Apartments:The great San Francisco apartment hunt ends!

Part I: How to find an apartment in San Francisco
Part II: The great San Francisco apartment hunt begins!

Two weeks ago, after coming back from the Fire Festival at 2 in the morning, Stephanie and I got up early and went down to the city to look at apartments together. We saw an expensive 4th floor apartment in ritzy Pacific Heights where the current tenant had left a giant bag of pot open on the kitchen counter. Nice. We saw a decent apartment with a rockin’ kitchen on 39th Ave, but it was a little too close to foggy Ocean Beach for comfort. We saw a loft with great views on the 12th floor of a large complex in the Tenderloin. It was appealing for its availability, but I wasn’t feeling the neighborhood (”known for its drug trade, prostitution, ethnic restaurants, and bar scene,” hawt!) or the density of the building.

Totally worn out, we drove a few blocks north, smack into the cuteness that is Polk Street in Nob Hill. We walked over to a creperie on the corner, shared a nutella and banana crepe, and tried to evaluate what we’d seen. After a few moments, we realized we really liked where we were. Right there. Right at that creperie.

Afterwards we took a walk around the neighborhood and realized Nob Hill was San Francisco to us. Close to downtown, but not. North enough to make getting to Sausalito a breeze. Comfortably residental, but still lively along Polk Street. Not touristy. Hilly, but not unwalkable. Did I mention perfect?

That night we got back to Santa Rosa and immediately hopped on Craigslist and narrowed our search to Nob Hill. Stephanie and I kept wondering, why hadn’t we looked for apartments here before? Sure enough, there were some open houses scheduled for Sunday. We contemplated going but didn’t commit—another trip down would make it our third that weekend (on top of my going down every weekday).

We also discovered another reality of Craigslist. Looking back over the neighborhoods we’d visited during the day, we noticed that some people list their open houses the day of! We never thought to recheck the ads before leaving that morning. I mean c’mon, Stephanie compiled the list Friday night!

So come Sunday morning the first thing Stephanie does is check for any new Nob Hill listings. Sure enough, there are a few. Some strangely without published open houses—instead they requested that we call for an appointment. Which we did, for several, with two definites later that afternoon. Which meant…we were going down to the city again.

The weather was beautiful that day. Sunny, but not hot. Good omen I guess. I think we looked at a place or two, but I don’t really remember the details because they were wholly overshadowed by what we saw at our 2:15 appointment.

This was the second place we’d seen in Nob Hill. The ad had some pictures, not great ones, mostly of the building and interior areas, not of the apartment itself. But the description seemed promising. We got there a minute or two early, it was on Pine Street, between Leavenworth and Hyde. While we were waiting for the owners to arrive, two well-dressed young women left the building. We were on the edge of moving on when the door opened again. What I assumed was the 2 o’clock appointment departed and we entered.

The interior of the building was well kempt. Nice decorative carpet. Walls with bright yellow wallpaper. Decorative paintings, occasional tables. Not especially important details, but they suggested that the current tenants respected the building and the owners had cared for it.

The apartment was on the 2nd floor of 3, a 1 bedroom, still occupied, though the current tenants were out. I think the first thing I noticed were the hardwood floors. They had this inlaid wood detailing around the border of each room—which I really like, and which reminded us of the very first apartment we saw in the city, just to see what an Edwardian apartment was like, this before I’d even been offered a new job.

There was a bathroom on the right after entering with a clawfoot tub and a shower curtain rod hanging overhead. Stephanie noted approvingly of the long counter on either side of the sink. We walked into the bedroom which was striking for two reasons. First, it had a large bay window that looked out over the street with a view of a tree out front. Second, it was separated from the living room by two, presently open, sliding pocket doors, creating the effect of a much larger space.

The living room itself also had a large bay window with an unobstructed view of Pine Street below. Together they let an exceptional amount of natural light into the apartment. The kitchen I’d say was large, compared to others in the city, with enough room for a small table and chairs. There was a gas stove, a refrigerator, even a window that looked out into the narrow space between this building and the next. On that same wall was a door to a fairly large, but uninsulated pantry, containing another door which opened onto a shared wooden staircase down to the trash bins.

