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How to find an apartment in San Francisco during the tech boom

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Re: How to find an apartment in San Francisco during the tech boom

#4
Missing option: (11) work remotely and live wherever you want.

Red Hat's virtualization team is based all around the world, in offices but also many remotees. I'm one of them and I like nothing more than sitting in my cottage garden on a sunny day with a laptop and wifi connection. It's a great place to think.

Re: How to find an apartment in San Francisco during the tech boom

#5
> He who hesitates, is lost.

I tried to be the super flexible tenant recently. I needed to move 200 miles and I found the PERFECT place (http://imgur.com/a/XpksU) so I contacted the letting agency and asked for a viewing, they gave me a date a couple of days later so I booked my train tickets. Day of the viewing I get a call that it's cancelled, that sucks but we can re-arrange, so we re-arrange for a few days later and I swallow the loss on my train tickets (about $150) and order some more (this time paying a premium for refundable tickets) and again they cancel, so I re-arrange (and get a ticket refund, yay!), this time the viewing is for a day later so the tickets I needed were going to be $400 for ordering so late and so I decide whatever I'll go first class; it's only $100 extra and I can work from the train. Next day I go to the station, collect my tickets and board the train: finally I'm going to get to view my new home! My heart was set on the apartment... anyway 10 minutes into the journey I get a call, the viewing is cancelled and the apartment has been withdrawn from the market and unless I'm willing to buy it for $1m I can't live there... so I'm sitting in first class on a train using $500 tickets for no reason. Hurrah!

Anyway moral of the story is renting sucks and moving long distance also sucks, good article, next time I move a long distance I think I'll follow the advice and stay in the new place and look for apartments, much easier than travelling the entire distance frequently just to view.

Re: How to find an apartment in San Francisco during the tech boom

#6
post #2

http://www.creditkarma.com/ is a better service for credit reports than freecredit.com

While great, creditkarma.com only provides your score.

If you're looking for a complete credit report, there is no reason to not use https://www.annualcreditreport.com/. It is the official site set up by the three reporting agencies, as mandated by the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act.

Re: How to find an apartment in San Francisco during the tech boom

#8
post #3

As a non-US person moving to SF later this year, I don't have a US credit rating yet. How do I go about looking for places?

You probably look to rent in Oakland instead. Rockridge and Lake Merritt are very nice areas (Rockridge being my preference, as there seems to be less property crime, and I lived there for six years).

Re: How to find an apartment in San Francisco during the tech boom

#9
post #3

As a non-US person moving to SF later this year, I don't have a US credit rating yet. How do I go about looking for places?

It's going to be very tough because you will be competing against a ton of people with a US credit rating. The best chance is to go with a larger apartment rental company like Avalon that has the capacity to check a foreign country. You will pay a lot more, but that's likely your best bet.

If you have a hard time getting a place, you should also strongly consider places outside of SF.

Re: How to find an apartment in San Francisco during the tech boom

#10
SF just isn't worth it anymore. The fog (I know there are fog-free areas, but much of SF is foggy-to-super-foggy), the filth, the homeless, and the insane landlords and rents are out of hand. Also, I'm of the opinion that SF culture peaked in the 90s.
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