Yea, we were hoping for $1000 total, for a small studio. What price range should we expect to find?
Please keep in mind we have no idea what the neighborhoods are in SF, so please include that as well.
Please keep in mind we have no idea what the neighborhoods are in SF, so please include that as well.
As a rule of the thumb, the places north in the city (nob hill, south beach, marina, etc) tend to be upscale. Downtown is not so bad, but I'd stay away from tenderloin. I don't particularly like the Mission and SOMA, but it seems a good number of startups have offices there, so YMMV. Northwest (close to the Golden Gate Park) have nice places, but seems to be worse if you don't have a car.
You'll see that sometimes a neighborhood is perfectly fine and safe and you walk two blocks down and it feels sketchy and unsafe. That's why I recommend you walk around.
You could live in the tenderloin - it's one of the worst districts in the city, but it's close to a lot of stuff and rents are cheap.
Check craigslist. Also, there was mashup posted here earlier. http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF&msa=0&msid=111...
Pretty good summary. Seems like you guys are concerned about saving money and making good contacts - in that case, I'd probably recommend the mission. You'll have to pay like 1000-1500 for a studio, but the location is prime and it's eminently walkable.
Tenderloin - stabby stabby. Mission - on the dirtier side, a little sketchy in parts, but trendy and experiencing lots of gentrification. Sunset - lots of asian influence, very livable. You'll very rarely see the sunset from here though.
You might even be able to find something in Richmond for a grand if you're lucky. Just keep an eye out, set up alerts on padmapper.com. I found a $1400 one bedroom in a nice part of the city there.
Let me clarify what smokestack is saying. The weather in the Sunset district is reliably foggy and cool or chilly. Most people don't like it.
The mission is my favourite district in the city, and it's close to everything. If I had to live in the city, I'd live in the mission.
The sunset is crap. It's like a suburb that's attached to the city, especially outer sunset, where the rents are cheaper. It's blocks and blocks of houses, and very family oriented. There are a few good places in the sunset, but it's almost essential to have a car there, and you can't really go bar hopping, and it's about 20 minutes to drive to downtown.