Apologies if this is not the correct place to ask the following ...

What is the general opinion on hotels v's Craig's list for rental accommodation for 1 week in Vancouver? It'll be around early-mid August when I guess it's premium prices all round! TIA as always for your (collective) advice!

Apples and oranges. Craig's list is uncontrolled with no standards and no service. Hotels offer a known commodity, and specific services. You can try Priceline and Hotwire for bargains if money is your issue. If it's not - then just book a hotel.

In general, we've had some good success with cheap rental accommodations on Craigslist, though not Vancouver specific. For an Oregon coast trip, we stayed at someone's small vacation rental that was excellent. $75/night, slept up to 6, near the beach, kitchen, washer/dryer, tv, dvd player, etc, etc. For the New York trip, my wife stayed at someone's Manhattan apartment, who was going out of town for a while, for some cheap price. We were respectful of the house rules and left it as we found it [actually got complimented by the owner for how clean we left the Oregon rental].

Both experiences were what one hopes for when finding a place via Craigslist.

On the other hand, you definitely have to watch out for scams. There is a bit of trust needed both ways sending a deposit and the keys/lockbox info. Also, I checked the vacation rental listings for Vancouver the pickings seem kind of slim. There were one or two that I'd probably consider though.

I personally only look at CLs to get an pulse on what rental accommodation is going for (as a landlord). There's been reports of potential renters being scammed there (tight rental market for tenants).

I've seen this place advertised a lot but have no idea what it's like:
http://www.shaughnessyvillage.com/

An alternative is perhaps a campus self-contained dorm at UBC (Gage Towers).

Yes, there have been rental scams in the Vancouver market, although some have been newspaper-ad based as well.

I know people who have really liked Shaughnessy Village, but the rooms are small.

Thank you all for your comments/advice - I guess I was trying to "live like a local" even if only for one week ... maybe it's back to the hotels - at least someone else makes up the room

Not in this town, with a vacancy rate of less than 1% (though many condos are said to be empty most of the time). You could try a B&B to give you a flavour of living in a residential neighbourhood.

We had checked out some places on CL when we were going to be homeless for a week due to delayed condo construction, and my casual observation seemed to be that the people offering up cute, funky accommodations in neighbourhoods like Strathcona and Commercial Dr. were the most reliable/legit - we almost ended up booking a Strathcona studio but were saved when the guest suite of our old building had a cancellation.

One of the larger vacation rental companies (Rentalo?) also had some promising options and were willing to make a great deal on one place that was going to go unoccupied otherwise. I'd check into a couple of those sites before abandoning the live-like-a-local prospect forever