We chatted with the owners in the kitchen for a few minutes. They’d owned the building for over twenty years. They described some of the current tenants (two art students, an actor, a writer, etc.) and the application process. Basically we’d both need to fill out an application, provide them with two credit reports, and give them a check for 1/3 of the deposit to indicate that we were serious. If they offered us the apartment and we accepted, they’d deposit the check, if not they’d tear it up. We walked back through the rooms, told them we had some other places to see that afternoon, but would call back if we were still interested.

The funny thing about going to open houses as a couple is that I can’t really speak freely while I’m there. For one, I’m experiencing it all for the first time, and I kind of like to process my observations before letting out my thoughts or hearing Stephanie’s. And of course usually we’re being guided by an unobjective third party, so I don’t feel comfortable just blurting out what I do or don’t like. But the instant we got out of there, I think we were both getting the feeling.

The first thing I said was, “Ok, let’s start with what we don’t like. The crazy linoleum in the kitchen. No laundry in the building. No parking.” Then silence. She agreed. We really liked the place. Other than the no laundry, it had pretty much everything we wanted, with a healthy dose of charm and character at that. And it appeared that there were two laundry places on the block, and several others within walking distance. If we could suck it up…

But first we had to check out the other places on our list. There was a berber-carpeted apartment in Pacific Heights with central vacuuming that had a minuscule kitchen straight outta the 70s. There was another weird place nearby that was actually dirty inside. And then we went back to Nob Hill for an apartment with an amazing view towards downtown, lots of walk-through closets and kitchen charm, but the whole place was freshly carpeted, probably to add some sound insulation between the floors. Call me a hardwood floor snob, but I really think it subtracted from the character of the place. Plus it was $355 more a month than the Nob Hill apartment we’d seen (and loved) earlier.

After an emergency bathroom break and some talking, there was no question. We wanted that apartment on Pine Street. I started angsting about not having brought a checkbook to drop off a deposit, and thinking about just pulling $500 cash out of my bank account. I really wanted them to know we were serious. But the applications needed a lot of detailed information that we didn’t have on hand, so we called back, they said no worries, just fill everything out, and we made arrangements to drop things off Monday evening after work.

Of course we walked back past the building one last time. I snapped this picture with my cellphone. The apartment is on the second floor. Behind the bay window in front of the tree is the bedroom, and to the right is the living room.

The next morning Stephanie told me she’d dreamed about the apartment. Very good sign. We’d printed out our credit reports, they looked good (phew…), we filled out our applications, wrote a check, and I stopped by and dropped everything off after work. I was worried about getting so excited about this place and then not getting it that I started to tell myself there had to be other good apartments out there, and if we didn’t get this place, it just meant there was another (maybe with laundry in the building!) out there for us. And we knew if we had to, we could do this apartment hunt every weekend until we found it.

Wednesday morning I’m brushing my teeth and wandering around, per usual, when I happen to notice my cellphone vibrating inaudibly on my nightstand. I pick it up and answer with toothbrush still in mouth. It was the owner of the Pine Street building calling to offer us the apartment! I swallowed the toothpaste, looked at Stephanie who seemed to know what the call was about, and said yes, we definitely wanted the apartment. And that was it. I felt naseous, I think more because of the toothpaste I’d just swallowed than the shock. We were done. We’d found a place. I was so expecting a long drawn out ordeal, that I didn’t know what to think or do. Our plan had been set in motion. Now we just have to get there.

The great San Francisco apartment hunt begins!

Even before I knew I had a job at Federated Media in Sausalito, Stephanie and I were envisioning what it’d be like to live in San Francisco. In part for the experience (I’m frequently reminded that being young and childless is a prerequisite and a reason to move to the city), in part to ease the hour-long commute I’d incur working in Sausalito, and in part because Stephanie was ready for some new challenges after 5+ years of teaching dance in Santa Rosa.

Once I got the job, a plan began to take shape. We’d start looking for places in the city, Stephanie would start looking for work in the city, and we’d aim to move down in mid-August, when her last Santa Rosa obligation—choreographing a local production of Bye Bye Birdie—was fulfilled. The big challenge being that apartments in the city become available when they’re vacant or just shortly before. Meaning the person who’s able to move in earliest gets the worm. So very likely we’d need to give notice in Santa Rosa before we had a place in the city—30 days notice that would have to coincide with the first and the last day of whatever month we wanted to leave in, my landlord informed us. Hooray for overlapping rent!

