Category: short stay apartments san francisco (31)

San Francisco Housing Explores: Music and Street Festivals during the Summer!

Jun 06, 2019

Hello June! In the blink of an eye, Summer is already upon us. The rainy weeks are over and the weather is starting to warm up, which means it is time to get out there and have some fun in sunny San Francisco! Lucky for you, you are living in one of the best cities when it comes down to the amount of diverse activities around the area. San Francisco is also the center for co-living or community housing, which means that if you choose to live in our affordable San Francisco rooms, you are sure to meet new friends and buddies that are happy to go on some Summer adventures with you! Without further ado, here are some of our hand-picked activities that are going to be happening in San Francisco this Summer!

 

Music Festivals

1San Francisco is known for its diverse population and therefore has a wide variety of music all around the city. If you are a Jazz lover, the Fillmore Jazz Festival will be taking place on July 6th and July 7th this year covering twelve blocks in the Pacific Heights district. If you are an opera fan, the famous SF Opera will be having several shows both in June and July at the War Memorial Opera House. This year, there will be performances including Don Giovanni, Rigoletto, and many more!

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There will also be several live music festivals featuring bands, singers, and more throughout the summer. One of the festivals is the Stern Grove Festival at the Stern Grove Park. These concerts will be happening every week starting in the middle of June all the way to August, and will have many popular singers and a different theme every single week! Best of all, admission is completely free! Another one of the biggest San Francisco music festivals is the Outside Lands Music Festival that will be happening during August 9th to August 11th. There will be over 70 bands performing for 3 days, including Twenty One Pilots, Childish Gambino, and blink-182!

 

Street Festivals

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When we talk about festivals, we can’t forget about all the amazing street festivals that San Francisco has that features all different kinds of food and entertainment. The North Beach Festival is one of the biggest street fairs that has been taking place taking place for more than sixty years. This year, it will be happening on June 15th-16th and will have more than 20 food vendors, over 100 arts and crafts vendors, a kid’s chalk area, and Italian street painting. There will also be live music and entertainment at four different stages at the festival.

If you fall in love with North Beach and would like to have a place to stay, don’t forget we have many single rooms and double co-living rooms available in North Beach today, and you can check them out on our website!

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371 Columbus Residences at North Beach -provided by Urbanests
6.4 Big Windows for Natural Light
524 Columbus Residences of North Beach -provided by Urbanests

If you are more of a fan of Union City, then head over to Union Square Live, which is happening now until October! The diverse street fair will be featuring free dance, theater, music, and other performances and entertainments in San Francisco’s Union Square Plaza every Wednesday at 6pm and Sunday at 2pm. Since this part of the city is close to all public transit, the fair is only a bus or BART ride away! Urbanests also has many housing options available near Union Square, check out these rooms!

8 Double Room - New Hardwood Floors
1010 Bust St, walking distance to Union Square -provided by Urbanests
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Pyramid Residences, walking distance to Union Square -provided by Urbanests

Another fun and diverse festival is the Haight Street Fair of San Francisco! This year marks the 41st Anniversary of a festival that celebrates the diversity and history of the Haight-Ashbury District and will be happening on June 9th. There will be more than 200 booths with food and crafts for sale as well as live music for everyone to enjoy while at the fair.

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Fill you Summer with fun from all around San Francisco this year by checking out some of these amazing fairs and festivals! Whether you want to go somewhere with live music, food vendors, or just a place to hang out with your friends, San Francisco definitely has it all!

San Francisco Housing Explores: Co-Living in the Heart of the City

Apr 26, 2019

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Co-living, especially in the San Francisco area, has been a trend that has been gaining lots of popularity recently in the housing industry. The recent rise in co-living has been of great help to students, interns, and tech-workers in the bay area and many more individuals are choosing this option when coming into the city.

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So what exactly is co-living and why is it so prominent in large cities?

Co-living is actually a term that is short for communal living, where individuals such as entrepreneurs or interns are offered short-term housing when coming into a new city to work. It is especially common in cities such as San Francisco, the center of technology and innovation. The concept offers an opportunity to live in apartments and residences at a very affordable price, a fraction of what you might have paid for otherwise!

