HOUSING ADVICE FROM A LOCAL! From previous roommates, I have a lot of students coming to San Diego from Europe asking me about housing. I wrote the following for everyone. Hope you find this helpful: Here are tips on finding housing in San Diego: First, what area to live in? The best area to live in is Pacific Beach or Mission Beach. My advice is DO NOT live in the college area if you want to have the true California experience. Its true that in the first few weeks there will be a lot of house parties in the college area (with people too young to go to bars!) but after the first month there are WAY LESS parties. It is WAY BETTER to live 10 minutes by foot to the beach and go surfing and/or tanning every day and party at the bars with your friends every night. There are a lot of house parties in PB and MB too if you know people. My friends run party busses to downtown from PB every weekend. Ive never understood why people travel thousands of miles/kilometers to live in California and then live 20 minutes from the beach by car. Crazy. Public transportation in San Diego is shitty and you cannot easily go from College Area to the beach or downtown through public transportation all the time, especially weekends and late evenings. Second, how to find housing in PB and MB? DO NOT WORRY if you are in Europe and did not find housing yet online. Why?!?!? Reason 1: Most of the student housing right now is used as vacation rentals! So many of the houses that students rent are not listed to be rented yet. Reason 2: The demand for housing is so high in PB and MB that many houses available for rent to students WILL NEVER be listed online. Owners will put a for rent sign in front of the house and will have students applying that same day! Most houses closest to the beach go like this. SO DO NOT STRESS OVER HOUSING. Everyone should find housing within the first week of arrival. Worst case, crash our couch and we try to help you out. The BEST way to find housing is one roommate walks around PB calling on houses with for sale signs and one roommate emails listings online. The website to use is craigslist for apartments or if you just want a room. IF YOU WANT AMERICAN ROOMMATES look under the rooms/shares section. The second best way to find a house is through a property manager. You can google san diego property managers and a lot of listings will show up. Property managers students have had success with are Cal Prop cal-prop/ and missionbeach/ to list a couple. This company has awesome beach houses that become student rentals, but they are way expensive. 710beachrentals/ Another way to find housing is through a large apartment complex. The two largest I know of at the beach are Bay Pointe Apartments (which includes Kamo Housing student housing) and Avalon Communities. Bay Pointe: baypointeapartmenthomes/ Kamo Housing (furnished rooms for higher prices at Bay Pointe): sandiegostudenthousing/ Avalon Communities: avaloncommunities/california/san-diego-apartments/avalon-at-mission-bay/ Sometimes you can find housing available on a monthly basis at vrbo and airbnb but these may be much more expense. Third, how much to pay? Prices can vary widely in San Diego if you are looking online. Just understand SOMETHING CHEAP IS SHITTY. If you see $500 for a single room in PB, then that room is probably shitty or may not even be in PB. It might be on the other side of the freeway. Prices ARE cheaper near the college area so search for cheaper housing if you really want to live there, but its cheaper because the area sucks. Mission Beach is more expensive than Pacific Beach because ALL houses in Mission Beach are 200 meters from either the Beach or the Bay. What drives prices? Proximity to the beach/bars, number of parking spaces, and whether the room is furnished! My advice is to use the following as a guideline of what to pay for a FURNISHED room in PB: ~$600 to $750 per person for a shared room ~$750 to $1000 for a single room If you find a great single room for $750, YOU ARE LUCKY! I think most rooms go for around $850 for a single room. If you find $750 for a shared room in PB, that is a little expensive and MAYBE you find a shared room for $600 if you keep looking. Prices can be almost anything in Mission Beach. I know students who paid $1200 for a single room BUT that was with an ocean view. I know students who paid $500 for a shared room BUT it was very small! DO NOT FORGET ABOUT UTILITY COSTS!!! This your monthly bill for gas, electricity, wifi, water, trash, TV, etcetera and is usually $75 to $125 per person depending on your usage! Students ALWAYS forget this. ADD IT DO YOUR BUDGET! ASK POTENTIAL LANDLORDS WHO PAYS!!! Four, how to approach the landords? Directly and often! BE PERSISTENT! If you email a landlord and wait to hear back... BAD IDEA. Write them, then write them again the next day! They receive a lot of applicants. Have copies of the following ready to send via email or printed and given in person: Passport, Visa, I-90 and Bank Statement confirming funds available to pay for rent. What do landlords care about: Can you pay the rent? How long will you be here? Will you destroy their house and just fly back to Europe? Thats it. They prefer 12 month leases and you are only here 5 months. So make them a deal! Pay the last month now if possible. Offer a higher deposit. It makes more sense for them to have a 12 month lease with an American who has parents here and zero risk of not paying. SO UNDERSTAND THAT and plan accordingly. By the way, deposits range from one months rent to two months rent. Thats my basic advice. Im happy to answer any questions in a comment below or send me a private message (but understand I have 30+ already writing me and I have a full time job! I do this to be helpful!) Lastly, DO NOT STRESS OUT!!! Everyone finds housing. Usually takes a few days or at most one week. I MUCH prefer inviting everyone to the barbecues, bonfires, house parties, bar crawls, party bus trips, Mexico/LA/Vegas trips, pool parties and everything else my roommates and I do than deal with the stresses of housing. So relax, find a house! Then enjoy my city either with or without our group! California is a great place and this will be the best time of your life, for sure. Dont spend the next month worrying about where you will live! Once you are here, you could sleep on the street and still be happy! I promise!
Posted on: Sun, 06 Jul 2014 22:12:22 +0000
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