Apartment Hunting - Day 1

For those of you just tuning in, this is part of my ongoing journey of migrating to SF to work for Twitter. The lessons contained herein are a direct result of my coming to the area pretty much blind and paying the various prices for doing so.


So I visited eight apartments/complexes today. Pretty tired although better informed at the end of it, but emotionally exhausted enough by the process to be ranting about it. Prices may vary because I’m going by memory, pretty tired, horrified and generally uninterested in many of these places after today.

  1. Fox Plaza. Older building. Mixed use. Very tired. Rent controlled. New landlord for the residential portion in the last 4 years. An effort has been made to put new paint on and renovate, but it wasn’t a really quality job. Bad vibes. $2750 for an unrenovated studio across the street from the office.

  2. NEMA. Newer building. Feels like and is priced like a resort. Justifies its rent on amenities (gym, pool, social shit, rooftop terraces, trainers and staff). Nothing under $3100, and that doesn’t really buy you much in terms of the living space itself. Largely access to the amenities it feels like. For an apartment you’d want in the building it’ll run $3400.

  3. SOMA residences. Newer building. Not much for staff or amenities. Lovely inner terrace on the 2nd floor which most of the apartments open in onto. The place I saw was 2nd of 3 floors, so only window was out onto the terrace and it came off as dark. Baldly perfumed, but spacious enough. Couple blocks from the office. $2750 or thereabouts.

  4. The Civic. Nothing under $3400. Not even high service like NEMA, just nicer rooms with more space.

  5. Argenta. l m a o. No studios in the whole building, $3800 and up. Not more space then the civ, lower service than NEMA. Just no.

  6. Olume. Same parent company as Argenta, but studios and “more reasonably” priced (start at $3300 (on promo! $3225!)). Lovely building. Really cute brunette sales lady. Low service but awesome rooftop space and much more attractive rooms than NEMA for the price.

  7. Fell & Gough. Weird little studio facing an inner courtyard in a 1912 building. Great old wood floors that creak with every step, but in an ​awful​ location IMO. Kitchen was microscopic/narrow, bathroom didn’t look like it’d ever scrub clean from simple age. Maybe for $2300 or $2200, for the asked $2400 no.

  8. Fell & Webster. On the same busy street (Fell) as 7, but actually faces the street. The main living area has noticeable street noise that’ll never go down because the street is always high traffic. The bedroom is partitioned from the living area and doesn’t really hear the street, but shares walls with 1) outside walkway, 2) next apartment’s bedroom 3) neighbor below’s bedroom. Kitchen isn’t super spiffy. Not that I’ll use it a ton but still, at the same price point Fox’s was nicer. For $2675 not so much. For $2.6k or $2.5k maybe.

NEMA or Olume represents a commitment of 48% of my income >.> no. Today’s lesson is that I’m pretty clearly gonna have to craigslist this one out and find a studio in order to get a lease in my $2.7k and under goal budget.

So. Yeah. Lots of running about. Stressful because today was a negative lesson in that Fox which I thought was a safe choice really isn’t somewhere I want to be and everything else like/near it is too damn expensive.

The good news is that the gays I’m staying with got me connected with a local Realtor who does rentals and validated that my goal budget & areas were reasonable. So if I don’t find something by Friday I’ve got an appointment with him. At the low low price of 80% of one month’s rent if I sign on something he shows and $500 if I don’t sign on anything.

End Of Rant