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Apart from saving you money, choosing a shared community housing within San Francisco also offers you a chance to meet new friends and people with the same interests as you. Students, interns, and young professionals from all over the world choose our San Francisco shared rooms, offered at affordable prices, where they can participate in fun socials, events, and hangouts with all different kinds of friendly people.

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Resident managers also live on-site and often organize fun social events such as pizza parties, game nights, and other opportunities for tenants to gather and meet other people living in the residence! If you haven’t already, be sure to check out our blog on one of the social events offered at our property by clicking here! 

Not only does co-living directly benefit the tenants living in our affordable San Francisco rentals, it also helps the city of San Francisco in terms of its housing problems. As many people already know, housing shortages in the bay area are causing prices to rise tremendously, and finding short-term rentals can be difficult. Young professionals coming to work in the Silicon Valley are sometimes put in unexpected and stressful situations because of the high price of housing here. We at Urbanests completely understand these circumstances, and thankfully with the rise of co-living, housing costs are brought to a minimum and people like students and interns can live in the city for just a percentage of the price of what other people pay.

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Not enough to convince you? How about imagining living in one of the biggest and most innovative tech-industries in the world, where all your necessities are just right around the corner! We have properties all around San Francisco, including SOMA, Union Square, Chinatown, and the Financial District so you will be sure to be located in a community of your choice. Additionally, all of our residences are within walking distance to stores, restaurants, cafes and public transportation such as Muni, BART and even cable cars.

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Co-living is a concept that is fast-growing and will continue to grow in large cities such as San Francisco. Individuals are presented with luxury living at a fraction of the price while being able to meet other people in the residence with similar interests as them. Apart from offering students and professionals an affordable and realistic housing price, co-living also tackles San Francisco’s housing problems head on and offer a better community for everyone in the city. Urbanests is committed to providing every single tenant an experience that is hard to forget, and offers many different options/locations to satisfy all your housing needs!

Don’t let unrealistic prices of housing in San Francisco stop you from living here, check out our affordable co-living communities that are available today on our website, and take a step closer to living in your dream home!

 

Ready to move into your new home? Contact us for more information on the property of your choice at reservations@urbanests.com

Neighborhood Spotlight (Holiday Special): San Francisco Union Square!

Dec 05, 2018

December is here and San Francisco streets are lighting up with beautiful and festive Holiday scenery. There’s no doubt that Christmas season is almost upon us, and although it’s only the first week of December, it’s hard to contain the excitement of the season! This year, our holiday spotlight is on the famous buzzing plaza at the heart of San Francisco… Union Square!

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Every year, Union Square hosts a month-long event called Winter Walk where the famous plaza is festively decorated with scenery including 17,000 square feet of green space, food trucks, beer and wine gardens, and many different performances and events. Visitors come out from all over the Bay area to enjoy treats and take Instagramable pictures at the mobile photo stations with their friends and family to spread the Christmas joy.

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Apart from the many food trucks offering delicious treats and meals, Winter Walk also has scheduled performances throughout the month of December that will definitely immerse you in the Holiday spirit! Here is a list of upcoming events found on the event website, including themed performances, carols, and even disco-parties.

  • December 6: Dickens Fair Choir from 11:30 am-12:30 pm
  • December 6: “Mean Girls” themed drag performance by local drag queen Tye and friends at 6:30 pm, 7:00 pm & 7:30 pm
  • December 7: Performance by the Salvation Army Children’s Choir
  • December 9: Urban Flowers – Wreath & Centerpiece Demos from 11:00 am-2:00 pm
  • December 13 and 21: Pop-up appearances by the Bay Area’s beloved Dickens Fair
  • December 13: Silent Disco presented by HUSHconcerts from 5:00 pm-9:00 pm
  • December 15: Core Power Yoga from 11:00-11:30 am
  • December 16: Urban Flowers – Wreath & Centerpiece Demos from 11:00 am-2:00 pm
  • December 21: Special Winter Solstice performance by Luminescent Grand (the world’s first synesthesia piano)
  • December 23: Museum of Craft & Holiday Craft Station from 11:00 am-2:00 pm

 

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Another Holiday-highlight from Union Square is their famous outdoor Ice Rink located at the center of the plaza. Every Christmas season, the rink opens and is surrounded by holiday decorations such as the massive Macys Christmas tree, lights, and more. There are also special themed events and parties happening during the month of December, including free ice-skating lessons if you are a beginner. You can check out their full list of events on their calendar!

