SFCM accepted SSS, but oh, my lord, why is SF so expensive to live in?
SFCM = San Francisco Conservatory of Music
SSS = step-stepson(high school senior)
SF = City of San Francisco
We flew out there together to visit the school late late year, before sending
in an application. He took lessons and talked with teachers. That 3-day
trip was pricy. I used my excess DL miles, so the 3 airline tickets from the
Northeast were free. However, we only managed to book a cheap La Quinta
near SFO airport, only because it was the cheapest during those 3 days.
I hope anyone reading this is sitting down because the room was $290 for
each night. Its quality is about as good as a $49 cheap motel near Newark
airport. The SFCM faculty told us it was because there was some big
pharma/medical convention in town.
While the SSS was in lesson with a couple of teachers, I chatted with the
school faculty. They told me that it was a pricy town and student housing
will be pricy. I expected that, but what I didn’t expect was the housing
pricing to be more than other big cities like Manhattan.
The school offered a bigger financial package than SSS was expecting,
so that should help.
Has anyone turned down SFCM because of the cost of living in SF?
why? because
1- it is tech central right now, attracting venture capital startups and well paid computer coders from all over the world.
2-there is no land to build more housing. The only place to go is up. And only luxury townhouses or hotels can be affordably built by going up.
It is just like the lower half of the island of Manhatten, but without the less expensive boroughs for workers to live in.
Average house price in SF is now as above $1,000,000.
1 brdm appt is $3500+.
San Francisco has exploded in price recently, but there are some options that can make it cheaper.
Oakland, Berkeley, Daly City, Millbrae, San Leandro, etc. are all cheaper and within a 20 minute train ride of SFCM. Lots of people commute in from the East Bay or Peninsula rather than living in the city. Either way though I’d be prepared to spend minimum $1000 a month in rent, maybe less if he’s sharing a house with a lot of people in the East Bay. My advice either way, do not have him live in the city unless he has to.
$1000??
NO one cant get an appt for $1000 in the bay area these days!! Not even in the worst ghetto areas of Oakland!
And the peninsula is almost as expensive as SF.
A Room in someones home -well outside of SF for $1000/ month- maybe.
Large cities do tend to be expensive. Maybe others who have attended SFC can relate their experiences.
I think if he’s willing to share an apartment in the East Bay or outer Mission, he should be able to find a room for $1000 - or less, if he shared a room. But certainly he’d pay more in SF near the conservatory. Luckily BART and the bus system works! The conservatory does offer housing. I don’t know the price of it.
As for hotel rooms, that does seem wildly expensive. It was an anomaly - there are plenty of places to stay for less 90% of the time. There are even hostels. And Air BnB, of course - which is based here, and blamed for some of the high SF rents!
Yes, San Francisco is expensive. It’s also a fantastic place to live. And the conservatory is a very happening place these days.
Yes, I’m from the area, and you can find a room for $1000 depending on where in the bay you are looking. I’ve lived in San Jose, Santa Clara, Oakland, Berkeley and SF, and there are still some pockets that are affordable if you know where to look.
Also you might get lucky and get an inlaw unit in the sunset for close to that:
http://sfbay.craigslist.org/sfc/apa/5481475158.html
Here’s the thing with the bay area though. Good units posted on craigslist will be gone in 24 hours, so you have to BE THERE to look for a place, and be ready with deposit, and credit report in hand when you view it. Depending on how expensive student housing is, it might be easier to just bite the bullet and do that for the first year, and then find something cheaper once he’s settled in the city.
All of that being said, it’s a GREAT place to live once you’ve jumped through all the hoops.
SF is expensive because it is a popular place to live, there is a lot of money in silicon valley, and that translates into a supply-demand issue, and the prices go up. It is much like Manhattan these days, where the only thing they build is luxury stuff (from my office, there is an apartment building where the units sell for as much as 50 million). SF is relatively small city physically and like many cities, is attractive to the kind of kids who have the money we are talking about.
