A while ago I was looking for an apartment in San Francisco. There are a lot of problems with finding housing in San Francisco, mostly stemming from the fierce competition. I was checking Craigslist every single day. It still took me (and my girlfriend) a few months to find a place — and we had to sublet for three weeks in between. Thankfully we’re happily housed now but it was quite the journey. Others have talked about their search for SF housing , but I have a few tips myself:
1) While Craigslist continues to be the best resource for finding housing (it’s how I found my current apartment), there are quite a few Facebook groups that may also be useful. My experience has been of having weekly cycles, where I send out lots of emails, get a stream of responses, go visit 1-2 places per weekday evening, and then get a stream of rejections back. If you do check Craigslist, the best times to check are Tuesday and Wednesday evenings, and then the following mornings, as the following graphic shows.