How to find an apartment in San Francisco 🌁

Tips on finding roommates, touring places, writing roommate agreements, navigating renter's insurance, and more

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Life update: I’m moving to San Francisco this week! My full-time job at BCG starts in a few weeks, so it was time to get a spot in the City, get settled, and start my new grad life.

I learned a ton during the process of finding roommates/apartment, and wanted to pass along that wisdom (plus for my own posterity’s sake). So, here I am sharing that story and all the lessons here. Enjoy!

Finding Roommates

First off, roommates. I knew I wanted to have them, the more, the merrier. The few times I’ve lived alone (I’m looking at you, Paris), I’ve felt quite lonely, which I absolutely wanted to avoid again. Plus, I loved the idea of having a very social apartment with several friends, and liked the fact that more roommates = cheaper rent. So roommates it was.

I didn’t personally know anyone moving to SF when I was looking to (early Jan 2026), but after a few calls in November, I managed to convince my friend from UCLA, Alex, to move up with me. He was working a fully remote software job at home, and I basically told him he should full-send it to SF. He eventually agreed.

1 down, 2 to do. I was still hoping to find a few more roommates to fill a 4-bedroom, so we decided to bite the bullet and look for roommates through Facebook.

I’d heard people finding great success (very nice!) looking for roommates in Facebook housing groups (e.g., here, here, and here), but I was still very skeptical that it’d actually work. Nevertheless, Alex cooked up a nice little blurb for us, I found some photos, and I posted it in a few different SF Facebook groups I found:

Hey everyone! My friend Alex and I are looking for roommates to join us in signing a lease for a 3-4 bedroom apartment. We’re aiming for an early January move-in.

The Vision: We are looking to create a household that is motivated and ambitious (entrepreneurial mindsets are a huge plus), but definitely social. We want a place where we can host friends, have people over for dinner/drinks, and actually hang out with our roommates rather than just coexist.

About Me: I grew up in the Bay Area, and am super excited to move to SF! I work in management consulting and just finished backpacking the Pacific Crest Trail this past summer. I love reading science fiction, cycling, and going on side quests.

About Alex: Alex is moving to SF from San Diego to try out a new city! He works in Software Engineering, is super social, and loves going out. He’s big on sports and the outdoors; you’ll usually find him surfing, backpacking, or hiking on the weekends. Insta @alexwest.coconut

The Logistics:

• Budget: $1,500 - $1,800 per person.

• Location: We are targeting the Marina, Russian Hill, North Beach, Nob Hill, or Chinatown/FiDi areas.

• Status: I’ve already toured a few solid options, so we have leads ready to go; we just need the right crew to sign with us!

If you think you’d be a good fit, shoot me a DM with a bit about yourself!

I was super excited to see who’d respond and… crickets. I was honestly very bummed for 2 days, until I realized that on Facebook, DM requests are a few clicks away from Messenger, so I was actually looking in the wrong place. What a terrible UI. Once I took a look at my DM requests, I found over 20 people asking to be roommates! Wow! This was even better than I’d imagined!

Alex and I were super excited about this, and I quickly made a bunch of group chats for Alex and me to schedule roommate interviews for the following few days. We’d call over FaceTime, get to know the people a bit, get a vibe check, and Alex would ask them about cleanliness. Everyone obviously said they were clean, but one person was in his current apartment at the time; I asked to see his kitchen, and it was FILTHY 🤮. There was also that one person who was moving to SF to start working the exact job my friend had just quit because of its toxic work culture. I laughed so hard.

The first guy we interviewed, James, was an absolute legend and we loved him immediately. Alex and I brought him into our roommate group right away, then added him to all the group chats to join us in interviewing potential fourth roommates. There were a few that weren’t fits, some that were ok but not great (I figured that since we had lots of interest, we should keep interviewing until we found someone we LOVED), and eventually chatted with Tucker, one of James’s friends of a friend from college. He was fantastic, we loved him, and brought him on to round out the elite roommate group.

Now all we needed was an apartment.

Touring Apartments

I pretty much exclusively looked on Zillow for apartments, and was very happy with how that turned out; I didn’t want to worry about scammy apartments on Craigslist and liked that you could apply for the places directly through the platform (you pay a $35 fee to apply to an unlimited number of units for a month). I was looking toward the end of 2025 so there weren’t a ton of new listings, but I ended up touring about 8 places all across North San Francisco and was happy with what was out there.