Hello StringMama! My son is in his second year as a string student there, and I have a lot of information for you. Too much for this post. Perhaps you could PM me? Then I can share our experiences with the housing situation, and opportunities that my son has had that have made it worth it. This year, my son is in a great neighborhood – just a couple blocks from the California governor in one of the best neighborhoods in the city! But that was a lucky fluke. Last year was a different story, but he survived it! The city is so amazing, the conservatory is bustling with positive energy, entrepreneurship and incredible students from all over the world. Anyhow, send me a PM! And congratulations!
OH, and by the way, we are going for his recital in April, and have a nice hotel just a few blocks from the conservatory for $124 a night. We also did AirBandB last summer, and that worked well. There are bargains, but you have to look for them!
@onekidmama - Happy to hear everything has been working out well for your son!
@musicprnt
SSS has a friend who is leaving SFCM in a few months. She rents a small studio apartment from a Chinese woman. This landlady lives in Shanghai, China, but bought 7 buildings(about 50 separate apartments) around downtown San Francisco as investments. She rents them out via a realtor. The best part is that she lets student rent these apartments at 20% off. The only restrictions are no parties, no smoking, no drugs, no alcohol(yes, no alcohol), and no noise after 8pm.(not sure how that will work for a string player) Also, it’s nice to be rich and Chinese, I suppose? 
How far can one live from SFCM? Is a 1-hour commute each way too far? Found an old college friend who said SSS could live in her home RENT FREE! She has two empty spare bedrooms after her own children moved out 20 years ago. Her own kids played music as well, so she wouldn’t mind the noise. 
In fact, she said SSS can use one room as bedroom and use the other room as practice room. The rooms are completely empty right now, so SSS will just have to buy furniture.
Here’s the “but” and it’s a big one… But it’s in Fremont. (!!!) She said it only takes her about an hour and 10 minutes to get to downtown San Francisco on the BART.
Did I mention RENT FREE?
Hi again. Wow, that’s a great deal, especially being able to practice there, BUT…the thing I’d worry about with Fremont is that most students “live” at the conservatory, because of rehearsals, concerts, recitals and practicing in the evening, and perhaps jobs, too. So he’d be returning awfully late many days a week, and might feel isolated. A few grad students live in Oakland, but Freemont is even farther away. I wonder if he’d feel out-of-the-loop a little bit? When my grad son arrived in SF, he knew nobody, but his roommates (all strangers initially, but all SFCM students) and they did lots of fun things together, because they didn’t know anybody either. It helped initiate him into the city and the scene. They did live 30 minutes out, in the Portola district, which was okay, although the house they shared was a dump. $1,000/month. But it was very important to our son to be part of the SF scene. This year, he’s got a great living situation for the same rent.
taking Bart is the ONLY way for anyone to commute into SF from Fremont.
BUT he would then have to take a bus to get to SFCM as BART is about 2 miles from SFCM.
And lugging an instrument on a bus is not going to work out well.
I think it would not be worth the hassle.
The Civic center BART station is about a 10 minute walk from SFCM (.6 miles). It’s not really that far of a walk.
That might be a good opportunity to start out with for a few months, and then look for housing closer to SF once he’s in the city. It sounds like a good deal for a temporary solution.
The school has built new housing facilities close by. They’re small but have everything he’d need. Can he get into those?
I can say, as someone has raised four kids and teaches college students, that it would be a rare student who would be able, as a freshman, to commute that distance from a place other than their parents’ home. Even commuting from a parental home would be arduous and not ideal, in terms of having any sort of social life, not to mention late rehearsals, etc. For a grad student, with a lighter class schedule and different social needs, this plan could work. But I really would not recommend it for a college freshman. If the cost is prohibitive, perhaps consider another school where the student can live on campus with other freshmen.
I’m confused. He’s going to be a freshman, right? My understanding is the SFCM has an on-campus housing requirements for freshmen – are you planning to request an exemption for some reason? Based on our experience, requiring freshman to live in school housing is pretty standard.
https://www.sfcm.edu/residency-requirement