Charming, Sunny, and Quiet front half of duplex

One of our biggest obstacles to overcome as part of our move back to Berkeley was finding a place to live in a city that is famous for the tenacity of its rental market and the hoops one must jump through in order to find a decent place to live. We knew all about it from our student days, having survived the skanky carpeted basement apartments of yesteryear and become stronger people because of it. We were determined to find a nice place to hang our hat in Berkeley, and our list of prereqs was long and thorough. We wanted it all, at a good price and a convenient location.

We spent the previous week craigslisting and looking for updates every five minutes, packing our weekend days full of appointments around the East Bay, and assembling our "Rental Packet" to present to prospective landlords upon introduction. In a procedure perhaps only rivaled in such real cities as San Francisco and Manhattan, each individual Berkeley landlord has a time-tested methodology to ensure that they will somehow pick a tenant that will be amiable in their place and not stiff them on the rent. We saw the whole gamut, from the sticklers who demanded full credit reports, resumes, letters of introduction, rental references, and background checks, to the hippie-dippie leasers who just wanted to scan your aura and take a quick look at your palms. In the end, we put on a clinic for the students and the newbies to the game, as we showed up with sparkling clean auras and a rental packet to match, complete with an irresistibly cute color picture of us grinning ear-to-ear in front of Half Dome.

To tour the Berkeley rental circuit is quite an experience, as many of the landlords are lonely, somewhat bizarre, and want to talk quite a bit. When you drop in on someone's place to interview for their abode you get a unique snapshot into their lives - one somewhat eccentric man showed off his 1880 Victorian Mansion and bombarded us with past, present, and future improvement and remodeling plans, all fit into an exceedingly unrealistic timetable while also complaining about the hormonal changes of his 13 year-old son. Another old salty-dog-sailor-traveling-hippie-artist type took us through his gorgeous Berkeley Hill four-plex while telling us about past mushroom trips and karmic cycles of his life. When Mo mentioned she used to work for Greenpeace he quickly directed us to a photo of him painting the mural on the side of the Rainbow Warrior "back in the day". It really is a small world sometimes, especially inside the Bay Area bubble.

In the end, the smiling color photo must have sold them all, because we were offered all the places that we wanted, including an absolutely beautiful front half of a duplex in North Berkeley. It was definitely at the upper range of our price scale, but has a stellar location near BART and on the bike path through the park, beautiful hardwood floors, and a Chef Ramsey-worthy kitchen sure to be the site of many a delicious feast in the next 12 months. Book your reservations now!