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It may not snow in San Francisco, but that shouldn’t stop you from all the Holiday fun happening in the city.

If you want to stay on top of all the Holiday events this year, make sure to subscribe to our newsletter by clicking the link below and know about all that’s happening in the city of San Francisco!

Sign up for our Newsletter!

 

 

Students Flock to San Francisco for DreamForce and OpenWorld, SF Tech Conferences.

Sep 26, 2018

The streets of San Francisco seem even more overrun by business people lately. Men and women in button-down shirts and matching lanyards seem to be pouring out of every coffee shop in the city. Suddenly, cloud logos deck the walls of restaurants and museums, and art instillations have overtaken the pavement and windows. What is this all about?

Young techies, motivated businesspeople, and inspired future leaders from around the world flock to San Francisco in the Fall for two reasons: Oracle’s OpenWorld Conference and Salesforce’s Dreamforce conference.

Dreamforce is Salesforce’s annual tech conference, and is known as the most innovative software conference in the world, and is an event that is near and dear to San Francisco’s heart.  This year’s Dreamforce event marks the conference’s 15th birthday, and is estimated to bring in over 170,000 eager attendees, also known as ‘Trailblazers’. This vast number is probably the reason that, according to the San Francisco Travel Association, Dreamforce generates about $147 million of direct business sales in the the Bay Area each year. The speaker lineup this year is unbeatable, including Salesforce co-CEOs Marc Benioff and Keith Block, Al Gore, Unilever CIO Jane Moran, and NBA Champion Andre Iguodala.  Attendees have the opportunity to get hands-on with the latest of Salesforces technological innovations, have access to over 2,700+ sessions aimed to help every single role in the industry succeed,  and can network with other brilliant ‘Trailblazer’ attendees. But the event is not all business! The event caps off with an epic night of music,  where Alicia Keys and Lenny Kravitz will perform for the attendees.

Just a few weeks later, an estimated 60,000 tech enthusiasts will stream into San Francisco from October 22 to 25 for Oracle’s OpenWorld conference, a tech gathering at the Moscone Center downtown. Former Oracle CEO and current executive chairman, Larry Ellison, will kick off the event with a speech at 5 p.m. Sunday. The event’s spectacular speaker lineup includes Brian Krzanich, Intel CEO and Rick Welts, the Golden State Warriors President and Chief Operating Officer. With this conference, Oracle aspires to “transform tomorrow’s business, today”, by inspiring conversations about the future of our corporate world through four busy days filled with keynotes, learning sessions, networking opportunities with Oracle customers, industry leaders, and domain experts. The session catalogue includes 500+ available sessions, including Product Training, Customer Case Studies, and key content categories including integrated cloud platform and emerging technologies, among many, many others. After the lectures and workshops, conference-goers can relax, for Wednesday night of Oracle OpenWorld features Oracle CloudFest.18, an epic night of live music- Last years musicians featured The Chainsmokers and Ellie Goulding! This year, Elton John and Beck will perform at the Oracle Appreciation Event on Treasure Island, which will also include a Ferris wheel, arcade games and food.

Both of these events are available for the public – you can easily buy your tickets online, before they are sold out. Therefore, this Fall, for techies all over the world, San Francisco is the place to be.

San Francisco Student Dorm Room Decorating Tips to Make Your Small Space Fell like Home Year-Round!

Sep 13, 2018

Starting a new semester of college is scary. Living in a San Francisco dorm room? Even scarier. The transition from having your own space in your family home to a small cramped student housing space shared with 1-3 other roommates in San Francisco is a huge jump, and can be difficult to navigate. Lucky for you, we’ve got San Francisco dorm room design inspo by the dozen, and we want to help you make your San Francisco dorm room feel like home. So whether you are already living in San Francisco student housing  or a student about to move into one of our SF student rooms, we are here to help you make your shared housing in San Francisco feel like home, from the moment you move in through the rest of the year.

Tip 1: Take the Time.

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Before we even get started, lets talk about your intention going into this project. Take the time to really decorate and settle in. This is the place you will be living for the next year, your first year away from home! Take your time, spend some money, really make an effort to make the place feel like a home. The more you invest in your space, the most it will become YOUR space. We all get a little homesick down the line, and being able to come home to a clean, personal, warm, inviting, and organized space will make you feel settled.

