This is Curbed Comparisons, a regular column exploring what you can rent for a set dollar amount in different neighborhoods. Is one person's studio another person's townhouse? Let's find out. Our price: $1,900/month.
↑ It's tough out there these days. And even though just under two grand isn't very much money by the standards of 2016's San Francisco rental market, it's still an awful lot of money by anything resembling a reasonable standard. So what does it get you? For starters, a prime spot for a studio in trendy Hayes Valley, right on Octavia and Grove, in a 1907 building with a cartoon color palette that you can see from halfway across the city for $1,850/month. The catch? It's only 240 feet from end to end. At least it's a nice neighborhood. Sorry, no pets.
↑ Once upon a time you could get a studio in the Tenderloin for a song (provided that song had a marketable chorus your landlord could turn over for a profit). Now one in the Burnett Apartments building at 815 O'Farrell (a building that's been on the block since 1914, right along what's now Little Saigon) runs you $1,895/month. Well, it's more space than the Hayes Valley pad (414 feet), and we do love the building's character. As a plus, the Tenderloin is a consistently pet friendly neighborhood, and this is no exception.
↑ The search for a home in this market can take you far and wide, including all the way down to the very edges of the Olympic Club Golf Course and very nearly to the limits of Daly City in search of yet another studio, this one right by Lake Merced and offering 500 feet for $1,850/month. Lake Merced can be quite a tranquil neighbor, of course (the ad calls it a "quiet neighborhood," and in this case "neighborhood" might even be a generous term) if you don't mind being out of the way. No word on pets; maybe the golf course got tired of chasing them out?
↑ You don't have to be tucked away down on the south side if you don't want to be, of course. Nob Hill is packed to the gills with apartments in old buildings on swanky blocks right next to selfie-friendly landmarks. Of course, Gramercy Towers, where you'll find this 437 foot studio for $1,900/month with a happily pet friendly lease, isn't the most attractive building on the block in itself, but you can't beat the shoulders it's rubbing, and the Spartan design has an odd, stripped appeal on its own.
↑ So many studios to go around, but is there anything at this price point with a genuine bedroom? Well, they say Accessory Dwelling Units (in-laws, in common parlance) are the future of new housing in San Francisco, and they yield a bit more wiggle room for your buck in the case of this tucked away one bedroom in-law in Portola for $1,900/month. It's 600 feet altogether, the biggest we could find for the price, and so the de facto winner of our space race.
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