How to Find a Room for Rent in Austin

Moving to Austin for a new job or an internship? Renting a room is one of the easiest ways to land here without committing to a full apartment. The hard part is knowing where to look, and which sites actually get you a reply.

We’re Ali and Muizz Soomar, and we rent out rooms in shared homes in Austin and Manor. That means we’re on these sites every week from the other side: posting our rooms, messaging people looking for a place, and screening who replies. Below is what we’ve seen on each one, plus the facts on cost and how each works. Prices and details are as of September 2026.

Is Roomies good for finding a room in Austin?

Yes. Roomies is one of the main places we find residents for our homes, and it’s where we’d start. Austin had rooms from about $600 to $1,050 a month, many with utilities included.

On Roomies, we’re usually the ones reaching out: we message 1 to 4 new people on a typical weekday, and about 20 to 30 percent of them reply. That may sound low, but the people who do reply are real and serious. We’ve rarely seen spam or fake replies there.

Roomies is free to use. It sells optional upgrades like featured listings and verification. The one we did pay for is identity verification, and if you pay for anything, we’d make it that one: it shows others you’re a real person. It’s a one-time payment, not a subscription, and the badge stays on your profile. (Roomies doesn’t pay us to say this; it’s just our opinion.) As with any site, do your own checking: at a minimum, get the person on the phone so you know who you’re dealing with.

Are Facebook groups good for finding a room in Austin?

Yes, Facebook groups have a huge number of rooms and people, and they’re one of our best channels. These are some of the Austin groups we’ve used:

• Austin, TX, Houses, Roommates, Rooms For Rent & Sublets
• Austin roommates, rooms, subleases and shares
• Austin Roommates
• Austin Housing
• Greater Austin Area, Housing and Roommate Finder

Most of these groups are active, but they’re noisy. Expect spam comments on almost every post, especially ones pushing you to download a roommate app or sign up for some other service to find a room. Ignore those. There are also plenty of promotional posts, so you’ll need to filter as you scroll.

People in groups are a little slower to answer direct messages, but there are so many listings that it evens out. This is also where you need the scam checklist below the most. A common one: someone asks you to pay just to tour the place.

Should I use Facebook Marketplace to find a room?

Marketplace works, and for us it’s been about as good as Roomies and Facebook groups. Almost every message we get there starts with “Is this available?” About half of those turn into real interest, and about half of those people are willing to jump on a call.

If you’re the one searching, you can stand out easily. Instead of the default message, write a few lines about yourself: what you do, when you want to move in, and how long you plan to stay. You’ll get far more replies that way.

Is Craigslist safe for finding a room in Austin?

Craigslist can be, but it takes the most care. Go to Austin Craigslist, then housing, then rooms & shares. Listings mostly ran $500 to $900 a month, so you can find better deals than elsewhere.

You’ll also see more scams, and more rooms from homeowners renting out a spare room to cover their costs. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it can be less professional: no written lease, no set way to pay rent, or very strict house rules. Ask about each of these before you agree to anything.

We post our rooms there too, and we have found good residents through Craigslist. But it brings us more questionable inquiries than any other site, like people who want to move in right away and skip the background check. For us it ranks below Roomies and Facebook.

Is SpareRoom worth it in Austin?

SpareRoom has thousands of Austin ads, with rooms from about $725 to $2,500 a month. It’s free to use, but new ads are reserved for paying “Early Bird” members for the first 7 days, which costs $15 for a week or $30 for 28 days.

In our experience, it was the least active site we’ve used. We were on SpareRoom for more than 6 months as an alternative to Roomies. Most people we contacted never replied, and we never got a single person on the phone. That doesn’t mean it can’t work for you, but we’d use it as a second place to look, not the first. We also found the paid upgrades, offered to both people searching and people listing, to be a lot.

Is Furnished Finder good for renting a room?

Furnished Finder is built for traveling professionals, like travel nurses, who want a whole furnished place to themselves for a few months. It’s free for renters, with no booking fees, though landlords can charge deposits or cleaning fees and may ask for a $44.99 screening. Most Austin listings are whole apartments and houses from about $1,600 a month, with a smaller number of private rooms.

We don’t list there ourselves, because not all of our rooms are furnished and we prefer longer stays (more on why below).

What about co-living companies like PadSplit, Alcove, and Bungalow?