Funny enough, I was the only one in our roommate group who was actually living near SF at the time (Alex was living in SoCal, James and Tucker out of state), so it was up to me to do all the tours.

I actually… loved it? I thought it’d be quite monotonous to tour tons of places myself, but I really enjoyed checking out a bunch of different apartments (including a super cool penthouse suite in the Tenderloin which we ended up not going with… because it’s in the Tenderloin), meeting landlords, perfecting my parallel parking, and seeing what’s out there. I’ve never toured apartments before (only lived in the dorms and co-op, baby!) and have to say that I felt VERY grown up doing so now.

The flow was basically this: we’d find an apartment listing we liked on Zillow, and I’d DM the landlord to schedule a tour ASAP. I’d then go on a tour of the place, meet the landlord, and take a detailed video of the apartment to upload to YouTube and share with the roommates. We had a giant shared Apple Note with all of the different places I was touring, where we all left notes/thoughts about each spot, and applied for the ones we were interested in. I ended up inviting a lot of friends to the Apple Note (touring was actually super fun, as I’d never done it before), and I loved seeing everyone’s comments trickle in as I toured more and more places. Here’s a bit of what the formatting looked like:

Apartment #1: 946 Jones St, Unit 6

• (Price)

• 900 square feet (quite small)

• 3 bedrooms + 2 bathrooms + living room + in-unit laundry

• Great free on-street parking

• Lower Nob Hill Neighborhood

• (YouTube link)

• https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/946-Jones-St-6-San-Francisco-CA-94109/2080529430_zpid/?utm_campaign=zillowwebmessage&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=txtshare

• (alex) seems like that room would have to be a living room bc otherwise no common space really + doesn’t look ideal to live in there

• (Note: Alex, James, and I applied for, and got a lease for, this unit while we were looking for a fourth roommate, and decided to keep looking even because it was a bit small for us and we wanted a fourth roommate anyway)

Apartment #2: 1406 Post St

• (Price)

• 4 bedrooms + 2 bathrooms + living room + really nice patio (!!) + in-unit laundry

• 1350 square feet

• Great free on-street parking

• Japantown Neighborhood

• (YouTube link)

• https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1862-Page-St-2-San-Francisco-CA-94117/2062403074_zpid/

• (alex) lol loving the quality filming content, i rly like this one, i feel like it’s more homey if the living room and kitchen are connected but like not a big deal

Apartment #3: 1458 Hayes St

• (Price)

• 4b2b in the panhandle, onsite but no in unit. Beautiful and quite large

• Shared laundry

• 2000 square feet

• (YouTube link)

• https://www.trulia.com/home/1458-hayes-st-san-francisco-ca-94117-2091498964

(I didn’t include the actual YouTube links for privacy reasons)

Now just imagine 10 such listings, and you basically have the Apple Note we shared.

As you’d expect, there are a ton of questions you should ask/information you should find out during an apartment tour. A lot of these are basic apartment-touring steps, so if you’ve toured places before and know how this works (translation: you’re an adult), you’re probably like, “Duh”.

But! I didn’t know any of this stuff before starting to tour apartments, so I’m sharing it here in the hopes it’ll help you, too. Thanks to my dad, friend Sanketh, and Uncle Gemini for explaining all this to me.

This is not a full list, but a great place to start:

• When was the last time things were repaired and painted? Walls, floors, heating, plumbing, electricity

• Any problems with heating/electricity/water/plumbing previously? Who do we call if things break?

• Are all appliances working?

• How much is immediately due upon execution of the lease?

• Do we pay for electricity, gas, Internet, water, and garbage?

• Why did the last people move out?

• Is this unit under rent control?

• How does signing the lease work? Each roommate pays separately, or just one pays for everyone? Is a 6-month lease negotiable, or is the default a one-year term? (Usually leases are one-year and convert to a month-to-month, meaning that you commit to the lease for a year, and from there you commit monthly and can move out after each one with sufficient notice)

• Is subletting allowed?

• Is renter’s insurance required? How much coverage do you need?

• Is there an on-site property manager? Who do I contact for issues?

• Has the building ever had pest issues (roaches, mice, bedbugs)? What’s the pest control policy?

• Is there any history of mold or water damage?

• Is this unit under San Francisco rent control? (Units in SF built before June 1979 typically are)

• What security features does the building have (cameras, secure entry, lighting)?

• Test the water pressure by running the sink and shower

Especially important for a 4-bedroom shared situation:

• What is the guest policy? Are there restrictions on overnight visitors?

• Can I add or change roommates during the lease?

