It's not hard to spot the flat hunters in Dublin. Stressed out, sweaty faces tend to stand out in a crowd - but it's the pink pages of the Evening Herald gripped firmly in the left hand, with pen nestling in the right, that really give the game away. The truly committed or truly desperate have been gathering on the steps of Easons on O'Connell Street around lunchtime for the past few weeks, eagerly awaiting the first edition of that flat-hunters' handbook. So when I finally set out to join the annual Dublin "flat race" last Monday there was more than a hint of panic in the air. For most students Rathmines remains the mecca, the promised land, where students can sip coffee and put the rigours of academic life firmly into the background. Eager to recapture those lazy days of youth, I set off on the 15A with my pen and crumpled pink guide. The first port of call was a two-bedroom flat situated on the top floor of a Georgian house. It offered a splendid view of the tennis club in Rathmines and two very large bedrooms. For two sharing the price was £650 - for three it jumped to £780.

Of course it was expensive, but it wasn't the cost that ruled me out of the equation. Nowadays most decent flats require references from an employer and past landlords to keep out "unruly types".

Stepping out into the real world of student flat-hunting, I tailed a couple of scholarly types down Leinster Road who each had a copy of the pink guide. Suzanne and Paula are in their placement year at college and seemed confident that they could get the required documentation and perhaps tell a fib or two about their true orientation to bypass the student test. But even they are finding it tough going in what is a landlord's market.

"We were promised a place a few weeks ago, but it fell through and the landlord gave us no notice. Today we've been to a couple of places but there were either queues or they were real dumps," Suzanne explained.

A few hundred metres up the street and I came to my best hope: the one I'd circled at about 12.15 pm, and which was viewing at 8 p.m. The advert ran: "One bedroom flat s/c £110 per week". Not bad if you're prepared to share. Unfortunately it wasn't hard to spot. There were about 10 people languishing on the steps waiting for the landlord to arrive. Two of them had been waiting since 4 p.m. I almost felt pity for them when the landlord arrived a few minutes after me. For some reason, first come, first served isn't how it's done anymore. Filing into the building en masse, we all signed our names in a book and were told we'd be rung back by the landlord. I'm still waiting.

I'm not too disappointed though. The flat was tiny: the kind of place where doing the dishes would be a major logistical operation. The washing machine (I was quite surprised there was one) slotted nicely into the wall of the living room right were you'd expect to put the TV. The thought of those dark winter evenings gathered round the Bendix watching my underwear going round and round was too dire to contemplate.

So, a wasted journey, but not the end of the world. For Helena Martin and her boyfriend Marcos Verdes, however it was an expensive trip: they paid £50 to a flat-letting agency and were given the same address that I circled in the Evening Herald.

"It's crazy," Martin said. "They don't even give you the address out by phone, you have to go in every day to get them from the agency - and when you get to the flats they're either gone or there are already queues." For Theresa Seery from Mullingar, Co Westmeath, the last few days have been particularly frustrating. She is looking for a flat for her daughter Lorraine, a student at TCD, now in the US on a J1 visa. She drives to Dublin daily on her quest. "I've been to about 12 places so far - most were gone and the others either didn't want students or had a year lease," she said.

All these tales of woe weren't exactly putting my mind at ease. So I made the first correct decision of the day: I rang my current landlord and asked him to extend my lease. Sure, it's not where I want to live and he bumped up the price by £25 a month, but anything to avoid the hell of the hunt.

Jamie Smyth is a master's student at DCU.