What $3,000 rents you in San Francisco right now

Welcome to Curbed Comparisons, a regular column exploring what you can rent for a set dollar amount in different neighborhoods. Is one person’s studio is another person’s townhouse? Today’s price: $3,000.

↑ Does the ad for this $3,000/month Noe Valley apartment see the world through rose-colored glasses, or is that just the abiding hue of the home inside and out thanks to its paint job? Actually, the landlord for this one-bedroom, one-bath place on 22nd Street really has something going with the copy on this listing: “Feeling frustrated with the lack of quality rentals? Tired of showing up with hope and leaving with despair? Sick of the damn dental floss always breaking between those same two teeth? I know, right?” It’s like they can see into our hearts. The ad also promises “nice size hall closet so you can accumulate all kinds of worthless garage sale finds” and “kitchen with gas appliances, perfect for playing out your own Iron Chef fantasies.” Pets are okay, but “no tropical jungle animals or wild game.” Can this ad please never end?

↑ Speaking of singular color schemes, it’s not every day you stumble on a “cute Victorian” in the Inner Richmond on the edge of Lone Mountain that bears the distinctive palette of a key lime pie, but here it is. The $2,800 rent covers the ground floor “garden apartment,” advertised as two bedrooms and one bath over 1,200 square feet, although with the additional note that it “can be used as a three bedroom with open third bedroom/ no living room.” That sounds very close to throwing all terms and definitions of what a room even is out the window, but renting out the living room to help make the rent is hardly a startling new development; everyone’s got ends to meet. Happily, this sunny green space allow pets too.

↑ Meanwhile, the tide seems to be creeping in over at the SF Shipyard, which is still one of the relatively cheaper places to buy a condo in San Francisco but where rental prices on Craigslist, while still below the medians reported on other sites, have been slowly rising all this time. These days a one-bed, one-bath, 611-square-foot condo on Innes Street is $3,000, advertised as a “brand new modern luxury” home. Renters alarmed by stories of lingering toxicity at the Hunters Point area should note that the Navy never used the Shipyard area to work with radioactive materials and thus far there’s no indication of dangerous materials at any of these properties. For the record. Also, the ad gives a thumbs up to cats and dogs.

↑ And the last two homes on the slate pit two oft-overlooked western neighborhoods head to head, first being Ingleside Terraces, where a downright gorgeous three-bedroom, two-bath house “on a quiet cul-de-sac” rents for $3,000. Got to love all of that wood trim all the way around. The ad also goes out of its way to specify that the house is “located next to the historic Sundial,” one of San Francisco’s weirdest and most overlooked landmarks. In a stroke of luck, this home allows renters to brings pets along too.

↑ Meanwhile, this apartment in West Portal offers much less by way of accommodation space for the same price, weighing in at just one bed and one bath and 750 square feet overall for $3,000. But rather than a cul-de-sac this one markets itself as the “heart of West Portal,” which in this case means that it’s less than a block from the tunnel and actually situated right above Barbagelata Real Estate in the middle of the West Portal drag, which is still hanging onto its Americana Main Street vibe. The apartment itself shows some low-key elegance and a delightfully gently sloping coved ceiling. The only catch: no pets. There’s no such thing as having it all.