I'm looking at apartments again. The San Francisco real estate market is so ridiculous that I'm willing to spend up to $2000 or so per month to have a more spacious place to live in a nicer neighborhood. I don't consider rent to be "throwing money away" when $500K might get us a 2 bedroom TIC condo South of Market if we're very lucky.
Cole Valley is my current preferred location, though I'm also looking at a place in Laurel Heights, near my office, today. Ideally, we want a good-sized 2+ or 3-bedroom flat that allows cats (we don't have one yet, but want one) and has laundry in the building or washer/dryer hookups, dishwasher, outside space (deck or yard), is near several bus lines and near a park where I can go jogging. The timing is not good as
boyziggy is just about to start a new job, so if the few places I'm looking at this week and last don't pan out, we'll probably put the whole search on hold for another year. In case some of you haven't seen this very cool link: Google/Craigslist hybrid housing search (found through
joedecker's journal). Warning: Some apartments that don't list a specific address don't show up on it, but it is a very cool way to search for available housing by location. 