After six years in Australia, Briyah Paley is moving back to the United States to find a nasty surprise.
"It's been pretty shocking, to be honest," Paley said.
The price of rent in San Francisco has shot through the roof.
A studio at the edge of the city's Tenderloin District isn't the first apartment she's visited and it probably won't be the last.
One room, plus a closet, a bathroom and a kitchen that's almost big enough to turn around in is $1,595 a month.
That for an apartment where the manager said the last tenant might have paid $1,100 a month.
Just a few years ago, the Tenderloin was a great place to find a bargain on rent. Now, just like every place else in the city, rents here have skyrocketed.
Experts say it has everything to do with the job market.
"Our job market here is just ridiculous right now; the tech industry is hiring and growing tremendously, plus we have a unique situation in that we don't have space," Trulia.com rentals manager Pierre Calzadilla said.
Calzadilla says the rebounding market for tech jobs has sent San Francisco's rents skyward at more than twice the national average -- a 10 percent gain last year, then a 12 percent gain this year, compared to 5 percent across the rest of the country.
And people are paying it.
"If you go to an open house here, you're going to have people 40 people at an open house like a rental and you're not going to have a chance to get into that apartment," Calzadilla said.
That's why Trulia saw the need for a free rentals app for iPhone and Android. It sends you alerts when an apartment you might want hits the market.
"So that you are the first person to know of the newest you know listing in your price range available today," Calzadilla said.
It's a tool that might come in handy Paley's frustrating quest for the perfect place.
"It's definitely like beating my head against a wall," she said.
