The Hella Strange Ways People Have Found Apartments in San Francisco 

We all have our stories on how we found apartments in SF — but some are just better than others, tbh.

With such a housing crunch, many SF residents have a story on how they found their digs in the greater Bay Area. Here are some of our favorites.







So does Facebook

“When I was looking for a place to move here in 2021 from New Orleans, I literally just opened a Facebook Market place for ‘San Francisco rents’ and started scrolling. My budget was pretty tight, and I wanted to live alone. I kind of knew this would mean I’d live in a small studio probably in the Tenderloin. But to my surprise: I found a basement apartment in the Mission that I could actually afford. I toured the apartment on FaceTime and did everything else through texts and emails. Thank God for smartphones and 5G.”

 — Jason P.


Sometimes Instagram, too

“I started following this girl I connected with at a party in SF years ago when I visited a friend. As it turned out, when I was plotting my move here last year, I saw that she had posted on her stories she was planning to leave SF and go to Oakland. As someone who is always anxious about doing big life decisions over the internet, I knew this was probably gonna be the least stressful and worrisome way to get a place in San Francisco without having to fly halfway across the country. And I was right.”

— Miranda I.






‘From sucking dick to signing leases’

“I started hooking up with this one guy in SoMa back in 2019— and I absolutely loved his place. It’s one of the perks of being a slut: You get to see how people live… and how you could maybe see yourself living there. We saw each other every once in a while. You know, when either one of us got horny or lonely. Usually, it was a combination of the two. Anyways, he took a new job in Austin and asked if I knew anyone who would be interested in taking over his lease. He was month to month at that point, and the unit was owned by a family who bought the building decades ago. Obviously, I told him I was interested and would like to snatch it up before someone else did. It was also incredibly affordable. A few weeks later, I gave his landlord all of my needed paperwork, filled out an application, and signed the lease before putting down my deposit. We hooked up one more time with his place crowded with boxes to make space for when I moved it. From sucking dick to signing a lease, I guess you could say. I still live in that 450 square-foot studio.”
— Justin K.

Feature image: Courtesy of Randi Pace

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