Thing is I can actually get something in central London, the very centre, for about 2/3 of those prices. And those prices are being pretty consistent all the places I look in CA, not simply in SF itself. My searching may lack finesse - loads of these sites ask me exactly which towns/areas to look in and I've never heard of most. "Somewhere near(ish) the sea" isn't a valid search option

Will continue searching with a bit more diligence and a map!

Thing is I can actually get something in central London, the very centre, for about 2/3 of those prices. And those prices are being pretty consistent all the places I look in CA, not simply in SF itself. My searching may lack finesse - loads of these sites ask me exactly which towns/areas to look in and I've never heard of most. "Somewhere near(ish) the sea" isn't a valid search option

Will continue searching with a bit more diligence and a map!

There are many places designed for business travel and vacationing, they will be billed by the night or by the week. They are expensive like you mentioned.

Anywhere that's got dedicated web pages showing pricing and billing and other details will probably be business-oriented (expensive), vacation-oriented (expensive), or large apartment complexes with high enough turnover that they need a nice web site. You'll want to avoid all of these.



Make sure you are searching for regular residence. Since you wanted to avoid large apartment complexes you will probably have the best luck going through the local ads and newspapers of the areas you are interested in. Craigslist was already mentioned for sub-let. These should be around $400/month for 1-2 bedrooms for the areas you've described. Also consider looking at college towns, they tend to have a lot of vacancies during the summer as students sub-let the months that they are away; you may find those around $100-$200/month over the three month break.

You might also consider "home exchange" services where you are effectively sub-letting a regular family residence. These should start around $1000/month, and can be a good deal if you get in with a good family.


If you are seeing higher costs than that, I'd attribute it to poor Google-fu skills or lack of coffee.

Thing is I can actually get something in central London, the very centre, for about 2/3 of those prices. And those prices are being pretty consistent all the places I look in CA, not simply in SF itself. My searching may lack finesse - loads of these sites ask me exactly which towns/areas to look in and I've never heard of most. "Somewhere near(ish) the sea" isn't a valid search option

Will continue searching with a bit more diligence and a map!

Why don't you tell us what you're looking for and we'll give you some friendly advice on cities/areas to narrow down. Culturally, geographically, etc. what are your goals?

Rent is just crazy in California. I live outside of Sacramento and I'm paying $850/month for a 750 square foot one bedroom apartment. Back where I come from that would be maybe $400/month. Coming from outside the country I'm not sure you are going to find anything "cheap". Craigslist and subleasing out a room from a larger apartment or house is probably going to be your best bet. Generally the person who is the owner/primary leaser will be the one responsible for paying the bills every month.

If you stay in the nicer areas of the cities apartment complexes aren't to bad. I have a fireplace and a little patio on my upstairs apartment that faces a field with some trees in it. There are a couple of pools and a fitness center in the main building. There are even nicer places then the one I'm living at that aren't to far away.

It's a good point that the places on the top of Google are the premium places, their sites are more like brochures

Frob you said:

. The search "short term furnished apartments Pasadena" gives hundreds of housing options just outside of Los Angeles; most cost under $400/month and are fully furnished[/quote]When I did that exact search on Google I was still getting lots of the top links pointing to places 10X the cost. Do you have an actual result from your search I can look at?

I live outside of Sacramento and I'm paying $850/month for a 750 square foot one bedroom apartment.[/quote]See, to me anything under $1000 is 'cheap' if it's nice and not in a dodgy neighbourhood. I did a search in Sacramento and found quite a few in the $700-1000 range but I think they were standard lets (despite searching for furnished); I'm not sure how much extra for being furnished/short-term I'm going to pay though. Like would I be paying $1000 for your $850 apartment as a short-term let, or $1500? BTW Is Sacramento one of the places 'over the mountains' - forgive my lack of local geography?

Why don't you tell us what you're looking for and we'll give you some friendly advice on cities/areas to narrow down. Culturally, geographically, etc. what are your goals?[/quote]Again, I don't really know, the point is I don't know what to expect, hence the trip! I suppose probably living on the beach is too atypical of actual life - as an experience of what moving abroad might be like.
I have some business links with SF/Palo Alto but it looks like that's outside my price range. We would want to be at least near a proper city rather than out in the sticks, seems pointless moving to CA from the UK and not getting all the restaurants and take-out food

How reputable is Craigslist? We have it in the UK but it's hardly popular. We have well-recognised national house-search sites and I always got the impression CraigsList was person-to-person with no protection.