• Is subletting allowed if someone needs to leave early?

• Is renters’ insurance required?

• What are the rules about decorating—can I paint walls or hang pictures?

• Are there quiet hours?

• What is the parking situation? Is there assigned parking, and how much does it cost?

• Are there any planned renovations that might cause noise or disruption? (HUGELY IMPORTANT TO KNOW UP FRONT)

We ended up securing a spot in Nob Hill and are moving in this week. It’s a mile from work, and I can commute by foot, bus, or CABLE CAR! Lfg!

Roommate Agreement / Splitting Rent

Since this is properly a big boy apartment and not a simple college student den (translation: three dudes crammed into a small room in the UCLA co-op), we (specifically Alex) wanted to make a formal roommate agreement prior to moving in so that should shit hit the fan, the wall would stay clean (wow, I’m proud of that line).

My philosophy around roommate agreements is like with a prenup: you should have one, so then you don’t need it. Being explicit and upfront about the rules and expectations before starting a legally significant relationship (e.g., getting married, or being roommates with multi-thousand-dollar rent commitments) makes sure that everyone’s on the same page from the get-go… which is just a generally good thing to do. It’s nice to go into a boxing match knowing that the balls are off-limits, so then you don’t need to guard your crown jewels.

The roommate agreement is honestly quite simple, and should cover only a few basic things, namely: financial stuff (who pays what rent split, so that in the case someone doesn’t pay it’s easier to get the money back), cleaning/chore obligations, shared spaces, guest policy, conflict resolution, and what’s the process for someone moving out early.

We decided that the rent should be split based on which room each person lived in because the rooms in our apartment weren’t all the same size. Also, 2 of them were on the street side, and the other 2 on the garden side (those get direct sunlight). Alex found this amazing website called “Divide Your Rent Fairly” where you input the total rent and the room square footage, and using a round-by-round auctioning system, the website determines the fair rent breakdowns for each room and who’d live where. Pretty nuts tbh, and super fun to do over FaceTime.

Alex then whipped up a quick, legally-binding document for free using DocuSeal (actually such a cool open-source service), we 4 roommates all signed it electronically, and received the final, signed-by-everyone copy by email for our personal records. Check out the template Alex made for reference here.

Just upload that into DocuSeal, assign the appropriate signature spot for each roommate, and you’re all set!

Renter’s Insurance

You’re not legally required to have renters’ insurance in California, but if your landlord requires it, then you need to have it. My landlord required it, so I needed to have it.

Basically, renters’ insurance exists so that if the house burns down, you and the landlord can get money for all the things you lost. After doing a (quite long) search for all the different renters’ insurance platforms, I found that Lemonade was the best bet. Their target market is young professionals, so it’s super cheap, very user-friendly, and any leftover profits are sent to your charity of choice. I chose a reforestation charity because more trees = less problems. Trees are great. Check out Lemonade here. My renters’ insurance costs only $26/month.

(Transparency Time: The Lemonade links above are with my personal referral code, which gives me a small bonus each time it’s used. If you want the generic link without my referral code, click here.)

Random Notes:

• In California, security deposits are typically capped, so watch out for exceptionally large deposits of more than one month’s rent. In SF, the legal maximum deposit is one month’s rent

• The latest our lease could start was one month after my tour of the apartment, which I found to be quite fair and reasonable. I imagine this is mostly an SF thing because the market moves so fast here, but good to know if you’re looking to move here soon

• I was looking into rent reporting services to improve my credit score, but decided against it. My credit score is sufficiently high that reporting rent payments wouldn’t improve it; rather, it’d decrease it because the reporting counts as opening another line of credit, which decreases your score. Reporting rent only makes sense if you have a limited credit history or your score’s below ~650. If you’re interested in doing this, Self was the best free option I found that reports to all three bureaus

• In San Francisco, rent-controlled units are capped at 1.4% annual increases through February 2026

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And so we conclude our apartment-hunting saga! Thanks for tuning in, and if you’re in SF/moving there soon, reach out! I’d love to meet up.

Currently enjoying a nice Nespresso,
Dennis :)

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Dennis’s Picks:

• This was a fantastic piece by Morgan Housel, describing the history of the US economy since WW2

• I loved this essay about the state of the average college student today in the age of AI. Recommended by my friend Alexandra (hi!)

• There’s this one dude at UCLA, Jenson Wong, who writes some fantastic stuff about technical product design. His articles on designing forms and buttons were extremely interesting and fun!