Help Finding A Rental

SB rentals have alwys been overpriced and hard to find. In'79, my first rental was a dump with holes in the walls etc . Over 3 years I fixed everything and landscaped. It was sold thrice in that time and each landlord raised the rent because it was "so nice". In the 13 years of renting in SB, I had to make a purse from a sows ear in each place. That was the "affordable" way to create a nice home; sweat non-equity.
The good rentals are usually rented before the bed has returned to room temperature, and that by word of mouth. Keep an eye for something "affordable" (1/3 of income!) that you can fix up and make into something better.

We have a rental over head, we have used Preferred Rental for all our tenants during the last 10 years. They send us qualified tenants and we have enjoyed all of them. There is no cost to the tenants, only the landlord. We do not advertise with anyone else and only accept folks screened by Preferred. Try them, it is free to you.

If anyone has a good rental management company that they rent from, they have something wonderful. I have been a tenant and I have been a landlord. In half a century I have never found a management company I liked as either a tenant or as a rental owner except Larry Struven who was truly wonderful. Good luck!

Networking

Pitmix, Even worse is pretending someone will find "cheap affordable housing" in a premium area that is also subject to very low vacancy and turnover rates, plus assuming someone else will subsidize their in-town housing demands. Creating false expectations is what is unhelpful. Commuting is the name of the game and commuter buses are fact of life, until we get light rail in some form, or a Elon Musk tube transporter. How many commuter bus crashes have we read about? Commutes normal in most scarce and expensive housing areas. Why pretend this is not the case?

We had decent luck posting a little something on the Housing Wanted section of Craigslist, and also found some otherwise unlisted properties on Facebook marketplace. Best suggestion of all is patience... its really rough out there right now, but something is bound to come along!

Make that buy a cheap manufactured home in a mobile home park- there are a surprising numbers of them both in town and a short commute away. Often owned by the elderly who do pass on which opens vacancies more than rentals which suffer from very low turnovers. We don't have a housing problem here because we are effectively built-out between the mountains and sea - what we have is what we have with only trickle of new units entering the inventory every year. - We have a turnover problem and a commuting problem. Housing exists and most people on average nationwide spend 40 minutes commuting, which puts one solidly in the cheaper and more outlying communities. Reality check. It has never been easy to find rentals in this area - ever. No matter how many units have been added to the housing inventory. Plus there has always been a huge illegal second unit housing market here - you have to network to find those. You can pick them out when viewing real estate open houses when they had to be temporarily disguised before sale - like finding "planter" seven feet off the tile wall to hide a shower head in the "half bath". My advice is find something anywhere, and use it as your base to find something better later on. Be here, be vigilant, and be ready to pounce with full deposit, excellent credit and local references. Join local organizations and use them to network. The good places and the good landlords rarely open their listings to the general public. Not when state landlord tenant law gives all the advantage to the tenants and all landlords just got rocked by over a year of anti-eviction ordinances. Check the court filings for unlawful detainer cases which may soon be flooding the rental market, if this eviction moratorium can finally be shaken off and landlords can finally get rid of non-paying or long abusive tenants. Late spring is the better time to look, since SBCC and UCSB students are ending some their own apartment leases at the end of the term. Now is the worst time- competing with thousands of out of town students.

Buy a cheap mobile home - cheaper than renting.

Nextdoor, and word of mouth. I will be looking for something myself here in the next few months and am not looking forward to the stress. It's bad out there, what's available and the cost. Yikes.... Good Luck!

For the most reasonable apartments, drive around and check out the For Rent signs. Many don't advertise

Agree with suggestions to post information about yourself on Nextdoor. Be sure to post number of people, whether you have pets, and most important- your budget. So many people post that they are “seeking a casita, back house or studio” without specifying an upper budget. It is also helpful if you mention something about enjoying gardening and offer to take good care of the garden (and plan to do that). Independent landlords want someone who will take good care of their property. When renters give 30 days notice that they are leaving there will usually be a 2 week lag before the place is advertised, so you want you information out there for landlords to see.

Network with everyone you know. Put your search on NextDoor. In Santa Cruz we used to drive around to moving and garage sales and asked them if they were really moving and could we have the info for their landlords. My neighbor got their rental because the landlord attended the same church. Cast a wide net and hopefully you will land something.

second FB marketplace. agencies will charge alot. but I do like the strategic avoiding price comment. there are more than a few rentals on CL. but they are all rediculously over priced, which is what this city is known for. We all know its "Im looking for a place that is reasonable in rent.... having a hard time"

Good Luck.

Don't waste your money. Stay at home with your parents.

You can look on Zillow...simply set the search filter to show rental properties, and clear the filters to show properties for sale and recently sold. SBCC also has rental listings.

Nextdoor and Facebook marketplace. I believe the News Press and the Independent websites also have rental listings in their classified section, which are available free online.