There are several ways to resolve your situation, few of which you will find palatable... which really sucks:
- Rent a less desirable place. Desirable places in SF will have easily 20 people lined up out front, with the landlord taking his/her pick of the crowd based on income, credit, and references - and as a recent grad you will lose on all 3 counts.
- Seek roommate situations. Houses are more flexible about all of the above criteria and care more about personality, this is where you might have an edge (I don't know, I don't know you at all).
- Live outside the city. This is going to be a real bummer sometimes - your friends will want to hang out in the Mission till the crack of dawn, but you'd have to hop the BART or Caltrain before midnight to get home. But places outside SF proper experience far, far, far less competition.
And here's the one that works, but really stinks:
- Offer to pay more than face value of apartment. This is just insult upon injury - but it does work. Odds are, if you have a Unreasonably Wealthy Startup Guy(tm) viewing the apartment with you, he/she will bid the apartment up. It's become more and more common, and that's incredibly depressing.
- Rent a less desirable place. Desirable places in SF will have easily 20 people lined up out front, with the landlord taking his/her pick of the crowd based on income, credit, and references - and as a recent grad you will lose on all 3 counts.
- Seek roommate situations. Houses are more flexible about all of the above criteria and care more about personality, this is where you might have an edge (I don't know, I don't know you at all).
- Live outside the city. This is going to be a real bummer sometimes - your friends will want to hang out in the Mission till the crack of dawn, but you'd have to hop the BART or Caltrain before midnight to get home. But places outside SF proper experience far, far, far less competition.
And here's the one that works, but really stinks:
- Offer to pay more than face value of apartment. This is just insult upon injury - but it does work. Odds are, if you have a Unreasonably Wealthy Startup Guy(tm) viewing the apartment with you, he/she will bid the apartment up. It's become more and more common, and that's incredibly depressing.