San Francisco divides all rented houses/apartments into two categories, the first one is houses with rent control, the second one is houses without rent control. All houses built before 1979 (if I do not remember) are under rent control, houses built after 1979, respectively, are not.
Rent control means that the house is under control and the owner can’t just take and raise the rent by, for example, $200.
Each year, the rent control organization sets the maximum percentage by which Landlord (the landlord) can raise the rent, usually rent control sets it at 1.7%, 1.8%, but no more than 2%.
If you live in a new house, you’re out of luck, and the owner can raise your rent by 10%. Housing in San Francisco is old, and most of the apartments are old and unrepaired.
A normal apartment has white painted walls, a white painted ceiling and a floor covering of cavrolin. After the old residents move out, all the walls are painted and the cavrolin is cleaned.
Many apartments in the living room or in our hall, do not have lighting on the ceiling, the lamp is just not there, for what reasons it is done – it is not clear. Many apartments have old baths, such as those in the middle of the bathroom.
Many owners are bullying prices when renting out and point out this old, horrible bathtub as a retro style, saying it’s very cool.
Many apartments do not have kitchens or gas stoves, and are usually slightly cheaper. Many apartments have a “beautiful view” of the wall of a neighboring house or a neighbor’s window, and it is surprising that such apartments are priced no lower than those with a normal view, but with a view of the ocean or bridge, will have to pay more.
Many apartments do not have washing machines in the house, and you need to go somewhere around the corner or through a couple of blocks in the lounges to wash the laundry.
As the cost of housing depends on the area, in downtown the cheapest housing, as this area is not particularly favorable for living. There are a lot of homeless people, drug addicts and crazy people, there can be criminal proceedings at night, there are no decent grocery stores and establishments nearby.
The most expensive areas, those located along the bay and one side look at the Golden Gate Bridge. Renting a good apartment for reasonable money is very hard and this whole hunt for an open house. There aren’t so many dwellings, but there are a lot of people who want to stay in San Francisco and the surrounding area, and that’s why the prices for rent are very high.
Here you do not choose an apartment, and the owner of the apartment chooses you. In order to rent a good apartment you need a credit history, salary checks, bank accounts and preferably a rental history. It is believed that the salary should be three times the cost of renting a home, then this person/family is solvent.
And now, a few prices:
- 1br in the Marina area costs an average of $3200. But for 3br house with good repair you can easily pay $10,000 a month. Marina is the warmest area of San Francisco, overlooking the bay and the beautiful houses around.
- 1br in the Richmond and Sunset area will cost $2,500 – 2,700. 2-3 br house can be rented for $4 500 – 6 000. These two districts are located on different sides of Golden Gate Park and are adjacent to the ocean. They are not much liked for the fog, but they are quite quiet and clean sleeping areas, which are mostly frequented by Russians and Chinese.
- 1br apartment in Downtown will cost from $2,200 in dirty blocks with homeless people, and from $3,000 overlooking the Bay Bridge.
- A room in an apartment with its own bathroom costs an average of $1,200 – 1,400, also depending on the area and the house itself. Well, sharing a room with someone is also very popular here, from $400.
If you have animals, you also have to pay a certain amount of money for them every month, for a cat extra payment may be $50.
Utilities are paid separately and usually include water and garbage collection. The average monthly cost of electricity and gas is $40. In December, it was $100 because it was very cold and we included gas heating.
You also connect the Internet yourself, it costs $50-70 a month.
And now a little bit about our latest housing experience. We’ve been looking for our current apartment for 9 months, I’m not kidding. The reason for such a long search is that the prices of apartments are very high, and the apartments are very scary.
And if we have seen an apartment in San Francisco, the appropriate price and quality, then it immediately surrendered, sometimes we sent the apartment a couple of hours after viewing, and we answer – sorry, the apartment is delivered.
Having already lost hope, we asked one of the Landlords to share a secret, and to tell us by what criterion, except for credit history and income (since we had everything in order), they choose people.
It turns out that it’s easy for the first person to fill in the application form (the application form) to get this lease and advise not to delay. Seeing our apartment, we realized that it is fully satisfied with us, so we immediately filled out the application and sent it to the realtor, we were the first, and took us?
The thing is that the task of realtors and landlords is to rent the apartment as soon as possible, firstly, not to waste their time, and secondly, the sooner the apartment is rented, the sooner they will start getting money for it.
