Rental market: is it me or is the rental market crazy at the moment? (San Francisco: real estate market, apartment complexes)

[NapaCab]

Originally Posted by mayorhaggar

Yes the market is crazy and will stay that way until the tech bubble bursts. There are a lot of new tech firms in SF and Silicon Valley that are hiring young people who are taking all the apartments in the city. On top of that a lot of people are getting squeezed out of the buying market and into the rental market due to foreclosures, the greater difficulty of getting a home loan, etc. And it's still winter, which is the slow season here, so there's not going to be a lot of units becoming available.

Interesting - do you think the market will improve e.g. in 3 months' time? If so, we could just extend the corporate apartment and look for something then. But if not, and if the market's this crazy year round, then we'll just take what we can get now.

[mayorhaggar]

There will be more inventory but there will be more people looking. Around May and June you will get the combination of a bunch of new college grads moving to SF to work or at least look for work, mixed with students still in college who need to secure housing for the summer and fall semesters.

[Lukejones2]

What would the market be like around end of July / August? Just as that's when my timeline may bring me to town...

[mdwstrnkid]

I suspect that with the upcoming Facebook IPO, there will be upward market pressure not only in the Menlo Park/Palo Alto area, but also in the SOMA/South Beach, given the easy Caltrain access to Menlo Park. I know that there will only be a couple of thousand of people who are directly benefiting from the IPO, but this coupled with the current market won't make it any cheaper to find a rental in SF.

[nmnita]

Originally Posted by NapaCab

We just moved to San Francisco a month ago and have been looking on craigslist, rentinsf and trulia for rental places and we're finding NOTHING. We have corporate accommodation until April but we have to find somewhere permanent before then.

My partner works in Silicon Valley and we have a budget range of 2500-3500 for rent. We need at least 2 bedrooms because we have a baby. We're looking in central areas of SF but also down in the Valley (Los Gatos, Los Altos, Mountain View, Sunnyvale, Campbell - and Palo Alto ideally but that's a distant dream as it's so expensive...!). We can't find anything at the moment. It doesn't even seem to be our budget that's the problem - when I looked in the $4,000-$6,000 range, there wasn't a lot available either.

Is it me or is the rental market insanely hot at the moment? Is it always like this or is it just a seasonal variation? When my partner accepted this new job back in October, the relocation people told us that our rental budget was realistic and shouldn't be a problem but now they're saying that there's not much available and we may have to reduce our expectations. Are we missing something? Is there some magical place where you can get rentals that we're not aware of? Is there a company that we could pay to find a place for us and pay them a fee? We have a young baby so I don't get a lot of time during the day to look although I do check craiglist every day and there just really doesn't seem to be much coming on the market. Are we being unrealistic in our budget / expectations? I am really worried that we won't find anywhere in the next month...

I can't answer you as for crazy or not, but Craigs list isn't the best place to look for rentals. It is great for selling furniture, but I wouldn't trust it for rentals. Contact a realtor or try renters.com for starters.

[beb0p]

Originally Posted by nmnita

I can't answer you as for crazy or not, but Craigs list isn't the best place to look for rentals. It is great for selling furniture, but I wouldn't trust it for rentals. Contact a realtor or try renters.com for starters.

Rule #1, take any advice from some douche who lives in Arkansas about San Francisco with a LARGE grain of salt.

Rule #2, never wait until the summer to look for rentals. Never. You'll be completing with half the continent (at least it feels like it).

.

[gone down south]

Originally Posted by nmnita

I can't answer you as for crazy or not, but Craigs list isn't the best place to look for rentals. It is great for selling furniture, but I wouldn't trust it for rentals. Contact a realtor or try renters.com for starters.

Maybe in Arkansas, but in the Bay Area Craigslist is pretty much the ONLY place to reliably find rental listings.

[Ultrarunner]

Peninsula and South Bay prices always amaze me...

Last week I visited a friend that recently rented a nice one bedroom top floor in an older SF building with one parking space for $1650... that same rent would get you a 3 bedroom, 1 bath home in Laurel, Dimond, Bartlett neighborhoods in Oakland with a little luck...

[beb0p]

Originally Posted by Ultrarunner

Peninsula and South Bay prices always amaze me...

Last week I visited a friend that recently rented a nice one bedroom top floor in an older SF building with one parking space for $1650... that same rent would get you a 3 bedroom, 1 bath home in Laurel, Dimond, Bartlett neighborhoods in Oakland with a little luck...

Is it SF or SJ?

Top floor one bedroom with parking for $1,650 in SF sounds like a bargain, or maybe it's in outlaying neighborhood? If it's in SF, I'd love to score something like that in a decent neighborhood.

.

[mayorhaggar]

Originally Posted by Lukejones2

What would the market be like around end of July / August? Just as that's when my timeline may bring me to town...

The worst in terms of mobs of people looking, it's right before the fall semester starts. Every SFSU and UC student in town will be champing at the bit to find a place.