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Tip 2: Pick a Color Scheme or Theme

 

 

Before you start shopping, figure out what you want your room to look like. Browse a few interior decorating magazines, check out dorm room inspo on Pinterest, make a mood board with colors and styles you like. Is yellow your happy color? Or are you more of a black and white kinda gal? Girly and frilly or modern and sleek? Pick your poison. Here are a few color matching inspiration ideas.

 

 

 

Tip 3: Make it Personal.

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If you feel lonely or homesick, rolling over to see your favorite pic of your dog, your family, or your BFF is an instant pick-me-up. Nothing cheers you up like cuddling with your childhood stuffed animal. And lets be real, having a stash of your favorite candy on hand will make even the worst day a little better.

Even if you are trying to start fresh and reinvent yourself in college, it isn’t ‘cool’ to leave everything that makes you you behind when you leave for school. Take a little piece of your past with you. That way, on a day when your new environment feels extra foreign, you have something familiar and comforting to rely on to get you through.

 

Tip 4: Lighting. Is. Everything.

Two words: Twinkle. Lights. The kind that make your heart feel extra cozy and remind you of winter time by the fireplace at home. Nothing can damper a mood like dingy or fluorescent lighting, and nothing brightens or warms a room quite like twinkle lights. If your dorm doesn’t allow the plug in kind, there are a number of battery-powered fairy lights that will make your ceiling twinkle. Other options? Glow-in-the-dark star stickers, fake candles, and color-changing ‘mood’ lamps are all dorm rule friendly and will do wonders towards your room’s lighting vibe.

 

Tip 5: And Plants. Plants are Also Everything.

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So are pillows, poofs, and (weirdly enough) a ton of regular household objects. There are a number of reasonably priced things you can use to spice up your room and make it look like home, including indoor plants, dried flowers, decorative pillows, printed photographs, and more. But we have already covered all of that! You can check out our other interior decorating blog posts for more info on these topics.

Decorating with plants.

Decorating with pillows and poufs.

Decorating with regular household objects.

 

Tip 6: Get Organized. Like, super organized.

Because trust me, you won’t have time once your semester picks up. The last thing you will want to do in between two essays, a pop quiz, three labs, and a midterm is color-coordinate your paper clips. So do it now, while you have time! Here is a little checklist for you:

  • Wall calendar with important dates (taken from club calendars, syllabi, and your class schedule) and goals (fitness, mental health, etc!) already penciled in.
  • Desk essentials, divided and organized: Pens, pencils, erasers, highlighters, calculator, printer paper, notebooks, planner, binders, etc!
  • Under bed storage: Trust us, there is no way your whole wardrobe will fit in that tiny little shared closet. You will need this more than you think.
  • Containers for nail polishes, first aid kit (advil, cold medicine, bandaids, etc), skin care stuff, socks, sports bras, snacks, etc!
  • A shower caddy with important toiletries.
  • Clothing organization things: velvet hangers (thinner and hold clothes better), small dividers (for socks, underwear, bras, sports bras, etc), command hooks (to hang belts, purses, hats, etc), a shoe rack.
  • If you want a few more important student organizational tips, check out our blog on back to school tips for students.

 

Tip 7: Consider Making a Statement.

We are not talking about your basic Urban Outfitter tie dye tapestry. Nothing makes a space look rad like a statement wall. Wallpaper can be purchased from any home decorating store or online, and can be temporarily stuck on to the wall (without damaging your dorm paint!) with removable mounting products like tack or sticky strips.  Or, if you are going for a tapestry, look for landscape scenes or patters, the kind of thing that will open up the room and make the wall look professionally done.

 

Tip 8: Make Seasonal Adjustments

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A few little touches can go a long way to making your dorm room feel like home year round. Think about it – your mom most likely puts out pumpkins for Halloween or twinkle lights for the holidays, so why shouldn’t you? Those little seasonal touches will do the most to keep your dorm feeling like a home away from home, no matter what time of year it is.

Also, consider a DIY! We have a great one up on autumnal wreath making– the perfect home decor piece to make your dorm feel like fall.

 

Using these tips, your dorm space is sure to feel like home!

Don’t have a San Francisco student dorm room for Fall semester? Check out our open San Francisco room rentals here.

To check out more small space decorating tips and articles like this one, click here.

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