San Francisco Apartment Hunting! 🏡 w/ prices, locations, budget, notion templates

hey guys welcome back to my channel today's video is super exciting because we're going apartment hunting apartment cooking videos are one of my favorites to watch on youtube i think it's just really interesting so i'm super excited to be filming this one today but as some of you may know i did move recently kyle and i both moved from our small studio apartment to a one-bedroom apartment which we're in right now so it's been almost exactly three weeks since we have been moved in and we're almost completely moved in we have like most of the big furniture set just like little decor items we still need to figure out but yeah this is gonna be like the first video as part of my like a move-in series so first i want to go over what i was looking for in an apartment what areas i was looking for and also like why we wanted to move so there are a lot of little reasons i guess that we wanted to move the first one being we definitely grew out of our old space like our old space was a studio there was a kitchen a small bathroom and one room i don't even remember how big the room was it was at least 15 feet by 15 feet i want to say i think it was it was a box and that was what we were living in for the past two years and you know over two years you accumulate more stuff and you just like grow as human beings as well and we definitely grew out of that space plus it was in an in-law unit so that means we're sharing the house with the owners who lived upstairs so the owners were upstairs we lived in the little downstairs unit and like that was fine for our first apartment moving from hawaii to san francisco and having to look for an apartment within a month like we found that place and that place was actually really good considering our circumstances but the other thing was the family upstairs had two young children who would make a lot of noise they would run around stomp and cry a lot we knew what we were getting into when we signed the lease but you know after two years of that it was like time for a change and we lived in excelsior i don't think i ever mentioned where we lived before but now you know we used to live in the excelsior neighborhood so it was like a little further south from the city so maybe around like the end of august is when we started looking at apartments so what were we looking for in an apartment well i have a list right here first of all it has to be a one bedroom it has to have a separate living space from the bedroom space we didn't want just like an open space for everything anymore no studios anymore has to have hardwood floors no carpet anywhere we don't really like to deal with carpet because it's like harder to maintain third it has to be close to groceries we don't have a car so we want to be able to walk or take public transportation to do all of our groceries and errands and things like that for we want it to be easy to get to costco because we do go to costco a lot i know it's just the two of us but they still have really good deals and once we like something we buy it all the time and it's just easier to buy in books fifth one we wanted a large kitchen because we do cook a lot sixth thing was that we wanted a stove and an oven so i guess yes our old kitchen was big but it didn't have a built-in like stove or oven we had to use little like cooktops like hot plates and like that was fine but we just wanted to you know upgrade and get an actual stove and have an oven this time too so that i could try out some like baking recipes that i've been wanting to try i think this is number six but we also wanted a bigger shower our last shower was very small it was one of those like corner showers and there just wasn't a lot of space and i honestly felt really claustrophobic in there all the time ideally a shower over tub and then i forget what number we're on but i also really wanted good natural lighting either like south or west facing windows we also wanted laundry on site because we did not have this before we had to walk and take the bus for a couple of blocks to do our laundry like every two weeks and that was just a hassle so we really wanted laundry on site this time in unit would be amazing but at our price range that we were looking at it was really hard to get that so on site at least and then the last thing is that we did not want another in-law in-laws are good because they tend to be on the cheaper side and there are some really nice-looking in-laws too for the price that you get but it is kind of weird knowing that you're always going to be like usually below the owners above and if it was like our place then you could hear the conversations from the other people through the walls like almost clearly and like if we can hear them they can probably hear us too so it's just kind of weird like it feels like there's not as much privacy so that's why we didn't want another in-law so that was everything that we wanted in our new apartment and we were also looking in a bunch of different areas so i was mostly looking at anywhere from ingleside to excelsior which is where we currently were it was a good neighborhood so i wouldn't have minded staying somewhere nearby and i was also looking from there up to soma including like petraro even like more west in like norway valley hayes nob hill or even like the mission and dolores area and i was looking mostly on trulia.com that's my number one place to look when i'm looking at apartments because i love how they have the crime map because in sf there are some places that tend to have a higher crime rate than other places and off the top of my head i know some places are like the tenderloin but there are other places that i'm not really aware of like even after living here for two years that i'm still not sure how the crime rate is and of course we want some place that has low crime so i like being able to toggle that on when i'm searching for places i've used like apartments.com before and like some other website apartment list but they don't tell you what the crime is in that specific area so that's why i like trulia just makes it super easy this video is not sponsored by the way i sure wish it was but yeah i mostly just looked