The GoWest Group

Steve was a truly amazing help when I needed an apartment. He scheduled showings nearly immediately; within three days of emailing him I he was showing me several apartments precisely matching my requested parameters.
He went far beyond what he had to do to help me get into my apartment, and gave me great advice on a lot of little things in the application process — including preparing a renters resume which helped me beat out competition. I was shown several apartments, applied to three, and was accepted for each of those.
Even further, he really understands the good things about all of the areas in the bay — presenting them in their best light. At the same time really explaining the culture of the areas. Not just showing what it looks like, but who lives in the area, and what sort of day to day experience could be expected.
I could have picked any of the apartments Steve showed me and been confident that I had made a well informed choice about what was right for me.
I can honestly say, more than a month after being placed, that I’ve never had the pleasure of working with anyone so damned good at their job.

Steve and I first exchanged some emails about my requirements and budget and Steve then found several places that matched my criteria and showed me videos of the places even before I arrived in the bay area for the first time.
Steve was pleasure to work with. He has found me a place to live in on very short notice thrice and each of the three times the place was well within my budget and was exceptional value for the money I paid. When looking for places Steve made sure I wasn’t getting a bad or cheated in anyway, he asked the relevant questions (being a newbie at this I had no idea how many things could possibly go wrong). Even after I found the places to stay Steve was readily available to answer any general questions I had about my contract, property or deposit. Steve is a consummate professional and he has my strongest recommendation.

I was living in one of GoWests apartments for about four months. For most of the time I shared the apartment with two other guys. The apartment at 580 Castro was pretty nice with a spacious combined kitchen/​living room. My own room was also ok. The bed was comfortable. I didn’t had a desk, so I took little table from the common area which was ok for the landlord.
Unfortunately there were some problems with Steve (the landlord). At first: A couple of days before I moved in, I tried to contact somebody at GoWest to make an appointment when I could get the key and somebody would show me around. No responses to my mails and when I called only the mailbox responded. Only a few hours before I arrived there, Steve called me back, to tell me where he hided (!) the key for me.
A couple of weeks later, I asked Steve if my friend how wanted to visit me, could stay at the free room. He said yes, but the rent would be $ 120 per night. Thats more then a hotel room incl. breakfast would be. That’s when I got skeptical if he wanted to rip me off.
At the end of my stay I was sure. As it took me weeks and a lot of reminders to get my safety deposit back. I didn’t even got it back in full and I didn’t broke anything (Steve agrees on that). I’m tired of trying to get my money back. I’m just happy that I don’t have to do anything with him any more.

I would give GoWest 10 stars if I could. We were moving from Boston to the Bay area. The first communications were through email and a few phone calls with Steve and Rachelle. Since my husband was still working at his job full time, I flew out to San Fran for the weekend to look at homes. Steve and Rebecca picked me up at my hotel early in the morning and we set out to check out a few places. After the first day of looking, I’m not going to lie, I was a little sad that nothing was perfect to what we were looking for in our budget. But I still had faith.
That night I sent Steve an email with a recap of what our «wish list» was. Within a few hours, he sent me two homes to check out the next day. Since Steve could not come with me the next day due to him taking other clients out, I had a blast getting lost on the subway and getting to the east bay to rent a car at the Oakland airport to check out the two homes.
The first house I saw would not work but it was 90% closer to what we were looking for. Then I did a drive by of the 2^nd house and emailed Steve right away that just by looking at the outside I could tell it was going to be great. Once I got inside during the open house I just knew that it was a great fit! I emailed Steve right away to say I was in love and wanted to see if we could rent it. By the next night we were told that we got the «yes» from the landlord!
Oh a side note, while I was out in SF looking for homes I landed a job interview in the east bay and had to move my flight back a day. Steve didn’t have to do this, but he picked me up after my interview and brought me back to the Go West office for about 4 – 6 hours and then dropped me off at the airport around 7pm. I can’t thank Steve enough for taking care of me the whole time that I was out looking for homes to rent.

