How to Scrape Craigslist Listings (Cars, Housing, Jobs) with Node.js

#webdev #javascript #node #tutorial

Craigslist is still one of the most scraped sites. Here is how to do it right.

Craigslist RSS Feeds (Easiest)

Craigslist has RSS feeds for every search:

https://sfbay.craigslist.org/search/apa?format=rss&query=studio
https://sfbay.craigslist.org/search/sss?format=rss&query=macbook
https://sfbay.craigslist.org/search/jjj?format=rss&query=developer

Category codes:

apa = apartments
sss = for sale
jjj = jobs
cto = cars

Parse RSS with Node.js

const { parseStringPromise } = require("xml2js");

async function getCraigslistListings(city, category, query) {
  const url = `https://${city}.craigslist.org/search/${category}?format=rss&query=${encodeURIComponent(query)}`;
  const res = await fetch(url);
  const xml = await res.text();
  const parsed = await parseStringPromise(xml);

  return (parsed.rdf?.item || []).map(item => ({
    title: item.title?.[0],
    link: item.link?.[0],
    description: item.description?.[0]?.replace(/<[^>]+>/g, ""),
    date: item["dc:date"]?.[0]
  }));
}

const apartments = await getCraigslistListings("sfbay", "apa", "studio");
console.table(apartments);