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Home hunting in Berkeley: Lessons learned

May 27, 2010 9:47 am by Kim Weisberg

Craftsman cottage for two? A girl can dream...

Berkeleyside contributing writer Kim Weisberg is looking for a new home to rent. Today she kicks off an occasional column in which she reveals the dark underbelly of house hunting in our city.

My boyfriend and I have been looking for a new home for a few months, mostly casually, with the occasional “two open houses in one evening after work” or “can we really see that many places in one weekend?” marathon. We are mainly focusing on Berkeley (from about Alcatraz to North Berkeley BART, and from Sacramento to College) and Rockridge, though we are investigating the Adams Point neighborhood of Lake Merritt as well. Our situation is not unique by any means, but we do have several…  shall we say, “stipulations” that make our search a little challenging.

First and foremost: laundry hook-ups in-unit. We own a stacked washer/dryer, and finding an apartment that can accommodate even our small machine is a challenge. It’s hard to imagine going back to shared, coin-operated facilities when you are used to your own private machine in your apartment. And after dropping over $1,000 for this machine a year ago, it just doesn’t make much sense to sell it for half its value and go back to hoarding quarters. Hard truth: Most Berkeley-area apartments come with coin-op laundry in the basement. Some have fancy, clean (coin-op) laundry rooms (the ad will usually mention this). Very few have hook-ups in unit.

Second, there is the parking/transportation issue. I own a car — he doesn’t. We need either one off-street parking space, or safe, easy street parking.  We also need to be close enough to BART so that he can safely ride his bike to and from the station. Hard truth: Apartments that are close to BART are either affordable and in sketchy neighborhoods or expensive and in fantastic neighborhoods.  Many places have off-street parking, though often it comes at an additional monthly fee. Tip: Always ask if the neighborhood street parking requires a permit.

Third, quality of the rental. The main reason we are looking to move is that our current building is very poorly maintained by a nearly absent landlord. We’d like our new place to be managed by someone who takes enough pride in his/her property to make repairs as needed and in a timely fashion. Hard truth: Unfortunately, Berkeley is known for having some pretty gross apartments. This has a lot to do with the fact that many places within a few miles of campus are likely to be trashed and/or poorly maintained (and will still come at a hefty price). Landlords do not have strong incentives to provide affordable, nice housing when there is such a high turnover due to a significant student population.

Finally, we have the “storage situation”. Currently, we have 640 square feet in a one-bedroom apartment, plus approximately 50 square feet of garage space that we share with our landlord. Our new place will either have to contain more square footage (an extra bedroom, perhaps) or a similar garage/storage type space. Many places in Berkeley are, well, small.  Finding a place that is large enough not only for us and our furniture, but also for the things we’ve acquired as we’ve become “grown ups” is tricky. Hard truth: Places with garage/extra storage do exist, though they are not common. Tip: Landlords are sometimes flexible; it doesn’t hurt to ask if additional storage is available, even if it is not mentioned in the ad or apparent at the open house.

These are our four must-haves. Of course, there are the things we’d love to have… hardwood floors, a large kitchen, lots of natural light, yard space for gardening/BBQing, ample closet space and a building with character. Oh, and did I mention that we’re trying to stay under $1,600 a month?

We might be a little bit nuts, but since we are not on a time crunch, we can afford to be picky.

Will we find what we’re looking for? What will we end up sacrificing? Will apartment hunting drive us insane? Stay tuned to find out.

8 Comments

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  • http://basiscraft.com Thomas Lord

    Some suggestions.

    Laundry: Unfortunately you’ve got sunk costs in machines that need hook-ups. If you could go back in time I’d offer the suggestion of buying a washer that can hook up to a sink (perhaps yours actually can? Some are flexible that way.). For dryers, outdoor venting is not strictly necessary. If you check at a good hardware store you should be able to find a (quite inexpensive) gadget which is basically a water bucket with a fitting for a dryer vent tube. It’s less convenient in absolute terms but not that much less convenient. We’ve had good luck finding apartments that can accommodate such a set-up.

    Parking/transportation: May I suggest expanding your search south of Sacramento? For example, that area in SW Berkeley may have a sketchy reputation but don’t kid yourself that the areas east of that are significantly better and, for the most part, its not that bad down here. The bike boulevards give you reasonable access to South Berkeley BART, Berkeley Bowl West, and San Pablo Park (for example). There are many undesirable apartments but gems (and good landlords) can be found.

