It's all about knowing when lots of people are looking to rent. There's a ton of competition in fall and winter, but early summer the market usually isn't as saturated. The biggest mistake people make is trying to rent when everyone else is as well.
Yes. Which is all of SF all of the damn time right now. I was doing this from Jan-August. I made no mistakes. Still moved to Oakland. You're arguing the wrong thing here. You found a cheap spot, you got lucky, good on you this doesn't work out for most other people. You're also touching on a thing that is a hella sensitive issue for a lot of people in the bay nowadays, and being rather obtuse about it, I might add.The biggest mistake people make is trying to rent when everyone else is as well.
I don't know what everyone else is doing wrong then, because my place certainly wasn't an outlier in my search. It was the best deal I found, which is why I took it, but there were plenty of other, even cheaper units I was looking at. Had I not gotten the place I did, I'm sure I would have wound up in one of the other, equally reasonably priced places I was looking at.