OK, so now you know WHEN to look.  The next step is HOW to house-hunt.  This is easy, and it's also hard.  First of all, you need to make yourself a budget so you know what housing is reasonable for you to look for.  If your parents will support you, ask your parents how much they plan to give you for your rent and utilities.  Talk with your parents about the cost of utilities, because the chances are, they have a good idea of how much they spend on their own.  If you plan to have one or more friends live with you as house mates, make sure they have a similar discussion with their parents.

If you are providing some or all of your support, or you are paying your way with loans and/or grants, you will need to collect the evidence of all your income from these various sources.  Good rule of thumb: try to make your rent no more than about 1/3 of your income.  Calculate everything you get in a year from all sources, divide by 12, and then divide that amount by roughly 1/3.  Yes, the Bay Area is expensive, so you may have to go a little higher, but this is the rule of thumb that most landlords will use to qualify their tenants for the rent.

You can take a look on this site under Typical Rents to see what you can afford (either individually or collectively with your house mates).  Then you will have a good idea of what you will be looking for.

Outline your finances on a Tenant Resume, which is to house-hunting what a job resume is to finding a job.  A Tenant Resume informs prospective landlords about your finances and it also tells the landlord how to reach you should he or she want to find you to offer an apartment.  (Note: a Tenant Resume form can be found on the University's off-campus housing site, Cal Rentals.  One will be developed for this site soon, so please keep checking back.)

Also, script for yourself a short, two or three sentence "ad" that you can say in telephone messages (or write in emails) to landlords that will entice them to call or email you back.  This script should sound natural and positive.   Examples of telephone/email message scripts will follow in my next article.

You will then start looking for advertisements for rentals.  Typically in the Berkeley rental market, you want a source that will be updated with new rental listings daily.  Many students start with Craigs List because it is free: www.craigslist.org.  Another resource that is fairly inexpensive and may have different rental ads is the University's Cal Rentals: www.calrentals.housing.berkeley.edu.  They charge $20 for access to the listing updates for 3 months, and you can charge this service to your student CARS account.

When you read a rental ad that sounds good to you -- that is, it is in your rent range and offers a decent commute to campus and whatever else you find attractive -- you will contact the landlord (usually by phone, occasionally by email).  If you are leaving a phone message, speak your name slowly, and spell it if you think you need to.  Speak your telephone number slowly, and repeat it in your phone message.  You will then say you would like to see the rental and quickly state your positive message to encourage a call back.

You will continue this process every day.  You will schedule appointments to look at rentals (or sometimes the advertisement will instruct you to visit during Open House hours), and you will also keep looking at the new rental ads and continue to schedule more appointments.  Try to look at one or two rentals every day, and on the weekends, try to schedule several appointments.  Chat with the manager or landlord, if you can, and leave your tenant resume and/or complete an application for the rentals that interest you.

You will do this until a rental is offered to you.  You may also follow up with a telephone call or a second email if you haven't heard from a landlord about a place you like, but remember not to make a pest of yourself.

If you are rejected, keep going!  You may ask the landlord why you were turned down, in case there is something you can improve.

In the next article, we will talk about your telephone or email message "script" and provide some examples.