at trulia and then i also organized everything on like a google sheet so that i could keep track of like which apartments i was interested in the link the price when's the next open house did i contact them did they get back to me stuff like that just to keep track of all the apartments because we looked at kind of a lot but if you guys like to use notion because i know a lot of you really liked my notion tutorial video thank you so much for watching that by the way i have created a notion template for you guys to use if you are also looking for apartments now or soon to be so i'll link that down below as well as my moving checklist so check that out in my description box and you guys can just copy that over to your notion but yes that is pretty much everything that i wanted to go over to preface all the apartments that we're going to look at and now we get to the exciting part looking at all the apartments so there are six apartments that i'm gonna be showing you today that we looked at and of course let's start with apartment number one first apartment was in the cayuga neighborhood and this one's rent was two thousand dollars a month so when you enter there's the bathroom to the far right and i noticed that the medicine cabinet was kind of weird it had these three sections that opened instead of like one single door and i didn't really like that plus it was just pretty old looking i did like that i had a tub shower though because that's what i wanted and that's what i grew up using so that's what i'm most used to then outside the bathroom is a tiny closet and it does have two shelves and a clothing rod and then to the left of the bathroom is the kitchen there's a ton of cabinet space which is great but this kitchen was tiny kyle and i are usually in the kitchen together pretty often so we'd definitely be bumping elbows if we were both in here but it does have an actual stove and an oven which is great and then the kitchen also opens up to the living room and there's this huge window that lets in a lot of light in the afternoon this was around 5 30 p.m and i really like that i didn't get a good clip of this entire space though i'm so sorry but it was a decent size and then to the far left is the bedroom it does have a narrow window but there was a lot of golden hour light coming through which i loved and there is this huge closet which is super nice the thing is the room is really small i can't remember the exact measurements but a queen size bed would have barely fit in here and i'm not even sure if there'd be enough room for two nightstands for the both of us and it was also weird because there was a door in the bedroom that led to the staircase and i forget where that staircase leads to and you can't lock it but yeah i don't know it just gave me weird vibes i wasn't a fan and i also just wasn't a fan of the yellow walls throughout the entire place i don't know if they would have let us paint over it but yeah not a fan but there was laundry right outside the unit though so that was nice but another downside was all these stairs that you had to walk up to get to the unit so overall not that bad but not that great either next up apartment number two this one was in silver terrace and this one was going for 2 180 per month but the thing is this one is an in-law unit and i know i said i didn't want an in-law unit but it just looked so nice and i think it was nice for the price or at least i thought it was when i saw the listing so i still wanted to check it out and it wasn't too far from us you walk in and then there's a washer and dryer which is shared with the owner and her two sons but then past that you enter through the kitchen and it's nice it's updated with a stove but there are these two partitions that they put up which i thought were weird and this was not part of the listing as well so this was a surprise to me i was like what what are these so one of them was covering the heater i think and the other one covered the garage and that would really turn me off because you know whenever the owner would come home and they would park their car we would for sure hear the garage door opening and closing in the car coming in and there was just really no real separation from the garage to the kitchen so that just felt weird and also felt kind of unsanitary to me but then walking further in there is this hallway and to the left is the first bathroom it was actually really nice i really like the amount of sink counter space that there was and the shower was a lot bigger than what we have now so that was nice and then down the hall to the right is this really weird tiny closet it had three clothing rods but they were installed like one in front of the other so if you were to hang clothes on all three i don't know how you would get to the clothes in the very back but anyway next to it are the two rooms so we'll look at the room on the right first it was actually pretty spacious and it would be i think more like the living room because there's no closet in this room but the weird thing is that it has this staircase it was a short staircase with a door that was always locked but it led upstairs to the owner's part of the house which again is kind of weird plus while we were there i could hear loud footsteps from upstairs so that was a major red flag like i said the walls tend to be thinner in in-laws and then for the second room this one was about the same size as the other one and i think this one would be the bedroom since it did have a closet but it was really small and there was also another bathroom in here very similar to the first one it looked like it was recently updated so that was really nice and this room also had a door that led to the backyard patio area which is shared with the owner but not sure how often we'd actually be using this area so that was it for the second apartment i loved the hardwood floors throughout the clean white walls the location but i didn't love that it was an in-law unit and it also just had weird features throughout like the tiny closet and the staircase and especially the partitions so apartment number three is one that was in glen park and this one was going for 1900 it's quite cute it's in glen park which is a pretty cute area except i