Why don't you tell us what you're looking for and we'll give you some friendly advice on cities/areas to narrow down. Culturally, geographically, etc. what are your goals?[/quote]Again, I don't really know, the point is I don't know what to expect, hence the trip! I suppose probably living on the beach is too atypical of actual life - as an experience of what moving abroad might be like.
I have some business links with SF/Palo Alto but it looks like that's outside my price range. We would want to be at least near a proper city rather than out in the sticks, seems pointless moving to CA from the UK and not getting all the restaurants and take-out food

How reputable is Craigslist? We have it in the UK but it's hardly popular. We have well-recognised national house-search sites and I always got the impression CraigsList was person-to-person with no protection.
[/quote]

San Jose is probably a good place to start then. It's not too far from SF or Palo Alto (assuming there is no traffic). Only about 45 minutes from Santa Cruz (nice beach). Oakland is another affordable choice.

Don't worry about being "in the sticks". You'll have to intentionally look for land if you want to be in isolation. Even the smaller cities in CA rival "big cities" in other states.

Craigslist is the defacto standard for buying and selling in the US. When I look for anything, I go there first. If I was going to look for a place to rent, I'd look on apartments.com and rent.com for the regular lease in a building type deals, but if I was looking for something unorthodox Craigslist is the place to go. You're right though, it's p2p and unprotected, so make sure you don't give out your credit card or agree to meet someone alone in a dark alley.

Why don't you tell us what you're looking for and we'll give you some friendly advice on cities/areas to narrow down. Culturally, geographically, etc. what are your goals?

Again, I don't really know, the point is I don't know what to expect, hence the trip! I suppose probably living on the beach is too atypical of actual life - as an experience of what moving abroad might be like.
I have some business links with SF/Palo Alto but it looks like that's outside my price range. We would want to be at least near a proper city rather than out in the sticks, seems pointless moving to CA from the UK and not getting all the restaurants and take-out food

How reputable is Craigslist? We have it in the UK but it's hardly popular. We have well-recognised national house-search sites and I always got the impression CraigsList was person-to-person with no protection.
[/quote]

I've already recommended going over the mountains; Boulder Creek and Scotts Valley are nice towns. The commute into Campbell or even San Jose over the mountain is more distance but roughly the same clock time as fighting the other commuters since the traffic jams are generally going the opposite direction.

You'll still pay the premium for being close to the city, and also being in the mountains and redwood forest. Searching the area this one looks fairly nice. (Short term home rental for $1800/month)




As for how I did my search, I opened Google maps, zoomed in on the area, and then looked at the little map pins. Since it is filtered by actual location you will get better results than a web search that only finds the brochures. "Furnished Apartments" search near San Jose brings up tons of little dots that can be clicked on for more info. Those right down town are 1 bedroom for about $1500/month, those farther away from downtown, usually the places without web sites (just links to a management association) tended to be closer to $800-$600 per month.

I have found my last 6 dwellings in a row on Craigslist. It's very widely used for this purpose here, and is a decent place to find a rental.

San Jose is probably a good place to start then. It's not too far from SF or Palo Alto (assuming there is no traffic). Only about 45 minutes from Santa Cruz (nice beach). Oakland is another affordable choice.

Don't worry about being "in the sticks". You'll have to intentionally look for land if you want to be in isolation. Even the smaller cities in CA rival "big cities" in other states.

Thanks for the specific advice.

As for how I did my search, I opened Google maps, zoomed in on the area, and then looked at the little map pins.

Ah, thanks. I was doing a straight Google search, not a map search.

I have found my last 6 dwellings in a row on Craigslist. It's very widely used for this purpose here, and is a decent place to find a rental.

Cool. How wary do you have to be to check out the 'seller'... are there any inbuilt protections or certificates landlords have to have legally, or is it a 'wild west' situation? Especially talking to these guys from overseas, I'm nervous the way people were nervous in the early days of eBay!

I found a map-based plugin/mashup thingie for rentals on Craigslist, anyone recommend these kind of things and if so is there a 'standard' one? Being used to sites like http://www.rightmove.co.uk/ Craigslist just looks kind of primitive to me.

[quote name='BeanDog' timestamp='1305667653' post='4812109']
I have found my last 6 dwellings in a row on Craigslist. It's very widely used for this purpose here, and is a decent place to find a rental.

Cool. How wary do you have to be to check out the 'seller'... are there any inbuilt protections or certificates landlords have to have legally, or is it a 'wild west' situation? Especially talking to these guys from overseas, I'm nervous the way people were nervous in the early days of eBay!

I found a map-based plugin/mashup thingie for rentals on Craigslist, anyone recommend these kind of things and if so is there a 'standard' one? Being used to sites like http://www.rightmove.co.uk/ Craigslist just looks kind of primitive to me.
[/quote]
I don't know of any trustworthy certifications for landlords; it's pretty much wild-west to be honest. But that's not restricted to Craigslist. I'd be hesitant to rent any place without physically going to a handful of places in the area, personally talking to the landlord (and current/previous resident if possible), and so forth.


I've never used a mapper for Craigslist, as I've always known the areas pretty well.