Come July, Stephanie and I began to focus our initial search in the Mission. We didn’t realize it at the time, but something there just wasn’t clicking. Mostly it felt too far south of the places we knew, let alone Sausalito, my daily destination. Slowly our search migrated north. To Hayes Valley, then Cole Valley and the Haight, then Inner Richmond, even SoMa and the Marina. A lot of the search happened virtually. We’d fall in love with, then discard whole neighborhoods in the span of an evening on Craigslist.

And occasionally I’d do some reconnaissance after work, checking out a neighborhood, trying to squeeze in a promising open house.

One less than fruitful outing bears retelling. About 3 weeks ago I drove down to 21st street between Valencia and Guerrero (in the Mission). It took a while to get there, about 35 minutes from Sausalito—not a great replacement for my daily commute. When I got to what I thought was the address, I had to drive around 4 or 5 cars double-parked on the narrow two-way street. I thought I saw what looked like a crowd on the sidewalk, which I could only surmise was totally unrelated to some measly open house. Funeral maybe?

Miraculously I found a parking spot a street down and walked over. Turns out the crowd and their double-parked cars were there for the open house, which hadn’t started because the current renter hadn’t shown up to restrain his dog. When he did (about 40 minutes late), the crowd had swelled to nearly 30 people. It seemed that the probability of finding an apartment in this city was fast approaching zero. While waiting on the sidewalk I overheard things like this is worse than it was 2000 and what was up with that kitchen on 23rd last week? It seemed like there was a loose band of hardened apartment hunters toiling unsuccessfully to find a place—a group I feared I’d soon be joining.

And then I walked into the apartment. It was a small 1 bedroom basement apartment. Probably less than 500 square feet. And it reeked of dog. It smelled SO bad I had to keep from breathing through my nose as I walked through. I could only imagine what the other 30+ people (who I let file in ahead of me), many of them couples, must have been thinking: how have we been reduced to this?

I visited two more places that night, each further south, and though I liked the wood burning stove next to stainless steel appliances in last one, it seemed that the early-30s couple who owned the house were auditioning the prospective renters. I was not in the mood. On a table in the kitchen was a sheet of unlined paper for people to leave their personal information—which had inevitably devolved into short essays about how much we love this apartment! I hightailed it out of there.

How to find an apartment in San Francisco

Apartment hunting in San Francisco can be daunting. The first burden to overcome is learning the neighborhoods. Luckily, San Francisco is a relatively small big city, with 800,000 inhabitants in an area roughly the shape of a square, 7 miles on each side. Here’s a pretty decent map that outlines the major neighborhoods.

Map source: STOP AIDS Project

SFGate’s neighborhood guide is a good starting point, but I soon turned to my SF-based friends, family, and co-workers for any information they would share. What I heard again and again in response to the question “Where would you live if you could live anywhere” was “the Mission,” due to its concentration of young people, taquerias, nightlife, and sun. It’s not an area frequented by tourists, so not an area I’d spent any time in before. Which I liked.

I discovered an invaluable “guide” book intended solely for residents, rather than tourists, the aptly named, Not For Tourists Guide to San Francisco, 2006, which I highly recommend for demystifying San Francisco’s neighborhoods, in particular the areas where stores and restaurants coalesce. But don’t take my word for it, you can actually view the entire book online via a series of PDFs, for free. They even say:

Feel free to view and print these pdfs. If you’ve printed more than 20 pages, perhaps consider buying an actual book.

Very cool. But I digress.

The second burden is the cost of living. Currently the rent for a 1 bedroom apartment (1 bedroom usually means a bedroom, a living room, and a kitchen) starts at around $1400. A month. Most anywhere else in the country, that’s a respectable mortgage payment. On a 4 bedroom house. With a yard. And of course it only goes up from there.

The final challenge is just showing up. Since there isn’t a surplus of vacant rentals, a landlord can schedule a 1 hour long (or less) open house (sometimes with only a day or two’s notice) to show an apartment. If you can make it to the open house at the appointed hour, you show up. If not, well then that’s not the apartment for you. If you’re interested, they’ll provide a detailed rental application to fill out and fax back. It’s definitely worth filling out one of these for fun (they’re like personal history research projects) or at least compiling the phone numbers and addresses for current and previous landlords and employers.

