<p>Is the OP’s website apartments nice for the price? Can you get apartments that look like that for better prices? It looks good to me and prices aren’t too bad. I don’t mind paying 1000 for a place like that. As long as I don’t live in some dumpy apartment where mice run by, I’m good.</p>
<p>Berkeley apts are nice but too small and older compared to other apts community like library gardens and hillside. I went to both library gardens and hillside last weekend, and they are offering one month off if u sign up a 12-month lease. Not too bad tho. I ended up with hillside cuz i’m in COE and it’s closer and nicer compared to other old, crappy…apts. My roomate and I rent a two bed apt for 2400 a month, with the one month off deal, it comes down to approx. 2200ish for a month.</p>
<p>Okay cool. I was beginning to think I was crazy because two people I’ve talked to said they rent for 500 and 700.</p>
<p>If you want a nice apartment and are willing to pay for it, they’re available. Exactly where you set the line is actually quite personal.</p>
<p>For example, I pay $870/mo for my own 130sqft room in a well-maintained, but older, 2bd/1ba apartment. Most of my friends think I’m crazy for doing that, but I justify it by saying that it allows me an environment in which I can easily study in my own room and not worrying about roommates having different schedules that may be potentially distrubing.</p>
<p>Some of my other friends are willing to add a few hundred more to live in a newer apartment. I can understand where they’re coming from, but personally, I find the marginal increase in comfort to not be worth the extra $300/mo in rent.</p>
<p>I find that my $500-$600/mo friends don’t see much of a difference between sharing a room and having one to themselves. If I mention that a nice apartment is expensive, their answer is always: fit more people in it. For them, price is where it makes the most difference. For me, it’s having enough space to live comfortable. For others, it may be location.</p>
<p>Speaking of which, I justified my distance on northside by getting a bike. Yeah, it’s far away from all the “action” and 15min from campus (as opposed to 5min), but because I have a bike, it’s 5min for me. Most of my friends can’t justify the $500 for a nice bike, so they instead opt for a “worse” deal on southside even though I find that the $500 pays for itself within a few months. </p>
<p>It’s all very personal, and what works best for you depends on your lifestyle. My favorite one is actually how some friends mentioned the “what if you get drunk” issue in terms of location and getting back home. My solution: don’t leave a party drunk. Erm…, it works for me, but I don’t think that’s going to sit will with several people.</p>
<p>lol I’m exactly the same way. I’d much rather have my own room because I’m a light sleeper. I HATE when people wake me up, especially because those are the inconsiderate ones who slam the door when they leave and leave the light on if your sleeping. I was wondering if people shared a room in the apartment too but I guess you do it however you want. It’ll just end up being $1000 instead of $500 if you don’t share a room. </p>
<p>My other question is…was it hard to find a person willing to pay more with you?
Did you say your bike was $500?
How do other people get to school from the apartment? Bike, drive, or walk? or bus?</p>
<p>Yeah, it was difficult for me to find others who are willing to pay a little more to have their own room, but I was able to find someone. You just have to put in a little extra effort for the search. The thing to keep in mind is that people are willing to pay $1200/mo for a Unit 3 Triple, so even dropping it to $1000/mo for your own room is a nice deal.</p>
<p>My bike was actually $380 brand new, but I searched around for a nice deal on that. It’s a Fuji Newest 4.0 road bike. Before that, I had a Trek 7000 hybrid bike for $340 new.</p>
<p>Most people walk to school. A few, like me, bike. The proportion is around 10-20%. This group usually lives more than 3blk away. For the most part, the bus is only used for backup transportation because of schedule and reliability issues; in fact, most people at CKC elect to do the 20min walk instead of waiting for the bus. And, almost nobody drives unless they live outside of Berkeley, and even then, those people usually take BART and walk the rest of the way.</p>
<p>It’s funny – my friends from other places always comment on how nice it is to have my apartment so close to campus. Yet, most people here complain on how ridiculously far it is. Just remember: “distance” is measured in time, not length. :)</p>
<p>^ A Unit 3 Triple costs $11600 currently, so it’ll be less that $1200 a month. Also, it includes board as well. Eating out when living off-campus can be expensive, and cooking is time-consuming (not to mention, poisonous for some individuals).</p>
<p>As you can tell, price matters a lot to me so I would probably stay in the dorms unless I can get <$600 a month outside for a non-crappy apartment :P</p>
<p>Keep in mind that $11600 is for a “year” = 9mo, not 1yr. So, it works out to $1288/mo.</p>
<p>Yeah, eating out can be expensive, but here’s how I see it:</p>
<ul>
<li>Dorms come with 2500 meal points per year.</li>
<li>Off-campus platinum meal plan is 2400 meal points per “year” for $2200/yr.</li>
<li>Meal points correspond to $1 = 1 meal point, but buying them in large numbers makes them slightly cheaper. So, $2300/yr for 2500 meal points.</li>
<li>This works out to $255.55/mo in terms of meal points.</li>
<li>That leaves just more than $1000/mo for your own room.</li>
</ul>
<p>At $1000/mo, you can easily get your own room with private bathroom in a recently-built apartment. If you compromise on quality a little, you can even get a studio.</p>
<p>In reality, the meal points are overpriced. There are several places where you can eat for $5/meal.</p>
<p>However, my personal solution is to stock up on packaged foods from Safeway. It works out closer to $2/meal for me. Microwave is all I need.</p>
<p>^ yep sorry, forgot the 9months bit. I guess if you’re not the hungry sort it’s quite worth it.</p>
<p>lol, i applied for dorming like 3 weeks ago and I got an offer for a unit 2 double. All you freshmen, u mad?</p>