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Thrown to the wolves of the city’s merciless housing market for many years, UC Berkeley students may finally be getting a reprieve. 

Students searching for a place to live this year are enjoying the best rental market since the mid-1990s, according to Betty White, assistant director of Cal Rentals, a division of the university that helps students find housing. 

“We’re easily taking at least 35 to 50 percent more rental ads this year,” she said. 

The housing search normally begins in June and July, White said, but the shortages that started in 1998 left many returning students and incoming transfers searching through August, perilously close to the start of the fall semester. 

That is not the case this year, according to Dana Goodell of Homefinders, a Berkeley rental referral agency. “It’s easy to find housing,” she said, adding that most students who looked for a rental earlier in the summer had several options to choose from. 

The pressure of the market has switched to the landlords, according to Goodell. During the peak of the housing shortage, renters often had to offer concessions to landlords to win a lease, such as paying a year’s rent up front. 

Now landlords are trying to entice prospective tenants. They are quicker to allow pets and slash deposits, Goodell said. Many, though, still refuse to significantly reduce rents, she added. 

According to Goodell, rental prices for an average two-bedroom apartment have decreased from $1,800 to $1,500 over the last 18 months, a noticeable drop but still much higher than pre-boom levels. 

Landlords face a conflict about lowering rents, said Bob Sicular of ERI Realty which manages rental properties.  

If landlords keep their rents high it takes longer to rent, he said. But if they lower the rents they could be locked into receiving lower rent for many years. The city’s rent control laws dictate that once a price is set, a landlord faces restrictions on how much he can raise it. 

Sicular said that a landlord’s willingness to decrease the asking price is dependent upon his circumstances. If the landlord bought the property during the recent boom and needs rental income to make mortgage payments, he will be more likely to reduce rents. 

A variety of factors have converged to trim the housing shortage. 

The dot-com bust had a dual effect on Berkeley, according to White. Not only did laid-off technology workers leave the city for other regions of the country, but many Berkeley residents employed in San Francisco decided to cross the bay to move closer to their jobs. 

Also, Berkeley is still experiencing the ramifications of the housing shortage, Goodell said. “Lower income people were priced out of the market and middle class people looking to buy a home didn’t have a hope,” she said. This caused an outflow of lower and middle class renters from Berkeley that has opened up more rentals for students and other newcomers, she explained. 

Students acknowledged that more housing is available, but not all students thought they were reaping the benefits. 

Steve Schoo, a recent UC Berkeley graduate, said it took him just a few days to find a one-bedroom apartment at the Oakland-Berkeley border for $695. 

He said during his last search in 1999, he and a friend looked at more than 20 places before renting a two-bedroom apartment south of campus for $725 per person.  

Several students interviewed complained that although there were more available rentals, many were run down. 

“I never found anything I’d consider nice,” said Robert Condy, a senior who searched several months for a two-bedroom apartment and ended up staying in university housing. “One place had a toilet that wasn’t planted to the ground.” 

Contact reporter at matt@berkeleydailyplanet.net