As the weather heats up throughout the Bay Area, renters everywhere take advantage of the sunny days as well as potential rental deals to look for a place to call home.
Sadly, “red-hot deals” on rentals are almost nonexistent, and residents looking for a new place continue to try to come to terms with how unaffordable it is to live in the Bay Area—and what they have to sacrifice in order to stay.
Last week, the Mercury News released an interactive zip-code analysis that revealed that median rents in 70 percent of Bay Area neighborhoods in 2012 were affordable to those making $100,000 today—a percentage that has dropped to 28 percent for that same income group. One of the most shocking statistics: For a family earning less than $64,000 a year, there’s not a single neighborhood with an affordable median apartment rent.
This is a housing crisis and the reason why renters have to resort to places like the ones rounded up below.
1. Communal Space with a Shady Past
While this sunny and airy room seems like the ideal rental, its shady past may deter you from wanting to spend your hard-earned money as one of its occupants. This building used to be called Hotel Travelers, one of the last SROs in Oakland. The former tenants, mostly older folks, were evicted by the new owner, who then remodeled the building to what it looks like today. The saga was thoroughly reported by Darwin BondGraham, a former staff writer with the East Bay Express.
2. Share a Living Room with Three Other Females
Sure, $600 sounds like a steal! But what are the sacrifices, you ask? Well, you get to sleep on a bunk bed, and good luck with having any privacy or storage. The perk? You’re five minutes away from BART.
3. Your Very Own Sauna
The rental-housing crisis is slowly reaching other East Bay cities, such as Hayward. This is where you can rent a converted sunroom, and you absolutely cannot have any visitors. Just imagine what hot summer days are going to be like. A sauna for sure.
4. Converted Dining Room
We’ve reached that crisis level where even dining rooms are being converted into sleeping quarters. What’s next, a converted kitchen? Probably. Oh, and if you rent this one, you also have to pitch in to pay off the furniture that you may or may not even use.
5. Where Did the Windows Go?
Although converted garages are the most typical type of rentals, it’s always baffling to see how landlords truly don’t care about how non-inhabitable a space is. This one has one tiny window and the remnants of what was once the garage door. Also, although the space comes with a private entrance, you can’t have overnight guests.
6. Commercial Space Turned Apartment
For $1,750.00, you can rent a retail space turned half-ass apartment with no stove or a real bathroom.
7. Part-Time Rental
Unconventional-type rentals are becoming more common as the housing crisis increases. We have moved past the term “commuter rental” to “part-time rental.” Make sure you don’t cook or work from home—“price and time combinations” are negotiable (*face palm*).
See you next month for more of the Bay Area’s most undesirable, overpriced housing gems.