hated all these stairs that you had to walk down but anyway there is also a nice little yard outside that's shared with the other tenants in the building this one is not an in-law however the first thing that i noticed was this little basketball hoop outside the unit and i was like oh no do children live here is there gonna be like a little kid playing basketball outside her window every afternoon so that's kind of a red flag but anyway you walk in through the front door into this tiny little dining area slash kitchen space so there is space by the front entrance to put like a dining table or something but probably not big enough to call it like a living room and it's definitely too small for like a couch but yeah so i immediately went to the bathroom first because i was really curious since there weren't many good photos of it in the listing but it was nice it had good counter space by the sink and a shower over tub as well which i liked i also forgot to film the kitchen because we were kind of running out of time we got there pretty late for the open house but you can see that the kitchen was kind of small and i mean it's not like in an enclosed space or anything but there just wasn't a lot of like counter space and it doesn't have a full stove or oven it just has a burner on the counter but it did have a good amount of cabinet space but i do remember testing the drawers and opening the cabinets and a lot of them were just like really sticky and in one of the cabinets a bunch of shelves were like broken so i was like okay are they gonna fix that or and then onto the bedroom the bedroom was nice it had almost floor to ceiling windows so there was a lot of natural light that came in but it had a very small closet like the closet was tiny it was the only closet in the whole place and it was just way too small to hold all of our stuff and i also just wasn't a fan of the tile in the entire apartment like it wasn't hardwood but yeah overall this one was cute definitely within our budget but there wasn't really like a living room and the kitchen felt new but old at the same time and i didn't really care for the tile flooring so yeah not my favorite but also not the worst now for apartment number four this one let me tell you how excited i was to look at this one when i saw this on julia i was like we need to tour this one immediately the first couple of pictures that i looked at of the living spaces were so beautiful but there's always a catch which you will see so this one was by delores park it was literally like a five minute walk which is another reason why i really liked it because i was like how cute would it be to just like go out in the afternoon or evening or on the weekends just go out have a picnic right there by dolores that would be a dream and it was going for 2100 so we got there and there were like 20 other people lined up to view this apartment that's how popular it was luckily we got there pretty early we were like fourth in line maybe so anyway it's on the second floor of this building so you walk into the apartment and you go to the right and there is the bedroom and i loved it so much so much sunlight coming through that window tons of built-in storage it was just beautiful the closet did have some flaws like some doors and drawers wouldn't close all the way but i just loved the overall look and vibe of this room there was already so much character in it and then there was also this sliding door that you could close to separate the bedroom from the living room which i thought was pretty cool i like that and then further down is the living room which was my favorite part of the entire apartment look at this huge window and the amount of sunlight shining through it's just so pretty and the view was mostly of trees as you can see but it's still super pretty you still have some privacy from the neighbors across the street i'm so sad i didn't get more footage in here because it was so pretty but there were a lot of other people in there with us at the same time touring the place so that's why i didn't film too much but yeah i just love these two rooms so much and it's the reason why i really wanted to view this apartment and then to the right of the living room is a smaller room which the touring assistant called it a bedroom and i was like um this is more like an office i would say but yeah it's just another little room i love that i also had like a small balcony the other thing that i really liked about this apartment is the amount of built-in storage that it had all throughout like in this hallway there were three very spacious closets which were super nice and then there was also laundry downstairs but then the thing that really turned me off the two things that really turned me off actually were the bathroom and the kitchen so this bathroom you walk in through the front door and it's to the left and it's just not cute the yellow walls and the pink tile and the sink and tub just looked crusty and i don't know just you could tell that it hasn't been updated and it just didn't feel clean either and then to the right of the bathroom is the kitchen which again was a huge turn off i'm so sorry my footage of this sucks but yeah the kitchen was just very old looking as well the appliances like the sink and the stove were vintage i think the brand was wedge wood i can't remember exactly but it's vintage and it looked really clean it's just that i was not a fan of that look and that vibe we really wanted something more modern and i also just wasn't a fan of the yellow cabinets and they were also like sticky so yeah overall loved the bedroom the living room all the built-in storage the location the price wasn't that bad either but the kitchen and the bathroom were just huge turn-offs for me so yeah this one was definitely a love-hate so moving on to apartment number five this one was really interesting and it kind of came out of nowhere like i was just looking very casually on trulia i had already scheduled all the other showings and i saw this one and honestly the photos weren't that great but i looked at the details and it had everything that we were looking for so i was like okay you know let me just contact the property manager schedule a showing and we had to reschedule