    Quality of rental: boy oh boy is it hard to find good landlords in Berkeley. I could tell a couple of real horror stories. A few big issues to watch out for: (a) Be very cautious about renting any single family occupancy place, including condominiums in multi-unit buildings. Your eviction protections in such places are significantly lower. Bad landlords have an incentive to flip tenants as fast as they can. (b) Very carefully observe and speak with a prospective landlord and trust your instincts. There are not a few slumlord moguls around here, as far as I can tell. (c) If you want to be thorough, get some sense of what properties your landlord owns and inquire with the rent stabilization board about his or her history of complaints made against them and evictions conducted. (d) It’s not always easy but not a bad idea to talk with neighbors to get a sense of things. (e) Run, don’t walk, away from high pressure sales tactics. The most egregious one that we encountered was a landlord who arranged for some stooges to come and look at a given apartment at the same time we did, and have them pretend to want to sign for the place right then and there but only if we wouldn’t agree to sign first, right away, hurry up. Pay close attention to “tells” like how well maintained the apartment is *in detail* while you’re rushing through your viewing. Check the windows. Check the sink and brand of fixtures. Look for leak indications on the ceiling. Note the quality of the most recent paint job. Look in the cabinets and under the stove for ant traps. Etc. etc.

    Storage: with a budget of up to $1,600 you should definitely be able to do better than 640 sq. ft. Also, while the aesthetic is not for everyone: for under $100/pop (last I checked) you can buy industrial ugly shelves at places like Home Depot. You can get big plastic storage bins. Stuff like that. You can cram a heck of a lot of storage space into units slightly less than 1,000sq ft.

    Your wish list is tricky and you’ll probably have to look at a lot of junk to find anything close but there are some gems out there.

    Based on my bad experiences renting in Berkeley and my current very good experience, I can’t stress enough both making sure you pick a place to which the strongest renter protections apply, and you pick a landlord you like as person. The landlord-tenant relation is a potentially quite long-term business relationship. As you move in, learn your renters rights (don’t just read the informal advice on the web – read the Berkeley ordinances and the relevant state code). Do what you can to save your (good) landlord some money and hassle where you can and be frank and cooperative when you need them to do something. There are a lot of sharks in the landlord waters and a decent number of roach motels. There are also some true gentlefolk and some real gems.

    Lastly: you can get lucky but, generally speaking, “large kitchen” really limits your options. Decent range, workable counter-space, and pantry space (or room for shelves to construct pantry space) are factors to aim for. Hey, look at it this way: the very fancy pastry chef at the White House during the Bush administration had naught but a quite tight galley kitchen to work with (for all those state dinners and such). Aim for either an integral dishwasher or room to drop in a portable dishwasher if you do a lot of cooking.

    Best of luck.

  • Alan Tobey

    You might consider extending your search to the northwest of N Berk BART, to include the very walkable Westbrae neighborhood centered on Gilman Street. Not a large number of apartment buildings, but a fair number of scattered house and second-unit rentals.

    I’ve lived there for over 30 years and have never had a desire to move elsewhere, for multiple reasons. The two poles are both foodie ones: the delightful Natural Grocery on Gilman, and the Monterey Market complex on Hopkins. And almost everything else needed for daily life within a 15 minute walk.

  • http://basiscraft.com Thomas Lord

    I said, strangely, “south of Sacramento” when, of course I meant “west”.

  • http://blognabbit.blogspot.com deirdre

    Apartments near Lake Merritt are so plentiful that I found prospective landlords to be much more attentive to upkeep and tenant relations. You might find everything you want but the hook-up. Some of those buildings are quite attractive, too.

  • Kim Weisberg

    Thanks for the feedback, everyone! I’ll keep you posted on the hunt as it continues…and I’ll be posting some tips and tricks we’ve learned along the way as well.

  • Theresa

    You might want to consider looking for a small house rental in the Temescal area of North Oakland as well. Some of the blocks on Telegraph Ave in the Temescal area look a little gritty, but just off Telegraph it gets nice and homey, and I honestly think this is a nicer area than SW Berkeley; the neighborhood is getting nicer and more interesting all the time. This area also has lots of public transportation with MacArthur BART nearby and lots of buses going up and down Telegraph. Small houses come up for rent every so often and they’ve usually got laundry hook-ups. We’ve also got a washer and dryer so we had very similar criteria when looking for a place. We’re renting a 2 BR house in Temescal, about a thousand square feet, for $1700, with a yard, a garage and fairly safe on-street parking that does not require a permit (although that might change once the transit housing village gets built where the MacArthur BART parking lot is now). Our rent is somewhat lower than most other rental houses around here but if you’re willing to go up to $1700 you might get lucky. Wherever you’re looking in, laundry hook-ups are going to be the hardest thing to find in your price range so I suggest searching on “hook”, “hook-ups” and “hookups” on craigslist, and then going through what those find. Also, we found that sometimes places came with a washer and dryer already but the landlord was amenable to moving those out so you could move your own in, so don’t discount those places if you find one that suits your needs otherwise.

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