Off-campus housing for new grad student

<p>I am starting at Berkeley in the fall as a PhD student and I was hoping to get some info about the off-campus housing situation from current students. Since there is very limited graduate student housing available (I'd probably be looking at trying to get into Manville Apts), I'm hoping to live in an apartment off-campus. However, although I am originally from the Bay Area, I'm currently finishing up my undergraduate on the east coast, and I will be working out of state for the summer as well. Therefore, I don't expect to arrive in Berkeley until the beginning of August. How hard will it be to find an apartment at that time? I've been looking on Craigslist, and it looks like all apartments are either for right now or June 1st. Will most apartments be gone by August, or will there still be landlords trying to rent them out at that time? I'm willing to come to Berkeley for a weekend visit in June/July if needed to sign a lease, but I can really only come for 1-2 days at a time...it just seems like a somewhat competitive housing market, so I'm just not sure what's best here. Thanks for any advice! </p>