon!!!!!!!!! Invitation links start going out today.

If you're interested, feel free to join the waitlist, first batch of invites will go out to people already on there.

>Not trying to do the fake scarcity thing, just being honest: this is my first time actually launching something like this, and I genuinely don't know what kind of traffic to expect. Rolling it out to the waitlist first is mostly so I can make sure everything actually works smoothly before opening it up to everyone, don't want anyone's first experience to be a broken page or a site that's crawling.

Thanks for following along with this, means a lot !!!!!!!!!!!!!

📍 101 E. Daniel St. – right by campus!
🛏️4 Bed 2 Bath
📅 1 August 2026 - 30 July 2027 (Open to semester subleases too)

Why you’ll love it here:
- Only ~$600-650/month (rent + utilities)
- ⁠In-unit laundry
- ⁠Parking available
- Bus stop right outside (First & Daniel, 22 Illini), you can still catch it even if the sign says “now”.
- Costco membership
- Smart TV (with YouTube premium!)
- Really safe bike parking. No case of theft or bike left without its tires

Notes: We’re on the 3rd floor (good workout on move-in day 😅)

If you’re looking for a convenient, affordable, and friendly place to stay, this is perfect for you!

For more details about the property, visit: https://www.greenstrealty.com/properties/profile/101-e-daniel-st

Hi!
I’m a trans man, 21, looking for a roommate for the 2026-2027 Academic year. I’m in an apartment that’s right on campus. Your rent would be $500 and utilities. It’s furnished and has WiFi. I already live here and I’ve liked it a lot. It’s a two bedroom apartment with one bathroom, a kitchen, and a living room. I’m very clean and quiet, and I’m not a smoker. Please dm me if interested.

========= Update: No longer available =========

My friend has a 1B1B apartment available for lease transfer for August 2026 - August 2027. I am looking to transferring the lease for the entire year (officially through Smile). Details & pictures are below.

Address: 507 E Clark St. (1st floor, Unit 16)
Rent + Utilities: $1049 + $105 per month
Company: Smile Fairlawn
Lease start: August 17th

YouTube video: https://youtu.be/scBDGuKRdO8?feature=shared

Appliances Included: In-unit Laundry. The kitchen comes with a full-sized fridge, dishwasher, stove, microwave, oven and sink. Living area has a smart TV, love-seat, bar-stool, desk and chair. Comes with a double bed, lots of storage, garbage disposal, dresser, dinette and dinette chairs, end table, recycling, sewer, trash service ans window treatment.

You get access to Flamingo amenities: fitness centre, resident lounge, conference rooms, etc. Is only 0.4mi from Siebel school of Computing.

Comment on this post or DM me if interested.

Looking for someone to take over my lease for the 2026-2027 academic year! It's a private bedroom and private bathroom in a spacious, fully furnished 2B/2B on the ground floor. 

Details:

• Rent: $760/month (Current rate is $850/mo!)
• Utilities: ~$50 in the summer, ~$100 in the winter
• Lease Term: August 2026 – July 2027 (Full 1-Year Lease)
• Relet/Sublease Fee: $350

   

The Space & Perks:

• Ground floor unit with a nice private patio.
• Fully furnished bedroom and common areas.
• In-unit washer & dryer, central AC, Fast internet, and dishwasher.
• Your own attached private bathroom.

 

The Roommate & Environment:

• You'll be sharing the apartment with 1 roommate: a quiet, friendly, and clean graduate student at UIUC. 
• He has a very cute, friendly cat, so the place is pet-friendly!

 

Building & Location Amenities:

• Located at The Linc in Urbana (great community, right on the bus line to campus).
• Access to incredible amenities: Fitness center/gym, study lounges with coffee machines and printing facility, game room with pool table, outdoor pool, pickleball and basketball courts, dog parks, BBQ spots, and secure Amazon Hub lockers for packages.
• Maintenance has always been quick and reliable and the new management is heavily investing in ongoing renovations.

Bonus / Moving-Out Sale:

• I am also willing to sell my small kitchen appliances (Air fryer, blender, utensils, glass storage containers, mason jars, etc.) directly to the incoming tenant for a cheap price! Perfect if you want a fully setup kitchen from day one without the hassle of shopping.

Link for virtual tour: 

• https://my.matterport.com/show/?m=xR4yZMENguq

 

DM me if you're interested or would like to schedule a virtual/in-person walkthrough!

Two years ago I was apartment hunting online before coming to UIUC.

I thought all the studios near campus were gone, so I signed a 4b4b figuring "eh, it's roughly the same price and closer to class."

Big mistake!!!!!!!!

During the roommate search, everyone said they didn't smoke.
Then they moved in and started smoking inside the apartment.
At one point they were literally stubbing out cigarettes in our shared drinking glasses. lol

They also said no overnight guests.
A few days after move-in, we had a little house meeting and one roommate casually mentioned her boyfriend might stay "2 or 3 days." He stayed for two weeks. yeah.

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About a month in, I found a studio within walking distance that was well within my budget. Only about $100/month more than what I was paying!!!!!!!!!!

The problem wasn't that affordable studios didn't exist. I just gave up too early and didn't have a good way to compare options.

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Fast forward two years. I'm deep into UIUC CS now, and I figured I'd actually do something about this.

So I built uiuc-housing-ai — an apartment search tool specifically for UIUC students.

The problem with apartment hunting here：

1. You end up with 15 tabs open, Green Street, University Group, MHM, Dean Campustown, 707, Hub, Smile, and a bunch of others, manually comparing rent, utilities, what's furnished, what's actually available.
2. Apartments.com listings are often stale too, showing units that are already gone.

So I wrote a legal web scraper that pulls fresh listings regularly from the actual property management sites.

Things first-time renters often miss

1. Frat row and bar proximity.
You might love an apartment on paper, sign the lease, and then realize every nice-weather evening in fall and spring means an outdoor party right outside your window.

2. Actual distance math.
Instead of vague "near campus" labels, the tool uses lat/lng to calculate real walking distances to your classes, grocery stores, whatever you care about.

3. Views
Card, Table, and Map — browse however makes sense to you.

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Built this mostly for incoming students, especially non-local students hunting remotely without older friends to ask. Hopefully it saves someone from my particular situation.

Happy to answer questions about the tech stack, the scraping approach, or UIUC housing in general...

Urgent! Looking for someone to take over my Lease from July 1st through August. Here’s the link and let me know if you have any questions.

https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/947800941653358/?mibextid=6ojiHh