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KiltedKicker wrote:Hey, I'm a 0L considering my options and am hoping those with some insights into the Bay Area market can give some advice. I was born and raised in SV, and my dad was an IP litigator and GC here for 30 years (it's been awhile since he was at a firm, so his knowledge on all this is a bit dated). I went to school out of state, but worked for the past year at a tech start up and have a good amount of entrepreneurship related experiences on my resume. I'm keeping an open mind, but I love startups and entrepreneurship and am thinking that I'd like to do general corporate tech law at a firm like WSGR, Cooley, MoFo, etc.

Because of my career interests and personal preferences (and financial aid offers I've received thus far), I'm probably most seriously considering Berkeley, NYU, and Duke. Would my chances of getting into Bay Area biglaw be much worse at Duke (I would also have an LLM in entrepreneurship) than at other T-10 schools? Would my chances be as good or better at Berkeley than at any of CCN? So far the advice I have received is that these firms hire from all of these schools and I just have to do well, but that it would be a bit easier from NYU than Duke, and slightly easier from Berkeley than NYU.

If you want more details send a PM. Any advice that might help me with this decision would certainly be much appreciated. Thanks!

HmmmOkay wrote:What do people usually expect to pay monthly for a place in San Francisco, like a 2 bedroom 1 bathroom place? is anything under $2000 a month (per person) a solid deal?

Biglaw_Associate_V20 wrote:SF is shit. Thank god I escaped.

Micdiddy wrote:

Biglaw_Associate_V20 wrote:SF is shit. Thank god I escaped.

Anymore details on that?

ballouttacontrol wrote:

HmmmOkay wrote:What do people usually expect to pay monthly for a place in San Francisco, like a 2 bedroom 1 bathroom place? is anything under $2000 a month (per person) a solid deal?

$2500 3500 each is the pretty standard going rate in any decent location. $2k or less is very cheap

Redamon1 wrote:

ballouttacontrol wrote:

HmmmOkay wrote:What do people usually expect to pay monthly for a place in San Francisco, like a 2 bedroom 1 bathroom place? is anything under $2000 a month (per person) a solid deal?

$2500 3500 each is the pretty standard going rate in any decent location. $2k or less is very cheap

ballouttacontrol wrote:

Redamon1 wrote:

ballouttacontrol wrote:

HmmmOkay wrote:What do people usually expect to pay monthly for a place in San Francisco, like a 2 bedroom 1 bathroom place? is anything under $2000 a month (per person) a solid deal?

$2500 3500 each is the pretty standard going rate in any decent location. $2k or less is very cheap

$2500 is totally reasonably doable man. Maybe not in PRIME locations but you can get some extremely nice 2 beds for $2500 if you're fine being in a slightly less prime block. I lived in a super nice 2 bed 2 bath in Soma one block off of mission for $4900 for the whole thing.

ballouttacontrol wrote:

Redamon1 wrote:

ballouttacontrol wrote:

HmmmOkay wrote:What do people usually expect to pay monthly for a place in San Francisco, like a 2 bedroom 1 bathroom place? is anything under $2000 a month (per person) a solid deal?

$2500 3500 each is the pretty standard going rate in any decent location. $2k or less is very cheap

$2500 is totally reasonably doable man. Maybe not in PRIME locations but you can get some extremely nice 2 beds for $2500 if you're fine being in a slightly less prime block. I lived in a super nice 2 bed 2 bath in Soma one block off of mission for $4900 for the whole thing.

Emma. wrote:

ballouttacontrol wrote:

Redamon1 wrote:

ballouttacontrol wrote:

HmmmOkay wrote:What do people usually expect to pay monthly for a place in San Francisco, like a 2 bedroom 1 bathroom place? is anything under $2000 a month (per person) a solid deal?

$2500 3500 each is the pretty standard going rate in any decent location. $2k or less is very cheap

$2500 is totally reasonably doable man. Maybe not in PRIME locations but you can get some extremely nice 2 beds for $2500 if you're fine being in a slightly less prime block. I lived in a super nice 2 bed 2 bath in Soma one block off of mission for $4900 for the whole thing.

