Sign of the Times

Renting an apartment in San Francisco is hard work.  First, you need to blow an entire lunch hour hiring a Task Rabbit to scour Craigslist for suitable apartments that match your lifestyle and bottomless budget.  But the first set of potential domiciles (“deliverables”) might not be to your liking, so could be forced to hire another lowest bidder to get the job done right.  Then you need to enlist some humanities majors to go to relevant open houses, inspecting the grout and networking with prospective landlords in your place.  Finally, after all the arduous legwork has been taken care of and you've Squared all your bunnies for a job well done, you'll have to negotiate with the chosen landlord on just how much over ask you'll have to pay to lock down the housing contract.

But there's a way to disrupt the whole inefficient housing search process.  Just glance over Craigslist, find the ideal grainy picture in either the Mission, Lower Haight, or SoMa (you guess) and submit a preemptive offer.  No need to go to an open house, no need to scrutinize the place you'll spend your between Mountain View hours.

Besides, if your new apartment turns out to be a lemon, you can just forfeit your security deposit and Roll The Dice Again.

[Photo by Generic]

Comments (14)

Eat the rich

Eat the poor, there are way to many of them anyway…

all pigs.

Supply and Demand

This wasn’t a rental, but a condo at 3627 19th Street. Somebody must have put in an all-cash offer above listing before the open house and that was that.

You ruined the narrative.

SF: Where 20-somethings “retire”, drive up the real estate market, and get evicted.

That seems even more foolish.

Definitely. Owning SF real estate is damn foolish.

No, what’s foolish is paying more than something is worth.

In this case, it was $899,000 for a 2 BR/1 BA condo. Probably got offered more than that in all cash. More than that unit is worth? Looks like it, but who am I to say?

They have been saying that for as long as I’ve been here (over 20 years). But the prices (mostly) keep going up.

Renting all those years was foolish.

If someone is willing to pay then that is exactly what it is worth.

As is buying without seeing. But, hey, what’s a million?

hmm, I’ll realize 300K gross when I sell. Call me a silly stupid damn fool!