Hi, I am travelling to San Francisco for some interviews next week for an internship placement as a Landscape Architect. However, people have told me that it is a prohibitively expensive place to live and I might have difficulty finding accomodation on an interns wage (about $25000 I think) Any comments? And where do the students and young people live? I presume there must be some cheaper places-I am quite happy to share a flat.

SF is a very expensive town, but students do live there, of course, and shared houses is how they afford it. For ideas, look at the SF Bay Guardian (www.sfbg.com), which has a classifieds section with extensive listings for shares and roomate wanted. another possibility would be to live in Oakland or Berkeley, if you're willing to commute (e.g., via BART, the commuter subway line). These are also not cheap, but cheaper than SF, and also have lots of shared housing for students and grads. The paper to look in for these is the East Bay Express (www.eastbayexpress.com). Finally, if your internship will in any way be linked to a local university like SF State or USF, you should be able to get access to their housing offices, wjere people will advertise for roomates. You'll have to watch your funds, but with shared housing it's entirely possible on your proposed salary. The SF Bay Area is a wonderful place to live for a while, and has a lively student and young adult population. Good luck!

We're talking tres cher here. Look at craigslist.org to get an idea of the going rate on sharing , also an idea of the competition for same.A place on your own at that salary is not likely. This is the best resource of its kind. Good luck , you'll need it , but it can be done.

I've been following Craig's list for a
long time. Sometimes the listings get
50 responses. There is alot of
competition for anything reasonable in
a decent area. This is one of the
tightest rental markets in any U.S.
city.

David, Are you coming from the UK? Just to give you an example--My son is 24 years old, working in the city and sharing a 3 bedroom, 2 bath duplex apartment in the Inner Richmond, a nice but not glamourous area just south of the Presidio. They pay $3000 per month split 3 ways. Before you accept the internship be sure to ask hard questions about where the students live and whether the school can help with finding a roommate, housing etc. It could be that you won't need to live in the city and will be able to find something cheaper. Our housing market is very tough right now. Good luck, it's a great place to study landscaping--wonderful gardens and climate.

David:

San Francisco is certainly very expensive. here is no doubt about that. However you will be able to live here if you are flexible and invest some time in looking for a place. After all there are many students living here on incomes less than $25,000.00. There are numerous web sites with accomodations including shared housing for San Francisco.

Don't give up. It is doable. San Francisco is a great place to live and well worth the effort to find a place to live within your budget.

I read in a national newspaper not long ago that the city of SF is considering building publicly funded housing for teachers because teachers can't afford to live in or near the city. Thus there is a critical shortage.
Above advice is excellent David. Studying in SF would probably enhance your experience greatly (both personally and professionally) and I'd encourage you to give it a shot. It really is a wonderful area. Just be prepared for the harsh reality of the cost of housing.

Hi there,

Many thanks for your time in replying to my query. I do appreciate your thoughts, as you can imagine, getting the lowdown on somewhere thousands of miles off can be a little daunting! However, I'm going to give San Francisco a try, and see what the accomodation situation is from the ground. I've only heard nice things about it, so it would be great to live there for a year. If it doesn't look feasible, then I think I'll head up the coast and try Portland or Seattle. Thanks once again for your time.

David

A man I work with is moving to San Fran for graduate school, and he was told the best way to find an apartment is to walk around the area he wanted to live, and call the manager of the apartment buildings he thought looked interesting. Sure enough, he got lucky and found an apartment that hadn't been listed yet, as the tenant had just given her notice.

Also, don't look too far ahead of time. My co-worker originally tried looking about 2 months ahead of time, and EVERY landlord told him to come back 2-3 weeks before he wanted to move in.