Dataset of the Day: Rooms for Rent in DC for Obama’s Inauguration Day

In January, a record 4 million people are expected to gather in Washington, DC to take part in the Inauguration celebration. Hotels near the area sold out nearly the day after Obama was elected. Luckily, where traditional lodging failed, Craigslist saved the day. People all around Washington, DC (and I mean all around, including from places like Baltimore which is nearly 40 miles away) have been so kind as to offer up their couches, rooms, whole houses, and even offices to those in need of a place to stay for the event. That is, if you are willing to sell your first born child!

Prices for a room are ranging from $50 per night to above $4,000. It is quite common to see rooms rented for an average of $2,000 per night. In fact hundreds of DC entrepreneurs a day are jumping for the opportunity to make their month’s rent in one night of sleeping on a friend’s couch so they can rent their apartment. While the prices are often unbelievable, many offers include breakfast, a ride to the metro, and even babysitting.

We thought it would be interesting to see where these people’s room/homes were, if they were actually located anywhere near to the inauguration site (or DC for that matter) and how much they were charging based on their location.

We took a 3 day sample of ads from Craigslist, geo-coded them and then added some attributes based on prices and amenities. You can find this dataset in Finder!.

This first map shows the entire DC metro area and beyond to demonstrate the distribution of rooms for rent.

The next two maps show the DC area with rooms based on price per room, per night, as well as metro stops. It seems like there is very little relationship between the location of the room and the price. Go figure!

So if you are still looking for a place to stay, or if you want to check out how much you can get away with charging for your floor and a sleeping bag, check out this dataset in Maker!.