Ask HN: Moving to San Francisco: Best way to find an appartment

http://padmapper.com/ and co are great for finding apartment rentals, but I suggest you consider something like http://airbnb.com/ too.

It's very difficult finding a rental with less than a 12 month lease in SF. The best part of Airbnb or similar is, if you travel light, you can spend some time in different neighbourhoods which vary significantly in SF.

End of the day, you might even save some money compared to renting.

I think someone else mentioned it, but BART doesn't go to Redwood City. Caltrain does. As a daily BART rider from the East Bay, occasionally needing to be in Palo Alto, I don't recommend combining a BART and Caltrain commute.

If you want to live in SF, and commute to Redwood City, your best bet is to ride the 8:44 or 8:59 baby bullets on Caltrain. The one at 8:59 gets you in Redwood City in a scant 30 minutes.

Pick a place in the city that is near the Caltrain station, maybe even within walking distance. Dogpatch/SOMA/Potrero? Keep in mind Muni timing sucks, BART is semi-stable, and Caltrain is the most reliable.

Also that's a reverse commute, so maybe even drive it.

Padmapper.com puts listings on a map, and includes a lot of useful features like remembering listings you've already viewed.

http://housingmaps.com/ is the granddaddy of them all. IIRC, it was one of the first such mashup apps with the newly launched Google Maps API (well, it was one of the first to become popular, at least (for the pedantic crowd who hasn't had their morning coffee yet ;-) ) )

Also: Redwood City is in the Peninsula (i.e. directly South of San Francisco). BART does not serve RWC; Caltrain does. Assuming you meant Caltrain, then you should look for places near the intersection of 4th St & King St (that's where all Caltrains start). There's ATT Park nearby, and a decent amount of stuff to do.

Also: it may be hard to find something now, given that you're interested in June. Most apartments are advertised just a month before being vacant.

Craigslist and Padmapper are the best. I just did this, it took me about a month and a half to find a place. I ended up getting a place in Noe Valley of 27th.

I drive the 280 every day now to Palo Alto. After 9:15 am from Noe Valley and after about 6:30 PM, it's a breeze. It takes me 35 minutes total, and I got 75.

If you don't want to drive, Portrero hill is your best bet. If you don't mind driving, Bernal, Noe, Glen Park or the mission (or portrero) is your best bet. Castro, SOMA, or anything north/west will pretty much suck unless you leave after 10am.

The real problem with RWC is that it takes a long time to get to the downtown section from the 280, so you might have to think about the 101, which WILL suck, no matter what. The 101 doesn't really settle down at night til 7 or even 8. I've only tried a short stint from PA to RWC on it in the mornings and usually that sucks too.

Portrero is your best bet for caltrain though. You'll probably spend $150 a month on caltrain passes. The big thing there though is you'll have to find somewhere in portrero/dogpatch to stay, and I think that's harder to do because there seems to be fewer places. Also, if you live there, you'll probably want to live close to 18th or 3rd to be within walking distance of anything.

Check walkscore.com for any places you find to see what's around them.

Your best bet is HackerHouse IMO. If you're really looking for an apartment, go with http://padmapper.com, really easy way to browse for apartments

Rent.com is good, plus they send you $100 if you sign a lease you found through their site. I left the Bay Area for Indiana and was pleasantly surprised when I got a check in the mail from them. shrug That's a big plus IMO.

Also Redwood City is on the south end of "the peninsula," touching "the south bay." It's not a bad place to live, you're iirc 7 or 8 bart stops from the city. But yeah if you're gonna be there for the summer I would definitely consider living in the city and commuting to work. It would be a really awesome experience.

You can find inexpensive places to live and mass transit is EVERYWHERE, plus a lot of great night life in walking distance. Bring a bike. It's definitely possible to commute to Redwood City every day. Get a kindle.

tl;dr: I miss the Bay Area so bad, and I'm jealous of you. TAKE ME WITH YOU. I don't eat much, I promise.

The best apartments in San Francisco will never be online. You'll need to get to the neighborhoods you like and walk around.

You'll find plenty of large apartment buildings online, but the really quaint nice spots just have a sign in the window.

Lots of people move here and even more talk about it. I'd guess having a sign in the window cuts down on the BS.

Redwood City is fine for work but if you're moving here you'll have way more fun in San Francisco.

Check out http://www.prometheusreg.com/. We moved to Sunnyvale from Minnesota and leased our apartment sight unseen. We later moved to another one of their complexes in San Mateo and they transferred the lease. They offer month-to-month leases, I think they manage a lot of corporate housing.

The apartments are a bit on the pricey side, but they're so nice. Good luck, and welcome to San Francisco!

When I was living in the Bay Area I found my place in craigslist, don't know if it's still good. But yes, you should go live in San Francisco and comute to work.

Look for sublets on Craigslist. You won't find a place to rent for that short of a duration, but you can find someone who is going on vacation for awhile and has a furnished apartment that they are willing to rent out.

This is what I did when I was in the city for an internship last summer and again when I moved to the city in January.

I'll also be in the bay area this summer, working in Mountain View but hopefully living in the city. Looking for a roommate?

I live in the Dogpatch, within 5 minutes walk of 22nd Street Caltrain (to the east), and commute to Stanford by train.

Nice neighborhood. The disadvantage is that it's not right next to very much, but it's a quick bus ride (on the 22) to the Mission, the T light rail goes downtown, and if you have a car then parking is easy.

I'm also interning out in San Francisco from June to August/September, and looking for a place to stay. A friend out in SF recommended http://www.sfhomestay.com/ to me.

Padmapper looks pretty good though, and I'm going to spend some time checking that out now.

http://padmapper.com as others mention here.

Click on Filter Listings, enter your criteria for your ideal apt, and then get daily email alerts sent to you too. It's an awesome resource.

i found my short term lease in SF thru this leasing company: http://www.archstoneapartments.com/

they have a couple buildings in and around the city. hope this helps!

padmapper.com is quite good

I think it's Caltrain, not BART in Redwood City

You don't have get an apartment in SF if you'll be working in RWC. Remember: SF is not the Bay Area. The Bay Area is a large metropolitan area with three major cities. You'll be working about halfway between two of them (SF and San Jose). You might very well want to stay in Mtn View or Palo Alto -- much more hip in the tech sense than SF.