africandawg

I recently moved to San Jose and am finding it impossible to find a place to stay. I don't even know how to look. Craigslist is low quality. I've managed to get a couple appointments using ApartmentGuide - one being a no-go and the other a compromise. I also have two more appointments coming up tomorrow but one of them is in the middle of nowhere and the other has bad reviews online - a few incidents of cars being stripped (not sure if it's cross posting). No one seems to answer the calls on the numbers listed on Zillow. I just discovered MyApartmentMap and will try them out. How do you find a place? How do you decide if it's worth the price? Are prices negotiable? How much of the salary (before tax) should one spend on rent? I've no sane person to ask these questions to so I'm falling back on the HN community.