Start in Late March/April. February only has overpriced places
You go on Facebook Off Campus Housing, Housing, and Free and For Sale.
You message places you like.
You sound committal to places you want to commit to by replying fast, often, and pushing forward tours and whatever information you and they need to make a decision.
Things to remember
Berkeley has rent control. If you take over a lease, rent doesn’t go up by very much from what it was. If you start a new lease for an open apartment with a leasing office or realty place, rent is very expensive. One building will have apartments with a wide range of rents based off how old the lease is.
People with apartments on Facebook pages are getting a lot of (about 20/post) messages (except if they’re finding subleasers. Subleasers have all the power), but generally messages are like “I’m interested in the double” and that’s it. If you’re actually interested in a places, follow up multiple times.
Coops btw position for coop housing if you’re not EOP or somehow special depends on how long since you’ve paid the application fee. If you want to be in the coops next year, pay the application fee right now. It’s like 25$.
Things to think about in general (from a parent of a Cal student who was in off-campus housing for the first time this year):
If you are committed to rooming with another person or persons, you all need to be on board with what you are looking for with regard to location, amenities and $$. Nothing worse than finding a place that meets your criteria but your potential roommates reject it. Make sure you are very clear about where and who you are willing to live with. Some people are not comfortable living with opposite genders, for instance.
Give yourself TIME to find something. It's a longer process than you think, compounded by schedules full of classes, jobs, clubs, homework, etc. Split the search up amongst yourselves so it doesn't fall on one person (unless he/she is willing to be point person). If you wait until spring break, don't be surprised if you're number 40 on the list for a place.
Be flexible with whom you room with. Places are looking for different numbers of renters - if it's "they take all 3 of us or not at all", you may be limiting your options. Sometimes, striking out on your own gets you more options, locks down housing sooner, and preserves current friendships.
Give some thought to where you want to be in relation to campus. Closer may be more expensive (or smaller, or weirdly configured) but convenient. Farther may mean a hike, bike or bus ride, but it may be cheaper/larger/in a nicer neighborhood.
Hit up any upperclassmen you know who are graduating and vacating their places - my D has several friends who found apartments this way.
I live with my family in Kensington (15 minutes by car, 30 mins by bus from where I live to the North Gate, Euclid & Hearst). The neighborhood is lovely and super safe, and I usually get messages on my nextdoor account, from neighbors offering rooms for decent prices. If you don’t mind the short daily commuting, it’s a great option.
Is it uncommon for students to live in Elmwood? It seems pretty close to the south entrance to campus and the neighborhood looks really nice, but I don’t see it mentioned in the forum.
The 51B [if memory serves] runs from the Rockridge BART station on College through the heart of the Elmwood straight to campus. It’s also not much of a walk – or a bike ride, as @ProfessorPlum168 adverted to – and your student ID card is an AC Transit pass [as in … bus fare included].
On a separate note, as @smsk noted, there are a lot of rooms offered for rent in the north Berkeley/Kensington hills. You just have to be aware that the bus service is not as reliable or as frequent as some other routes.
@AboutTheSame, speaking of AC Transit, if I heard correctly at the tour that is the bus line that takes you from Clark Kerr to campus, correct? Is that the only bus to take and where does it leave you off on campus?
79 is the AC Transit bus that you want to take to/from Clark-Kerr. It runs every 30 minutes or so. At night time there is the campus south shuttle that goes to there as well.
@LMK5
79 is right next to Clark Kerr (30 minutes). If you go down a few blocks, you can catch the 51B (every 10-15 minutes). There’s a school perimeter line that you can also catch a few blocks away on Frat row (30 minutes) but it’s not tracked on very many apps so I’ve only used it to come back from Evans Hall. The Night Safety Shuttle after 7:30 pm is the closest to Clark Kerr that you can get, and comes every 30 minutes.
The Transit app or NextBus track the city buses mostly, but have started to track some of the school buses. It’s basically the Google Maps of not having a car. I’m a fan of Transit.
So, with me and housing.
We finally got an on campus housing offer in Late April but it was in an awkward location and expensive, so we had a week to find somewhere else or take it. I had already messed up coops in March (until May) by getting dates confused, of course, so I spent the weekend on Facebook groups messaging everyone. Before this, my roommate had been looking since February but places were too expensive then and places she liked kept getting swooped like 15 times. So, I quickly went on a tour for a place that wanted someone from May onwards, gave her rent for May, and at least secured somewhere for my roommate and I close to campus, reasonably priced, but yeah, tiny. Then the other two people in the 2 bedroom apartment decided that they were moving out too. Which was good because we’d get to swoop the bigger room and we’d get a new lease so we wouldn’t be liable for any previous damages, but bad because now I have an empty room in an apartment. I can’t seem to find anyone to take it, and we’re about to have to pay the entire rent for june split between 2 people instead of 3 or 4 (when neither of us are living there). And at this point it’s hard to find either subletters or roommates (full year) because everyone wants the place starting in august, and we can’t do tours because we’re not in town.
In summary, housing sucks and I need to find roommates/subletters.
The stop coming back to Clark-Kerr should literally at the stop sign in front of the U at the Clark-Kerr main entrance (across Warring). I think the bus stop going to the main campus shouldn’t be too far away from the main entrance.
51B will also work, it goes down College Ave and the stop on College and Derby will leave you, what, maybe 2 blocks away.
Both drop you off on the southside of campus. The 79 has 3 stops along the edge of campus. The 51B has 2. After that, they go downtown, down Shattuck. The 79 goes Northwest into Albany after that.
