If you are currently in Berkeley and you plan to live in Berkeley during the summer, you could begin your housing search in early to mid-April with a targeted move-in date of late May or June 1. This is common for many students who plan to leave the University residence halls and move off-campus. But, what do you do if you're going away this summer? If you will be within the state of California, you could obtain our online rental listings, call on new ads as they are posted online during the course of a week, and set up weekend viewing appointments. You could then fly or drive here to look at perhaps 10 or 15 places over a weekend, submit applications for the rentals you like and hope you get selected for one of them. Ask the landlords when they plan to make their decision, and make sure you are easy to reach. This process may need to be repeated over a few weekends until you are successful. If you will be far away or must wait until August to house-hunt, it is best to plan a concentrated block of time to be in Berkeley during which to conduct your search. No matter when you come to Berkeley to look, be sure to plan where you will stay. Friends and relatives, of course, are good and usually free! From June to mid-August the University operates the Summer Visitor Residence http://www.housing.berkeley.edu/conference/summer_visitor.html, which could be another option, and we also have a PDF list of Hotels and Motels on our website. Some students try to rent a place in late May or early June and then sublet it over the summer to a summer session visitor. While that may be a good strategy, be aware of the following pitfalls: 1) you need the landlord's permission to sublet, 2) if you don't find a subtenant, you might be stuck paying rent over the whole summer, and 3) since summer session visitors arrive with literally a suitcase, your place will need to have at least a minimal amount of furniture, and you may not have had the time to run out and get furniture as you're finishing up your final exams.