<p>Berkeley</a> Apartments</p>
<p>anyone who has stayed in these, how is it? Is the place dead? Are the rooms nice? I'm particularly looking at gaia.</p>
<p>They’re very nice, but small and way overpriced.</p>
<p>I personally recommend you look for somewhere with lots of personal space so that it’s possible for you to work at home undistracted instead of being forced to scope out a Starbucks constantly.</p>
<p>they’re not large enough to fit a desk? That’s all I really need. And it seems cheaper than dorming</p>
<p>The studios are actually not cheaper than dorms…Dorms (doubles) are approx. $1300/mo for room and board. Those studios are $1300 for just room. You should really look elsewhere :</p>
<p>Keep in mind that none of these units are rent controlled so if you plan on renewing a lease the management can increase rent to any amount. The counselors at the city rent board can list everything bad about this management company. Security deposits can be hard to recover and management is slow to respond to complaints/repairs. Tenants have also complained about management forcing them out by raising rents during lease renewals.</p>
<p>One of their buildings (Gaia) has been declared a “public nuisance” by the city council due to violent outbreaks and riots. A mob of people were trying to crash a party held in the building but when private security turned them away someone fired a gun and a SWAT team had to respond.
[Another</a> Gaia Building Riot ? With Gunfire. Category: Reader Commentaries from The Berkeley Daily Planet - Thursday February 05, 2009](<a href=“Another Gaia Building Riot — With Gunfire. Category: Public Comment from The Berkeley Daily Planet”>Another Gaia Building Riot — With Gunfire. Category: Public Comment from The Berkeley Daily Planet)
[Merchants</a> Unhappy With ?Riots? at Gaia Building . Category: News from The Berkeley Daily Planet - Thursday February 12, 2009](<a href=“Merchants Unhappy With ‘Riots’ at Gaia Building . Category: Press Releases from The Berkeley Daily Planet”>Merchants Unhappy With ‘Riots’ at Gaia Building . Category: Press Releases from The Berkeley Daily Planet)
[Police</a> Shut Down Another Gaia Arts Center Party–Shots Fired in Aftermath. Category: Extra from The Berkeley Daily Planet - Thursday January 29, 2009](<a href=“Police Shut Down Another Gaia Arts Center Party--Shots Fired in Aftermath. Category: Extra from The Berkeley Daily Planet”>Police Shut Down Another Gaia Arts Center Party--Shots Fired in Aftermath. Category: Extra from The Berkeley Daily Planet)
[url=<a href=“The City of Berkeley”>The City of Berkeley]Berkeley</a> News<a href=“building%20declared%20as%20public%20nuisance”>/url</a></p>
<p>Well, it is far cheaper than dorming depending on how you share the room. Eg. you need to compare a dorm double to sharing a studio between two people. It’s not too late to find a roommate.</p>
<p>However, from experience – if it’s one person in a room, you can fit a desk, but with two people, not really.</p>
<p>For that reason, it’s why I insisted so hard on getting my own room of at least 100sqft. That way, a medium-sized desk and bed both fit comfortably within my room without any bunking. My 130sqft room costs me $870/mo and I think it’s worth every penny over the average of ~$600 with most people’s double situations.</p>
<p>What’s a good place to look for apartments that aren’t dumps? Me and a friend are looking at apartments (he is doing that right now actually) and we don’t necessarily want to settle for these more expensive places.</p>
<p>Also, when does Financial Aid start rolling in? I really want to pay my dad back the money that he’s going to give me for my first month’s rent and deposit ASAP.</p>
<p>Well, there isn’t a centralized place for looking for places that aren’t dumps, but my general advice is to simply view as many apartments as possible, get a feel for the market, etc. Craigslist is where I go.</p>
<p>For me, I looked at over 40 places before I finally decided on one. No, I didn’t “compare” them – I just got a feel for the market, and eventually, once I came across one that was well within my standards of niceness and had an excellent value, I ran with it.</p>
<p>On an anecdote, the less “studenty” an area is, the nicer the apartments tend to be. After a year in a cramped dorm, you won’t believe how bad of living conditions many students are willing to tolerate. I tend to find that the nicer apartments are usually on northside or downtown Berkeley.</p>
