San Francisco area for the summer

Hypatia

Here's the situation: my (now) husband and I both got internships for the summer in California, yay! I'd be working around the Menlo Park area and he'll be working around Mountain View. We've been looking for a sublet or some place that will rent to us for just that time, but we're having issues because:

A) We don't know the area and are finding it really hard to tell what's "far", what will actually work in terms of transportation, and what's "it looks close on the map but it'd actually take a billion years to get from point A to point B"

Because it's an internship and our apartment doesn't allow subletting here, we're going to end up having to pay double rent. As a result, we'd like to pay a total of around $1k/month max, but that seems like it might not be feasible and the listings that are for less or around that amount seem shady. Things like showing pictures dated from 3 years ago and the like.

C) A lot of the sublets posted seem to be for immediate vacancies and there doesn't seem to be much listed for the summer yet.

Since the forum search is down it seems like the best thing to do is ask: can anyone offer pointers on any of these points? Where are the areas in that region to avoid? How much are we really going to have to pay to get something decent? A lot of these places seem to say that you can't rent the 1 bedroom for more than 1 person, which seems...weird? Are most of these places actually in houses? Is this the wrong time to be trying to find this housing? Is there anyone who actually lives in that region who would even be able to identify the management companies of some of the listings we're looking at or the buildings and who could tell us, "That looks nice but it's actually really crappy"?

Cabezone

That entire area is very expensive. EDIT: I misread, you want a place for under 1k. Even that will be tough to do around there. I don't live in that area but I have some friends that do and I'll chat them up this weekend.

witch_ie

It may be extremely difficult to find an apartment for such low rent in the area, so you might want to consider a studio you can share since it's only for the summer. Also, will you have a car or two while you're here in the summer to help out with transportation?

You might try looking in the Stanford area or checking out the campus to find any students who might be looking to sublet their places for the summer.

Prio

In the Mountain View / Palo Alto area your best bet for cheap summer accommodations would be to find Stanford students who are looking to sublet their place while they are out of town for the summer. Not sure how you would find that though.

Sunnyvale is probably the closest area with reasonably priced housing and a commute that isn't horrible (.5-1hr depending on where in Sunnyvale and Palo Alto and when you are on the road).

I'd generally recommend against East Palo Alto. Don't know how expensive Redwood City is, but if it is affordable that could be an option.

Hypatia

We won't have a car while we're, are there areas that are generally inaccessible unless you have a car that we should avoid renting from? It sounded from other posts like the transportation system is decent and if necessary we could probably get cheap bikes, but generally we're walkers.

Which brings up another question about locations, are there any areas that are decent except that we'd have to walk through unsafe neighborhoods to get to transportation or to work?

Also, if $1k is going to be too low, what kind of price range is average for a decent-ish studio/1 bedroom?

Janson

It is very difficult to be a pedestrian in California. Inner San Francisco? Yes, no problem. Menlo Park and Mountain View? No, highly unlikely you'll find a good place within walking distance, and definitely not within easy reach of both.

Edit: To clarify, Menlo Park and Mountain View are cities in their own right, and public transport sucks outside of San Francisco.

We paid $775 for a studio...but on the outskirts of San Jose. Like others have said, your best bet is to sublet from students.

Prio

I typed out a long post but the server ate it. The quick version is this:

The peninsula is not pedestrian friendly.

The public transportation options are mediocre in availability and slow in speed.

You want to use Google Maps and 511.org to plan out your public transit routes to work, food, etc. when evaluating housing options. The peninsula and south bay are layed out based on the assumption that everyone has a car, so if you are going to live here without one you absolutely have to plan your life out ahead of time.
Public transportation options are aimed primarily at commuters so late night service is often curtailed. If you plan on going out in the evenings, remember to check the schedule and figure out if public transportation will be available to get you home late.

Gdiguy

Menlo Park and Mountain View are like 10-15 miles apart; it's not walkable (possibly bikeable, if you're in good shape - I know people that bike to Stanford from Mt. View)

There is the Caltrain that runs down the penninsula; the issue is going to be getting to/from it. If your jobs are within walkable distance from the Caltrain stop, then that's perfectly fine (and you'll just need to get an apt somewhere near a caltrain stop)... if they're farther away (and Mt. View in particular is pretty spread out, and some of the tech companies especially are technically Mt View but not really at all close to the train station), you're going to have to do something like bring a bike on the train (which is doable but somewhat of a pain).

Menlo Park / Palo Alto / Mountain View, expect ~1200-~1300 for a reasonable 1 bedroom (prices have started to go up again)... it's possible that a short term thing like this will be higher, though. Keep in mind that those three in particular are populated in large part by upper-middleclass & silicon valley people, so there's a lot of money... which is nice in that they're very nice areas, but not nice in the sense of cheap living. Redwood city (next to menlo park) is cheaper but not as nice (not a bad neighborhood, just not as nice); Sunnyvale would be the equivalent on the south-eastern side of mt view