Ask HN: How much would a shared apartment cost in the Valley? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How much would a shared apartment cost in the Valley?

10 pointsBrewer8 comments

I know life in the Valley isn't cheap, but how much could I expect to spend on a shared apartment? I'm 20, single, and I don't mind having multiple roommates.

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I can't speak to SF in particular, but will share my experience finding housing in NYC out of college, since it's also quite expensive here. Main point I want to make is that I expect you'll find a spectrum, and certainly can find something for far less than $1500 (probably well under $1000) if you're willing to commute a bit and not live in a neighborhood that's decent but not necessarily one of the best overall.

New York analogy, FWIW: $1500 might be a fair estimate for finding a place in Manhattan with one or two roommates, but it's definitely possible to find a place in Brooklyn for $700-800/month if you share with several people (decent neighborhood, maybe 30 min commute to downtown) and $900-1000 for a place in a great neighborhood in Brooklyn in an even more central location.

Of course it will take quite a bit of Craigslist searching to find a good deal, but it depends heavily on both how much you're willing to compromise on distance from city center (some places on the periphery can be quite nice, and commuting via public transit = time to read so usually not bad) and # of people you share a place with.

Again I'm not sure how the intricacies of SF's real estate market compare to those of NYC, but just want to throw it our there that for someone young who's willing to live with others, it's pretty easy to find a place for well under $1,000 in notoriously expensive NYC, so I'd expect the same to be possible in SF, though I could be wrong.

I moved into SF in July and in my search for 2 bedroom apartments I found the prices are pretty similar throughout. Obviously some areas are nicer than others, but overall the range was pretty similar. Expect to pay $1000 (if you're really lucky, I saw some single bedrooms around that price in the valley) - $2000/each. I landed a bit on the lower end of that spectrum and I was quite lucky to get the deal that I did. $1500/each is probably a reasonable starting expectation.

Is that $1500 for your own place or $1500 with roommates?

$1500 per person, you won't find your own place for that price in SF.

TIL my 4 bedroom 500$ apartment isn't so expensive! Gotta loooove living in Bolivia. :)

I assume salaries are priced accordingly? You must be making 6000$/month at those rent costs.

As always, depends on where you want to be. Mountain View area , you would pay $1000 and up. To pay 1k though, you gotta be pretty lucky.

San Jose is a bit farther away from San Francisco, but the prices are lower there aren't they?

Really depends where. You can get a 3-bd apt for $2500 or so in Santa Clara, so ~$850/person.

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