Co-living companies list rooms in shared houses, with one process for applying, paying, and screening across all their homes. These three operate in the Austin area:

• PadSplit rents furnished rooms by the week, starting around $180 a week near Austin, with utilities, Wi-Fi, and laundry included. There’s a $19 application fee, a move-in fee that averages about $100, and a 12-week minimum stay.
• Alcove lists rooms in shared homes managed through its platform, with one payment covering rent, utilities, and internet. Its Austin-area homes are mostly in the suburbs, including Georgetown, Leander, and Lakeway. It asks for a credit score of 575 or higher and income of 3 times the rent.
• Bungalow had a handful of Austin rooms at about $310 to $560 a month, with furnished common areas. Utilities are billed separately based on what the home uses.

Reviews vary widely, so read recent ones for the specific city before you apply. On Trustpilot, PadSplit rated 4.2 out of 5 and Bungalow 2.4 out of 5.

What about renting from a small landlord like Amsoo Properties?

The other option is renting a private room straight from the people who own and run the house. That’s us. We have four shared homes in Austin and Manor, with private bedrooms, furnished common areas, monthly cleaning of shared spaces, and utilities and internet set up for you.

Two things make it different from most listings:

• Everyone in the house is screened. We run the same application an apartment would: a background check, a credit check, and income verification. It can seem like a lot for a room, but a room with no screening means your housemates weren’t screened either.
• People stay. We prefer longer leases, so you aren’t meeting a new housemate every month. Residents tell us that’s why the house feels like their own home, not a place where strangers come and go.

The trade-off is choice. We have four homes, not thousands of listings, so this works best if one is near where you’ll work. Our guides for Tesla Giga Texas, Samsung Austin, and Applied Materials show door-to-door drive times.

Available Now

Caballo Blanco — Unit B

East Austin

Private room with private bath
Available October 2026

Learn More

Starting at

$900/mo

Available Now

Chapala — Unit B

Manor

Furnished private room with private bath
Available October 2026

Learn More

Starting at

$900/mo

Available Now

Chapala — Unit C

Manor

Furnished private room with private bath
Available October 2026

Learn More

Starting at

$900/mo

Available Now

Chapala — Unit E

Manor

Furnished private room with shared bath
Available October 2026

Learn More

Starting at

$800/mo

See all available rooms

Which site finds the best roommates?

From the landlord side, here’s how our channels have ranked for finding residents who sign and stay:

1. Referrals from current residents and people who contact us directly through our website, by far the best.
2. Roomies, Facebook groups, and Facebook Marketplace, about tied.
3. Craigslist, which works but brings more questionable inquiries.
4. SpareRoom, the fewest replies of anything we’ve tried.

If you’re searching, that means: ask friends and coworkers who already live in Austin first, and when you find a landlord you like, contact them through their own website. Then spend most of your time on Roomies and Facebook.

How do I get a landlord or roommate to reply?

Make your first message easy to say yes to. Include:

• A line about you and what you do (for example, “I’m starting at Samsung in June”).
• When you want to move in.
• How long you want to stay.
• Your budget, if the listing doesn’t show a price.

Then ask for a quick phone or video call. A call tells you the person is real, and it tells them the same about you.

How do I avoid rental scams when looking for a room?

Rental scams are most common on free listing sites. Before you send any money:

1. Don’t pay anything before you’ve seen the place. That includes an application fee, deposit, or a fee to tour it. Tour in person or on a live video call first.
2. Check who owns the property. Look up the address on the Travis Central Appraisal District site, or Williamson CAD for Round Rock, Georgetown, and Taylor. If the owner’s name doesn’t match the person or company you’re talking to, ask why.
3. Watch for the same place under a different name. If another ad shows the same photos or address with a different contact, it’s likely a scam.
4. Be wary of prices far below similar rooms nearby, and of pressure to decide fast.
5. Never pay by wire transfer, gift card, or cryptocurrency. The FTC says that’s always a scam.
6. Get a written lease before you hand over a deposit.

Landlords watch for red flags too. The biggest one we see is someone who wants to move in right away, won’t do a background check, and offers to pay months up front instead. If a landlord happily accepts that, think about who else they’ve let into the house.

Which option is right for me?

• You want real replies, fast: start with Roomies and Facebook groups.
• You want to browse a specific part of town: Facebook Marketplace.
• You’re on a tight budget: Craigslist, with the scam checklist in hand.
• You have a higher budget and want a whole furnished apartment: Furnished Finder.
• You want a screened household, a short drive to work, and owners who answer: a home like ours. Fill out our interest form and we’ll tell you honestly whether one of our homes fits.