The awesome $4900 2br/2ba places are disappearing. Lived in one last year and it was by far the best deal we'd found when apartment hunting. When we moved out, the landlord increased the rent to $5600.

ilovesf wrote:You don't have to go to Oakland. Just go to the Richmond. The older I get the more I like the neighborhood and commuting to FiDi is super easy if you live near the 1AX or something.

bruinfan10 wrote:

ilovesf wrote:You don't have to go to Oakland. Just go to the Richmond. The older I get the more I like the neighborhood and commuting to FiDi is super easy if you live near the 1AX or something.

I think this is credited. I don't understand why people are pushing further and further into the East Bay when the Richmond and Sunset offer *some* 1 bedrooms with parking for $2500 (and up).

rpupkin wrote:

bruinfan10 wrote:

ilovesf wrote:You don't have to go to Oakland. Just go to the Richmond. The older I get the more I like the neighborhood and commuting to FiDi is super easy if you live near the 1AX or something.

I think this is credited. I don't understand why people are pushing further and further into the East Bay when the Richmond and Sunset offer *some* 1 bedrooms with parking for $2500 (and up).

Perhaps it's because the further you go into the East Bay, the warmer and sunnier it gets; while the further you go west in San Francisco, the colder and foggier it gets. I'm talking about the summer, of course, when it's often in the 50s in the Sunset and in the 80s in the East Bay.

Biglaw_Associate_V20 wrote:SF is shit. Thank god I escaped.

Anonymous User wrote:I'll be moving to SF this summer (looking for an apartment with a July 1 lease date, or somewhere in that range). Should I be frantically looking for places already? I'm away on business until the end of May, and I was originally thinking I would just visit for a few days in June and find a place, but someone advised me that I better start looking now. If that's the case, should I just look up July 1st apartments on craigslist/padmapper? My initial searches seem to indicate that there are plenty of apartments still available, even for April. Wondering if I was misinformed, or if it really is time to start making calls and sending e-mails to potential landlords.

Also, I'll be working in the financial district. What's a reasonable price for a studio with an okay commute (45 mins or less) in a non-terrifying neighborhood? $2200ish appears to get some hits in the Richmond & Pac Heights neighbordhoods. Does that sound doable? Preferring not to live in Oakland, but would also consider some less popular neighborhoods if it meant saving a few hundred $. Places to avoid? Tenderloin sounds like an easy one, any others?

Anonymous User wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:I'll be moving to SF this summer (looking for an apartment with a July 1 lease date, or somewhere in that range). Should I be frantically looking for places already? I'm away on business until the end of May, and I was originally thinking I would just visit for a few days in June and find a place, but someone advised me that I better start looking now. If that's the case, should I just look up July 1st apartments on craigslist/padmapper? My initial searches seem to indicate that there are plenty of apartments still available, even for April. Wondering if I was misinformed, or if it really is time to start making calls and sending e-mails to potential landlords.

Also, I'll be working in the financial district. What's a reasonable price for a studio with an okay commute (45 mins or less) in a non-terrifying neighborhood? $2200ish appears to get some hits in the Richmond & Pac Heights neighbordhoods. Does that sound doable? Preferring not to live in Oakland, but would also consider some less popular neighborhoods if it meant saving a few hundred $. Places to avoid? Tenderloin sounds like an easy one, any others?

I'd start looking in late May, early June. You might wind up paying an extra few weeks' rent if you find a good spot for a mid-June date, but that'd be worth it.

Great inexpensive neighborhoods with a reasonable commute are basically (1) Glen Park and (2) End of List. That said, I've lived in Pac Heights and my commute was well under 30 minutes, plus there's at least some stuff to do at night. I love the Richmond, but don't care for the 38 bus, so that's a tradeoff. The Sunset has really jumped in price recently, especially anywhere near Muni.

I would try Corona Heights/Twin Peaks, where there still seem to be reasonable 1 BR places and can be a quick bus/muni train to work, or maybe further out to West Portal if you can find a spot close to the train.

That said, I was the person who always said "I won't move to Oakland," and here I am in Oakland, with a shorter commute during the work week and a 2 BR place for what I would've paid for a studio in neighborhoods I really liked in the city.