This is a guide on finding housing in the Bay Area. This guide is strongly, strongly, strongly aimed at those who work for technology companies or are heavily involved with techonology or 'startups'.
A Process Overview: Here's how finding housing might look. Where should I live? How much do I want to pay? Which places are available? How much can I really afford to pay? How long is it going to take me to find a house? How can I find an individual room to rent? How can I find a couch to crash on while I find a place to live?
Unfortunately, this isn't all that far from the truth. Finding a house in San Francisco or the South Bay is a bitch. Maybe this guide can make that 1% easier, and if it does, cool.
This guide is going to start out as more of a collection of useful and vetted resources, and as time goes on the aim is to have more and more of the information contained within the guide itself.
The best way to do this is to read over some longer accounts of people who've reported their experiences finding housing in the Bay Area, or people who asked for help with this and received advice.
Atlanta to San Francisco: What I Learned Moving Cross-Country Notes: Good overview of a few tips for both identifying and securing an apartment, also has a good deal of information on other aspects of moving such as which ISP to use, food, public transportation, and so on. Important to note that this was written in 2010.
Ask HN: I'm selling all my stuff and moving to SF to work on my startup. Advice? Notes: solid post with a bunch of relevant commentary on different neighborhoods, and a huge array of tips. Three similar old posts on Hacker News: One, Two, Three
25 Things I wish I knew before moving to San Francisco and the Hacker News comments Notes: Not too much specifically on finding housing, but goo information nonetheless.
Ask HN: Where Should a Young Hacker Live in the Bay Area?
Moving from London to San Francisco (as a Software Engineer) Notes: Has a small section on finding an apartment.
Bay Area Housing Guide Notes: An awesome overview of where to live, and how to find a place.
Do you want mellow, relaxing, spacious SF, gritty loft hipster SF, dense urban SF or suburban SF? I have no friggen idea.
To decide where you should live, examine the following factors:
- Where will I be commuting to most often
- Where are my friends living
Then, it's time to do some reading and come up with a shortlist.
Resources to Explore
Garry Tan's SF Guide to Where Your Startup Should Be (along with the post's Hacker News comments) Note: Fantastic and recently updated guide aimed at startup founders with good pro/con summaries of a number of different locations.
Ask HN: What are the best Hacker Houses in SF?
SVstartup wiki Notes: Great collection of information on neighborhoods.
Map: Average Rent For 1BR In San Francisco By Neighborhood
Moving to San Francisco Notes: Fantastic overview of neighborhoods, with awesome visuals.
Reddit: Compilation of the "Moving to SF" threads. Notes: Amazing information.
Reddit: Ultimate moving to Bay Area thread Notes: Collection of links without much context, hard to navigate but good information within.
Just graduated and got a job in SF! Moving there by August and looking for advice. Notes: A few really good tidbits with neighborhood recommendations.
Notes and my thoughts Explore the places. Get a shortlist, and visit these places. Couchsurf there, or stay with people you know who live in these areas. Don't half ass it, either - one night in one neighborhood and one night in another isn't going to give you tons of information. Try and identify places where you'll be living around people you enjoy spending time with. Research has consistently shown that relationships are one of the most important factors contributing to happiness (funnily enough, having a short commute has also been shown to contribute to happiness) - so optimize for living near/with cool people, and near places you'll be traveling.
Without a massive budget or perfect credit (750+), it's gonna be hard.
I am an apartment manager of a 24 unit building in Nob Hill. First of all, pick an area that you want to live in and only look there, you will get very worn out if you trek all over the city looking at places. Each area is very unique, and will have different pluses and minuses. If you work downtown my building is a 10 minute walk to the Financial District. I am not saying this because I have any openings (which I don't), but for the way the rental market works in SF. I always post my ads on Craigslist and within a day I usually have at least 20+ responses back. I set up an open house from let's say 7 - 8:30 pm. It always pays off to be the first people there. Also, come prepared with everything (paystub, bank records, credit report...), even a check for a security deposit. If it is the middle of the month and you can't move in until the 1st of the next month, you just basically took yourself out of the pool. Also I would not recommend dealing with any big property management places. I work for a guy who privately owns 9 buildings in the city. If something goes wrong, or you have to get out of a lease, you will be screwed over. Privately owned is the way to go. My last advice would be to once you have figured out the neighborhood you like, walk every block and call the units that have the for rent sign hanging up. Most likely those are privately owned and your jumping in before others reply back to postings on line. Good Luck! Source: Reddit
Check out HotPads, PadMapper, LiveLovely, HousingMaps, and of course, Craigslist.
Also:
Walk around the neighborhood you want to live in and look for "For Rent" signs. A lot of smaller landlords don't post on craigslist anymore because they get too many responses to sift through. Source: Reddit
Any good non-Craig's List websites for SF housing?
To put some perspective - I emailed 246 postings in the past 3 weeks, went to dozens of apartment showings and open houses. I just got approved and selected for a place today, with 8 days until my deadline. It gets insanely stressful.
Have a copy of your credit report in hand and be ready to write a deposit check on the spot. My experience has been the best SF apartments go fast and to those that are prepared. Also, if the circumstance is sketchy or too good to be true, it probably is ---- there have been a couple of cases in recent years where people were scammed out of deposits, end up without an apartment. Source: Reddit
Ask HN: Moving to San Francisco: Best way to find an appartment Notes: Tons of suggestions on sites for finding listsings.
Ask HN: Do you know of any "Rental Market Hacks"
Ask HN: How do you rent apartments in SF when self-employed?
Avoid Housing Scams
I'm just starting my search as well, and it's definitely a struggle - most of the people I've emailed so far have pretty clearly been scammers who refuse to show the location, want a deposit asap, and when I call the actual location, the real owners have never heard of. Source: Reddit
Do Not Use Citiapartments / Syline Reality / First Apartments. They are well known for being massive shits and enemies of SF renters. They also own a lot of property here. Source: Reddit
I'd advise filling out a generic application and pulling your credit on your own to take with you to viewings. Also, plan on a good chunk of emails coming back with scammers or spam. Don't fill out any application stuff online until you see the apartment inside with your own eyes.
Don't Give Up Hope
It can happen. My boyfriend and I found a place in 4 days by constantly refreshing craigslist and politely stalking landlords. Have your credit check, proof of employment and some stock applications in hand when you go there. We signed our lease at the showing. Source: Reddit