like three times to find a time that worked for us but yeah so we finally get to the place and you walk into the living room and immediately to the right is the kitchen which is actually really nice and spacious and it even has a dishwasher which i was surprised by none of the other apartments had a dishwasher and then there's the living room which is also very spacious it has a large window and then a smaller window on the side and there's even a small closet as well you also have a gas heater and then toward the back right is the bedroom there is a window in the bedroom but it's pretty much completely blocked by the building next door but that's okay and it does have a good amount of space for a queen bed we could definitely fit a queen bed and two nightstands in here and there is also a huge closet plus it has two shelves above so you could fit so much in here but then across the bedroom is the bathroom it's small but it looks nice and updated has a shower tub but the sink doesn't really have a lot of storage on the counter but there is a medicine cabinet above which is nice and storage underneath but then between the bathroom and the bedroom is another closet with a ton of shelves which again is super nice so the apartment overall has these gray hardwood floors and a beige paint on the wall which i'm not huge fan of but i thought it was okay it's not like a deal breaker or anything but another thing i liked is that there is laundry on site which is shared with the other tenants in the building but like i said i'll take it it's better than no laundry at all but yeah overall it was a super solid apartment felt pretty modern the only thing is that like the closets felt kind of old and finally apartment number six so let me just say this right now this one was kind of for shits and giggles like i saw this one on craigslist actually and i was like you know what it's kind of near where we need to go get groceries tomorrow anyway so let's just see if we can schedule a showing and it turns out they had an open house so we were like okay let's just go tomorrow since we'll be in the area anyway but yeah this one was kind of for shits and giggles like i said because it's an in-law unit and i've already said a million times i don't want an in-law unit but i thought it was decent for the price and the location and the photos didn't look too bad either so i just wanted to check it out so this one was in the ingleside area kind of off ocean ave and it was listed for 1800s but anyway you walk in and to the right is the bathroom pretty small definitely felt on the older side not super new looking and then further down is the kitchen which looked okay it had a stove in an oven lots of cabinet space but definitely on the smaller side there's also a little harry potter closet which is pretty much the only closet in the entire apartment and then here's the first room it's a good size i really wanted to check this one out because it has a west facing window so it would let in a lot of really nice sunlight in the afternoon but this is around 10 a.m so you can't tell in the video but then here's the second room it's about the same size as the first this one would probably be the bedroom but yeah not too much to say here and then i think there is shared laundry with the owners and the owners lived upstairs i think he said it was like a 30 year old woman and her mom and her kid that lived upstairs so yeah another red flag for us but like i said this one was kind of just for laughs and we just wanted to check it out anyway since we would be in the area so that's that so that was all six of the apartments that we looked at and we only looked at these six and yes we did choose one of them and i think you can tell which one we went with i'll give you three seconds to enter your guesses below on which apartment we went with leave your comment below tell me which apartment you think we chose before i tell you in three two one we went with apartment number five i think it was the obvious choice like if you couldn't tell based on what i was saying about the apartment earlier i think it was a dead giveaway it's the apartment that i'm in right now but yeah we chose apartment number five it was clearly the winner out of all the other apartments that we looked at like i said it checks off all of the boxes like it's a one bedroom it has hardwood floors it's close to groceries easy to get to costco a large kitchen has an actual stove and oven even has a dishwasher like i can't tell you how much time the dishwasher has been saving us has a tub shower has good natural lighting and even has laundry on site and it's not an in-law so we are so happy with this choice i also didn't mention where it's located or what the price is when i was going through all the apartments so that was also probably another giveaway but yeah i kind of wanted to keep that info more private now but i will say we aren't even paying that much more than our last place and we are in a really safe area near hate i will say so we're a little closer to like the city and downtown there's still a lot of like cool shops and restaurants and groceries and all that near us so we're really happy with our new place get excited for moving vlogs and an apartment tour coming soon but yeah that's pretty much it for this video i hope you guys enjoyed looking at all the apartments with me and also check the description box like i mentioned earlier and if you like the video please give it a thumbs up subscribe and turn on my bell notifications so you know when my next video goes up which is probably going to be my moving vlog so turn on the bell if you don't want to miss it that is it for today and i'll see you in my next video bye [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: Michelle Kanemitsu

Views: 41,651

Keywords: michelle kanemitsu, san francisco vlog, apartment hunting vlog, san francisco apartment hunting 2021, san francisco apartment tour, apartment hunting with locations and prices, moving vlog san francisco, touring apartments in san francisco, what $2, 000 gets you in san francisco, san francisco apartment hunting on a budget

Id: 5Iw5brRNaZI

Length: 22min 38sec (1358 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 10 2021