Non-university housing
Struggles get real
For a rough idea of the open market, a typical studio goes for over $2000 in every single neighborhood ($3000 in San Francisco), most non-rat-infested rooms open for rent are upwards of $1200, and any room under $1000 will be a dogfight to apply for -- you should expect a competition with dozens of other applicants, perhaps some hair pulling and eye gouging. I'm sorry, it's awful.
That said, it *can* be done, and without making your life completely terrible. The best thing you can do is 1) be ok paying at least a little Too Much for housing, 2) search early and often, and 3) work your network to find affordable open rooms -- email the grad students in your department or area, hit up any and all friends on facebook, ask your Tinder dates if they know of anyone, etc.
Your major decisions points are 1) where you want to live, and 2) how much cash monies you can spend. Here's some internet places to go once you've got a sense of what you're looking for.
Craigslist: founded in the bay, this is still the most complete listing of bay area rentals and rooms. We suggest setting up "alerts" which will email you new listings as they are posted. Basically, you do a search on Craigslist with all the filters you want (neighborhood, price, etc), save the search, and then you'll see an option to set up email alerts.
Zillow - has rental listings, not just sales.
gosection8.com (most graduate students won’t qualify for a Section 8 voucher, but the site has plenty of non-Section 8 but cheap housing, too)
Landlords/rental companies (local):
ERI Rentals – Operate mostly in Berkeley. Respond quickly, well-organized, pleasant to interact with.
SFRent.net – Lease in SF and the East Bay. All of their buildings are pet-friendly. Signing the lease feels scammy/disorganized, but they have been great while I’ve lived with them (respond quickly to issues, fix stuff quickly).
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