By Melody Hanatani
Daily Press Staff Writer

CITYWIDE — It’s never easy to find a place to live.

It’s even harder if the target location is much-desired Santa Monica, one of the hottest and most expensive rental markets in Greater Los Angeles.

Beth Tabanera knows how hard it is find an apartment in Santa Monica. The nanny commutes between her client’s house in the Pacific Palisades and her home in downtown Los Angeles almost every day. The commute takes her an exhausting three and a half hours a day.

Between the commute and cost of gas on a nanny’s salary, Tabanera finally decided enough was enough. She set her sights for a new home on Santa Monica, trying to land digs closer to her job and UCLA, where she plans to enroll in a few months.

She began her search in March. Seven months later, Tabanera is still looking.

Expensive rent and limited vacancies, coupled with beautiful weather and picturesque scenery make Santa Monica one of the most sought after cities to call home on the west coast.

Indeed, the most popular listing on Westsiderentals.com — a fee-based rental search Web site — is Santa Monica, followed by the Silverlake area and Long Beach.

“People really have a strong desire for Santa Monica,” noted Mark Verge, owner of Westside Rentals, adding that his company has also provided rental information in Santa Monica for celebrities.

The city is so desirable that some people will pay up to $10,000 a month in rent. As of Thursday evening, there were 243 apartment listings for Santa Monica on Westsiderentals.com.

COMPETITION RISING

The rental market in Santa Monica has become even more competitive in recent years. With Santa Monica College, UCLA, and numerous tech companies like Google and Symantec, the city is a popular choice as a home for students and young professionals.

“There’s a lot of competition,” said apartment hunter Natti Wade of Westwood. “It’s like an audition.”

Verge finds that landlords, who can post their vacancies for free on Westsiderentals, are inundated with interested applicants if they place their units even $100 less than market value.

Less than a decade ago, many apartments were granted on a first-come, first-serve basis, as long as the applicant’s credit history and references checked out. Today, landlords find themselves with a list of applications and have the luxury of picking the perfect tenant.

Westside Rentals recently posted a one-bedroom apartment for $1,300 on 14th Street and Arizona Avenue. The landlord received 34 applications within three days.

Besides competitiveness, the major issue among most apartment hunters seems to be the expensive rent. Anna Chow is searching for a one-bedroom or studio apartment for less than $1,250 a month. She hasn’t had much luck in three weeks of searching.

In general, the apartments have been too small for the exorbitant rent, Chow said.

“I was looking at one south of Wilshire Boulevard for $1,025, and it measured 9 feet by 9 feet for the main room,” Chow said. “It’s a pretty fair, but old building ... ‘cozy,’ as they would advertise.”

Chow said she has used some of the more popular search engines like Westsiderentals.com and Craigslist.org in her apartment hunt, but has also tried finding places by simply walking around.

PET PROBLEMS

The issue in finding the right apartment does go beyond the expensive price tag and small size for some. Wade currently resides in Westwood and is having trouble finding an apartment that will accept her Chihuahua.

“Most places don’t allow pets,” said Wade, who’s been apartment hunting for a month. “It the pet is house-broken, I don’t know what the problem is.”

Wade has until January, when her landlord plans to move back into the bedroom she is currently subletting. Wade currently pays $600 a month for a room inside a house.

She’s been searching for a one-bedroom or studio apartment for less than $1,000 for a month.

On Thursday night, Marty Kaplan of Santa Monica, showed an apartment on Princeton Street for less than $1,100 a month to two prospective tenants, including Chow. Kaplan said she received at least three calls for the apartment on Thursday.

Kaplan said she does not conduct formal interviews with her applicants and will usually offer a lease if the applicant’s credit and employment information are cleared.

She said most of her 60 units in Santa Monica are easy to rent, but finds it takes more time with the three-bedrooms, which typically run around $3,000 a month.

As for Tabanera, she has since expanded her search to Culver City and Brentwood.

“If I live somewhere in Santa Monica ... I can take the bus and save money,” Tabanera said on her cell phone, while she was stuck in traffic on Tuesday night. “Right now, I’m on La Cienega on the 10 freeway and I’m going all the way downtown. I know I’m going to sit here for another 45 minutes.”