Looking for a place to live by May 2012 (San Francisco, Oakland: cheap apartments, lease)

[An3mu5c0r9u5]

Hey guys, I'm currently a student at University of Texas at Austin and I'm planning on moving into the SF Bay Area for the American College of Traditional Chinese Medicine at 455 Arkansas Street San Francisco 94107 and I was wondering what neighborhoods near there would be safe, affordable, and easy to commute in order to get there for school and downtown for weekly grocery shopping/farmers market/co-ops.

My situation is:

I have 2 roommates that will be moving with my from Austin, TX. We'd like a 2br/2ba, 2br/1ba, or even a 1br/1ba situation where we could turn the living room into a bedroom-living room hybrid. Our budget is at most $2000 a month excluding utilities (how much are average utilities in SF by the way??). We might bring my dog which is a pug mix for added security (ironic, but she does bark at anything).

Anyway, it'd be nice if you could steer me in the right direction with websites, and neighborhood information (we've already scavenged craigslist). We wouldn't be moving until late April or early May of 2012. We won't have a car so the only means of transportation would be walking and taking the public transit in order to reach the school.

How's the work environment as well? I'd be working at grocery/restaurant and my roommates are both professional modern dancers, yoga teacher certified, and massage certified.

Thanks!!!

[mayorhaggar]

A 2 br for around $2000 will be tough in a good part of SF, also landlords in SF can be really anti-pet so it might be hard to find something where you can have even a small dog. Should be able to find a 1br for around $1500 to $2000 in SF but apartments here can be small so I think having 3 people in a 1br with someone sleeping in the living room would get old after a while. If you want to do a 2br then maybe check out Oakland or Berkeley which are quite a bit cheaper than SF, and you could take BART into SF. Could even find some 3br's in some of the nice parts of Oakland for under $2000.

Your school isn't really in a great location for public transit though, in the middle of Potrero Hill. I guess you could take BART to 16th and Mission then take a bus. It's near the 22nd street Caltrain station but I don't think you'd want to live on the Peninsula. Really your only bus options are the 22, the 48 and the 19. Could live in Noe Valley and take the 48, or Nob Hill or Hayes Valley and take the 19, or the area around Dolores Park and Duboce Park or the Lower Haight and take the 22. Biking would be a better option, I dunno about the Polk 19 bus but the 48 and 22 can be pretty lame and don't run often enough.

Craigslist is really it for apartment searches, it was founded in SF. Utilities are cheap in SF and the Berkeley/Oakland area because you never use air conditioning. Probably $50-70 a month for a 2br apartment.

Working here is fine if you're just asking about work environment, but the job market sucks so you might have trouble finding work. There's a lot of restaurants and yoga places though.

[mayorhaggar]

Also if you're really dedicated to living in SF, maybe try and find people looking for roommates, like you and your two friends could move in with someone who has a 3br or 4br and needs new roommates after the old ones left. In that kind of situation often the lease was made several years ago so the rent is lower than if you were signing a totally new lease for a 2br. Overall I'd expect to pay around $700 to $900 a month per person for rent, whether you were getting a 2br or living with roommates.

[An3mu5c0r9u5]

Thanks, how is the commute from say Oakland/Berkeley to the school? I've found some places around Bayview which are decently priced, but I heard from my cousin who lives in Oakland that the area where my school is, is sort of the "ghetto."

Also, how much are BART passes and such?

[mayorhaggar]

Unfortunately there are no monthly passes for BART, I really wish they'd create one but I guess it would lead to trains getting really crowded because more people would ride...though you'd think they could use the new revenue from new riders to run longer trains more frequently...but I digress. I live in Rockridge in N. Oakland and it's $140 a month to ride to and from Montgomery Street in downtown SF on BART, it's pretty ridiculously expensive considering it's only a 20 minute ride. A Muni monthly pass is I think $72 now for a pass that lets you ride Muni and BART anywhere within San Francisco. If you took BART into SF you'd then have to get to Potrero Hill, and take a Muni bus which is another $2 each way. I'd say you're looking at probably a one hour trip each way depending on how close you live to a BART station in the East Bay. If you didn't have a Muni pass I would guess it's about $11 a day to take BART then Muni from say Rockridge to Potrero Hill and back. I don't know how many times you'd be going to classes each week but that could add up.

So keep all this in mind when thinking about your budget, spending $150 to $200 a month on public transit would eat into any savings from living in the East Bay instead of SF. It might make more sense to raise your rent budget for SF a bit and only pay $72 a month for the Muni pass, or even better to use a bike.

Also check bart.gov and sfmta.com for Muni and BART maps and fare info so you can figure out good places to live for public transit connections.

And yeah definitely avoid the Bayview and areas near there. Also don't be tempted by the Tenderloin which always has a lot of cheap apartments listed, some parts are better than others but in general it has a ton of homeless people, drug dealers and crime. Landlords on Craigslist often list apartments as "Civic Center" or "downtown" or "in Union Square" when they're in the middle of the Tenderloin.

[chup76]

padmapper.com (they pull from craigslist etc) not always 100% accurate but good to have a visual overview.

- punch in your address -> 455 Arkansas Street San Francisco 94107
- set filter by price + bedrooms
- Zoom out and review by location

Use google maps to get the estimate time + buses to take.

I would avoid bayview. Looks like there is a one near westportal or one in parkside. Both close to Muni light rail. You can buy a monthly Muni Fast Pass. The westportal one is close to the actual station so that one would be quicker as there's more than one line available.