<p>Hello, I am currently a freshman living in the dorms. I want to move into an apartment in either May if I do summer session or in August before the Fall 2010 semester. However, I have been the looking on craigslist and they only have apartment for immediate move in. I am not sure if I am rooming with friends (there are 2 other people who might want to live together with me) or if I am alone. Can someone share their experiences with me? </p>
<ol>
<li>How did you find an apartment? </li>
<li>Is it harder if you are alone or with friends? </li>
<li>When did you start looking? </li>
<li>Is it easier to find one with a lease starting in May or August?</li>
<li>What is the best way to go about looking for an apartment?</li>
</ol>
<p>One of my friends lives in the Berkeleyan Apartments at the corner of Oxford and Hearst (near Barker Hall in the NW corner of campus). I’ve been there; it’s clean, modern, and equipped with an elevator, laundry rooms on every floor, and a spacious roof deck with a vending machine. It’s not pricey if you split the rent among roommates. An apartment with two bedrooms and one bath is $2400. You should probably start looking around spring break.</p>
<p>No I don’t really want to die
I only want to die in your eyes
I’m still here below the chandelier
where they always used to read us our rights</p>
<p>I want to wander through the night
as a figure in the distance even to my own eye have you ever rented a room
have you ever even rented a room?</p>
<p>An anchor lets you see the river move
but now that your evil dreams came true
there on your face
a row of teeth he’ll come to replace</p>
<p>I know you laughed when I left
but you really only hurt yourself
when you see your curtains move in the wind
you can bet I’m betting against you again</p>
<p>cause I’m a man who has a wife who has a mother
who married one but she loved another
you’re a tower without the bells
you’re a negative wishing well</p>
<p>I should have checked the stable door
for the name of the sire and dam
you were always at the dogtrack
with your brother and all his friends</p>
<p>chalk lines around my body
like the shore line of a lake
your laughter made me nervous
it made your body shake to hard</p>
<p>now there’s a lot of things that I’m going to miss
like thunder down country and the way water drips
when you’re running for the door in the rain
read the metro section…see my name</p>
<p>no I didn’t really want to die
I only wanted to die in your eyes
grant me one last wish
life should mean a lot less than this</p>
<p>Try walking around the campus and looking for ‘for rent’ signs :). Whether you want to live alone or with friends is your choice. Obviously, if you share, rent is cheaper. I started with Craigslist and googling ‘berkeley apartments’.</p>
<p>i started looking in early february. mostly just checking craigslist to see what’s out there. then in march is when i started going to open houses/viewings. i found a good one and signed a lease around april. doing it alone, or with friends doesn’t really make a difference i think.</p>
<p>to answer your fourth question, you will find more august leases if you are looking over the summer. if you start looking before the school year ends, most will be june leases.</p>
<p>i would want to live alone. or at least get my own room. i’m really tired of having to share a room. man and i wonder why my relationships never last more than like a month…hmm interesting</p>
<p>How would I go about finding roommates? I already did a bit of research regarding apartments and even went to the leasing office of an apartment I’m very interested in… Ideally I’d like to live on my own but I’ll most likely need to split costs with a person or two. I don’t think I want to live with anyone I know so far from Berkeley.</p>
<p>i used k&s real estate company. i like them. i visited a lot of their apartments this summer before school started and they were all good quality. i love the apartment i’m living in right now. </p>
<p>There are listings for both empty apartments to rent alone or with a group of friends, and shared apartments that are just looking for new roommates. My advice is to start browsing listings now, maybe even attend an open house or two if you have time, and then seriously start looking in April/May for a June lease or June/July for an August lease. Apartments in the Bay Area tend to be listed 0-45 days in advance of availability, although there seem to be a lot of apartments that are listed month after month after month. Those are probably the total dumps.</p>