<p>Now is a good time to browse around and know what geographic area you’d like to live in. If you want to live in those buildings 1 block from campus you should add yourself to the waiting list now (eg El Granada and the building above Smart Alec’s).</p>
<p>Right now a lot of units are also available for pre-rent/reserve for the summer. You can view the unit and submit an application/deposit to reserve the unit for a later lease starting in May/June. Of course if you reserve now you can’t bail out on the unit if you see something else you like.</p>
<p>As a tenant and resident manager for a Northside building 1 block to campus I will say that the market is already picking up. We initially had 5 studios available for pre-rent just 3 weeks ago - all of them have been rented out except one. North Berkeley Properties already has many other buildings Southside that are available for pre-rent ([North</a> Berkeley Properties: Units](<a href=“http://northberkeleyproperties.com/rent/page:1/area:downtown]North”>http://northberkeleyproperties.com/rent/page:1/area))</p>