<p>Yeah we’re finally starting to get a feel for the market. We saw lots of places on craigslist that looked nice in pictures but when my roommate went along with a friend to go check them out they found the places to be almost completely different. Pictures for one place for example showed a nice looking rug and everything about the place looked intact but in person my roommate found that the rug was torn up and found that there was huge stains on it, wall sockets that were hanging out, the bathroom was dirty (no wonder they didn’t show a picture of it)… it was a slum. If those craigslist ads don’t reveal much and concentrate on the big living room, there’s a chance that the other parts of the apartment are bad. A lot of these ads say things like “1 large bedroom, perfect for two!” and the bedroom barely comfortably fits 1 bed. A lot of these ads sound honest, but they’re not.</p>
<p>Advice to anyone out there, follow excelblue’s advice. Look at many different places to see what apartments are out there before buying.</p>
<p>The market for apartments seems to be distorted. There are different prices and different standards that students have. I know several people who jumped the gun early on last semester and got a place that was a slum but liked the fact that it was really cheap and that it was down Dana St which made the walk to campus easy. There are slum lords out there who charge a lot for one place while there’s another place that’s much better at the same price. You just have to look around and not be too desperate and you’re simply guaranteed to find a better place if you just look.</p>
<p>Also, stay away from Everestprop, Reddy Realty, and Raj Properties.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.yelp.com/biz/everest-properties-berkeley[/url]”>http://www.yelp.com/biz/everest-properties-berkeley</a>
<a href=“http://www.yelp.com/biz/reddy-realty-berkeley-3#query:Everest%20Properties[/url]”>http://www.yelp.com/biz/reddy-realty-berkeley-3#query:Everest%20Properties</a>
<a href=“http://www.yelp.com/biz/raj-properties-berkeley[/url]”>http://www.yelp.com/biz/raj-properties-berkeley</a></p>
<p>Avoid anything from ‘Premium Properties’ - extremely misleading advertising all over craigslist, horrible buildings, and they charge you >$100/person for even applying. </p>
<p>But many of the buildings are really nice, definitely try to go to as many open houses as possible. I checked [San</a> Francisco Rental Housing Search Tools - cribQ](<a href=“Sfbay.cribq.com”>http://sfbay.cribq.com/) like 5 times a day every day for a few weeks while we were looking.</p>
<p>As excelblue pointed out, the value can be good if you can share it w/ a person, but most studios state that it’s a single-person residence so roommate = no go. </p>
<p>Have you considered living in cities serviced by AC Transit outside of Berkeley? ie. Albany (18 on Solano takes you to Berkeley BART in around 30-40 mins in the morning).</p>
<p>Even though I believe that Campanile Court has nice apartments, this is really not a craigslist and when a new member has three posts all recommending the same apartments complex, it sounds suspicious to say the least…</p>
<p>I actually live in one of their buildings (Bachenheimer). It’s really nice, close to campus, and the management is actually very nice. Only problem is it’s a tad expensive, but cheaper than dorms fo sho.</p>
<p>Currently actually looking for another roommate. If you’re interested hit me up at <a href="mailto:quantumtheory@gmail.com">quantumtheory@gmail.com</a> and I’ll give you my number and you can come by and take a look.</p>
<p>Well guys, I just went out looking at apartments and I feel pretty *<strong><em>ing sick right now, these places smelled like *</em></strong> and were *<strong><em>. Holy *</em></strong>, I’m going to apply to westminster or something, **** these garbage apartments. </p>
<p>Can I still apply for Channing Bowditch apartments? Those places look clean. And berkeleyapartments don’t look too bad right now. I say they’re worth the price.</p>
<p>Well, I just applied for Channing Bowditch apartments and dorming. I really hope I get it.</p>
<p>Where have you looked for apartments?</p>
<p>I ended up in northside because the apartments in southside were generally quite bad. The ones in northside are a huge contrast in that even though they were about the same age, they were much better maintained, had lower rents, and landlords who were more willing to work with you.</p>
<p>Well I was stubborn and refused to look at apartments on Northside. So I looked at apartments on the Southside and yeah they were gross.</p>
<p>When I was browsing Southside, not all of the apartments were terrible. Yes, there were a ton that were, but some were quite nice. The one I’m living in now is rather nice. I think maybe it was recently remodeled though because some of the other units in this building are super old. But I’d much rather live in a grungy apartment than a small expensive dorm room.</p>
<p>So…Northside (a safer, quieter, and generally more posh) neighborhood is worse than paying out of your arse for a crowded dorm room? :\ Just telling you, there are still places available in the hills.</p>
<p>how loud are you guys at tauhouse?</p>