Serious hunters will bring a checkbook with them, necessary for putting down a security deposit (as a measure of serious interest) as well as a recent credit report for each prospective renter (which can be got for free via annualcreditreport.com). With anywhere from 5 to 30 people stopping by in an hour’s timeframe, the pool of applicants (read: the competition) is too great for any landlord to want (read: need) to wait for any promised checks or applications.

In between open houses, fellow apartment hunters can be identified by the stack of ink-jet printouts of open house ads from Craigslist they’re carrying around. I felt a certain fraternity with these souls, knowing that I was doing exactly the same thing. Craigslist appears to have a corner on the rental classifieds market in San Francisco (and I presume many other cities). Aside from pounding the pavement, for many Craigslist is the first and last place to look for rentals.

Suffice it to say, for a dyed-in-the-wool maximizer like myself, this process has been a bit trying—and is compounded by the fact that I live an hour and a half away.

A look inside the apartment, finally!

This is our apartment door. On the outside. Not bad, eh?
Voici notre porte d’entree depius l’exterieur (couloir). Pas mal, non?

Walking into the foyer, the bathroom with clawfoot tub is on the right.
Et voila l’entree, avec a droite la salle de bain, et une baignoire a l’ancienne.

From the bedroom, this is a glimpse of both bay windows.
Depuis la chambre, une vue des deux fenêtres victoriennes.

This is the bedroom bay window in all its glory.
Et la, la fenêtre de la chambre dans toute sa splendeur.

Looking out the window and down Pine Street.
Le vue de notre rue, Pine St, typique San Francisco.

Turning around in the bedroom and facing the foyer and living room.
Et on se retourne, regardant dans la chambre, l’entree et le salon.

Close up of the hardwood floor detailing.
Detail du parquais.

In the kitchen, there’s a door in the pantry door.
Dans la cuisine, il y a une porte dans la porte qui mene a un petit cajibis.

And finally for fun, I whipped together a floorplan.
Et pour le plaisir, voici un plan de l’appart fait maison.

My previous post on finding the apartment is here:

you’d need a wide-angle lens to capture this apartment

I give you… the apartment. Or the photogenic living room at least.

Looking towards the window

Previously albeit unfurnishedly, A look inside the apartment, finally!

Finding the Right Apartment

As the demand for apartment housing rises, Apartments.com conducted a survey to current renters to find out why they choose to rent. The results of the survey reveal that maintenance free living, cost and flexibility are the most common reasons to rent!

The largest number of respondents (43.7%) rent primarily for the maintenance free living apartments provide. Many respondents have a strong desire for the convenience of a maintenance person available for common household repairs as well as the freedom of not needing to tend to a lawn, garden or landscaping.

More than twenty-three percent of renters choose to rent for financial reasons. According to the National Multi-Housing Council (NMHC), if an individual plans to live in one place for less than five years, it may make the most financial sense to rent. The costs of buying and selling a home can total 10 percent or more of the price of the home. Additionally, home ownership in a desired neighborhood may be much more expensive than renting in the same neighborhood. Some of the survey respondents indicated that they chose to rent in a preferred school district when owning in the area was not within their budget. Renting also affords individuals the freedom to invest in a variety of stocks, bonds and mutual funds that can provide a higher return on investment as opposed to property ownership. According to the NMHC the average home value increases only five percent each year, whereas the average stock value increases seven percent and bond value increases eight percent each year.

Nineteen percent of respondents indicate that relocation flexibility and the lack of a long term commitment in an apartment is the primary reason they choose to rent.

The NMHC suggests that renting may be a good choice for the following types of individuals:

• Young adults just beginning their careers.
• Single parents who do not have time for maintenance or the money to buy a house in a desired school district.
• Empty nesters who want to travel.
• Anyone tired of long commutes to work.
• Anyone who wants abundant amenities and social activities where they live.
• Professionals who transfer often.

For those who choose to rent, apartment selection hinges on specific available amenities and community features. Our survey revealed that in-unit washers and dryers and air conditioning are the most desirable amenities. Properties that allow pets and have ample parking for tenants top the list of community features that increase renter satisfaction.

Let us know why you choose to rent!