Saturday we looked at a few apartments. One was a half basement of someone's house in a really ritzy, million dollar home neighborhood. However, the apartment was only half finished and had no overhead lights, two tiny windows, and the ceilings were maybe seven feet high, and that's being generous. Then we looked at two places across the bay in Berkeley and Oakland. The first one was ok but not in a great neighborhood. The one in Oakland was lovely. Absolutely lovely. But there was a line of about 50 people waiting to get into this open house when we got there, and I think almost every person applied. They were all crowding the landlord, trying to shmooze him over. By Midwest standards, this place would be small, a little odd (since the bedroom is off the kitchen and the kitchen is quite small) and overpriced. But here, it's huge (one bedroom, 720 sq. feet), charming and a steal at only $1,750/month. But even though we liked it and applied and talked to the landlord along with all the other applicants, we didn't realize how awesome this place was until yesterday...
Yesterday we met with the real estate agent that Expedia hooked us up with, and she had set up about 6 listings for us to go to, all in San Francisco. The night before, our first one got canceled because they gave the apartment away already. So the first place we actually saw was just straight up disgusting. We moved on to the second, and it was ok but not in a neighborhood we liked at all. At this point our real estate agent drove us in her car for the rest of the afternoon.
We drove through traffic for over an hour to get to the third listing, and when we got there, the open house had been canceled. We drove through traffic for another hour to get to the fourth, and the landlord called us on the way and told us she'd just given the apartment away.
We finally got to the fifth, and it was ok. The bedroom would be right off the kitchen again. The kitchen had two cupboards and about a foot of counter space and just enough room to stand in the middle and turn in circles but not enough room to take a step to the left or right. The toilet was in a closet by itself while the rest of the bathroom was in a separate room. It had very little storage space. No laundry. No parking. Super long commute to downtown because it's not near any train lines. And once again, there was a long line of people trying to talk to the landlord to rent this place at $1,850/month. However, it was literally feet from Golden Gate Park, which would be pretty cool.
The last place we saw was in a more residential area south of downtown. It's extremely hilly there, like mountainous hilly. We were driving there, and when we would get to the top of the hill, Victor would have to stick his head out the window to see if anyone was coming before we drove down the hill because it's almost a straight drop. We just about had heart attacks. This apartment was also the basement of someone's house. Victor liked it a lot more than I did, mostly because the view out the back of the apartment was spectacular. It looked over the entire city down below. Also, it would be a really fast commute for him. The kitchen was really big, even for Midwest standards. But the bedroom smelled like cat, and the only storage space was the one closet in the bedroom for our clothes so I have no idea what we'd do with any of our stuff. I also didn't really like the guy who lived upstairs who was renting it out. He was just awkward. That one was $2,100/month. Then we drove back to our temporary apartment about 45 minutes through traffic.
So that was our day. Seven hours to look at only four apartments, two of which aren't even options, and the other two have such huge strikes against them that I don't even know if there's any way we could make them work. All the while our real estate agent was trying to get us to go higher on our budget (we're trying to stay around $2,000/month), and telling us that even if we like a place, there's a good chance we won't get it because there's so many other people who want it too.
So we jumped on the competitive train and emailed the landlord from the lovely apartment in Oakland we saw on Saturday and offered to pay 6 months of rent up front for the apartment (a tactic our real estate agent told us to try). He emailed us back and told us that a lot of the people are offering him up to $1,900/month instead of his original asking price of $1,750/month but that he will make a decision by tonight. We emailed him again and told him we would be willing to pay above the asking price as well but didn't give him a number.
Everything we've been told is that we need to be really aggressive, even if we don't really want a place because we can always decide not to take it if they do offer it to us. And we also need to be ready to make a decision instantly because you can't have any amount of time to think about it or they'll just give it to someone else. So that's what we're trying. It's just so strange. And stressful. I cried for about an hour when we got home last night. Sigh...
Good things: We got to see a lot of San Francisco and a bunch of different neighborhoods yesterday when our real estate agent was driving us around. We ate at an Indonesian restaurant in Berkeley on Saturday. We survived our first earthquake.
Here's some pretty pictures from hiking to Land's End on Thursday.
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