Starting the Search in the City by the Bay
Hello from San Francisco—kind of. Jen and Jason here, reporting fromPalo Alto, California, where we just moved in together. Here’s our story…
Jen: I just moved to California in December—until then I’d been living in New York. We’d been doing the long distance thing for awhile and I knew I’d be moving eventually, but when I was offered a great job at a magazine in Berkeley, I ended up leaving right away. I finished the entire move in two weeks. Right now Jason and I—and his very understanding roommate—are living in Palo Alto, right across the street from Stanford, where Jason is a grad student. Meanwhile, I’m commuting to Berkeley five days a week, and gas bills are adding up. I’m definitely ready to move into the city—but I have no idea where to start. I interned in New York for a full semester of college, so by the time I moved back, I already knew my way around. With San Francisco, that’s not the case. At the moment I’m just trying to figure out which neighborhoods might be a good fit for us—and there are plenty to choose from. After that, there are all kinds of other variables to consider. Here are just a few:
1. Public transportation. Even though we’re moving to San Francisco, I’ll still be commuting every day, and once we move, so will Jason. We need to find an apartment that’s close enough to BART and/or Caltrain that it won’t be too difficult for either one of us to get to work without driving.
2. Parking. We’re planning on keeping the car, and spending hours searching for street parking certainly isn’t my idea of fun. That said, neither is paying an extra $200 a month for a space.
3. Pets. We really, really want to get a dog, but based on some preliminary Craigslist research, I’m worried that finding a pet-friendly apartment a) that we can afford, and b) in a neighboorhood we like, is going to to be pretty difficult.
Stay tuned for Jason’s take.
Cheers,
Jen
