advice on finding an apartment in the area

<p>hi everyone,
im transferring to cal in fall and i got my housing offer, very expensive. i decided id rather live in an apartment so ive been looking around for one in berkeley, but one bedrooms are like $1000+ and seem really small. i also tried looking on like craiglist for room shares and stuff but im not really having luck finding anything except small rooms in peoples houses and theyre all older people.
i was hoping to find a room from like another cal student just have one or two roommates who are students like me but off campus so i can have my own room and some space. my parents are helping with money but they want me to only pay about $800 a month with utilities because then with food and gas and everything will be about $1000 a month, is this really hard to do in the berkeley area? im bringing my car with me when i move so i dont mind if its a little away from campus, most important is to not share a bedroom with someone. does anyone have any advice for the best way to do this? the school recommended i use cal rentals but it costs money just to look, even if you dont see anything you like you have to pay, kinda dumb. also plz excuse my english if not very good it is a second language for me.
thanks!</p>

<p>oh also, i tried looking on here because i see some post about rooms but they always looking for female and im male, had the same problem on craiglist with the few rooms i found that were listed as for cal students! why do only girls need roommates!??! this seems so strange to me. lol</p>