Working with Steve and the GoWest group was a true pleasure. From our initial contact, to our lease signing, Steve was there every step of the way. If you need to relocate to San Francisco, choose the GoWest group as your relocation service provider.
As a New York native, I have no knowledge of SF as a city, and do not even have a driver’s license to drive legally (yet). But Steve picked us up from our temporary stay in South SF and drove us to a total of 9 apartment viewings that matched our requirements. Our contract said 5 – 8 places, but Steve showed us NINE. He went above and beyond what we agreed to and for that I am truly grateful.
We picked up applications at all the apartments we saw ourselves living in and he took us back to his office at the end of the day to process the paperwork. He even bought us Starbucks! He submitted all of our applications on our behalf. He even hand-​delivered one and faxed another.
Without him, this move to SF would have been a logistical nightmare. All we had to worry about was showing up. Steve even took us to Target during our down-​time and helped us pick out temporary air mattresses. Steve is knowledgeable, kind, and truly caring. I highly recommend working with Steve or any other agent at the GoWest group. You will NOT be disappointed. 5 stars!

I had heard from my friends and colleagues that it would be difficult finding housing in SF, and they were definitely right. Luckily, my employer provided me with the opportunity to work with the GoWest group to find relocation and it was a great experience.
From our initial communication via email, Brock was very responsive as we chatted about our wants and needs for our new place. This included talking about neighbourhoods we would be interested in and the flexibility of our budget.
Once my roommate and I moved to San Francisco, we met up with Steve for a full day house tour. Steve was a great agent, giving us advice for living in the city and using his knowledge and wits to help us look attractive to potential landlords. Steve was fun, knowledgeable, and most importantly, professional and I would definitely recommend working with him if you can. I’ll definitely consider GoWest in the future and recommend their services to anyone who is looking for a place in the city.

I highly recommend The GoWest Group for anyone looking for assistance in moving to San Francisco.
I want to particularly recognize Rachelle Selko who put me totally at ease during my recent transition from NYC to SF. Given that I would have little ability to travel that far for apartment tours, Rachelle found me a perfect location with a short term lease to get me started. Even after that she maintained frequent contact to be sure she was up to date with my particular and ever changing needs and desires.
Throughout the experience, Rachelle showed the kind of customer service that really makes an organization special — she built a tracking tool to help me plan my move, including information about parking, city maps to show how to get to my new job and airport info to assist me with travel plans that had nothing to do with my move.
During a stressful transition, Rachelle was a very stable and reassuring force.
When it is time for me to make another move within the city, I plan to get back in touch with The GoWest Group and I will be sure to recommend them to anyone that needs assistance in finding housing in San Francisco.

I knew that it was going to be difficult finding housing in San Francisco. I still tried a month of craiglisting and each visit to a place made me more depressed. With the high prices and less than stellar apartments and neighborhoods, I was about to give up and suffer the 1.5 hour commutes from out of town.
But my employer recently opened up opportunities for full-​time employees to work with Go West. I was immediately contacted by both Steve and Rachelle who quickly sought out my preferences and started the search _​for me_​. This alone made the process so much easier.
Rachelle made me feel like a champ. She found a couple of places and we visited them together. She made sure to tailor my options to my preferences and continued to refine those options on each visit. Rachelle was very friendly and personally knew most of the landlords we visited. Each visit was very friendly and relaxed, which allowed both the landlords and me to be frank about wants and needs.
Within a month, Rachelle found me the best place. I was also fortunate to not need to fight for my choice because the landlords were super chill. I would never have found my happiness in San Francisco without Rachelle and Go West.

Words fail to express how amazing and helpful Steve and the GoWest Group are. I moved to San Francisco straight out of college, not knowing jack squat about real estate and how insanely competitive it is in this city. Thank the sweet angels in heaven that I randomly ended up getting Steve as my agent because he made miracles happen.
Then, when I had to move again this year, I knew the man to call. Steve is a great guy and very witty, which I really enjoy because hanging out with him is actually a lot of fun. I also love that he is really into architecture and history, because I enjoy learning about the places I’m looking at and the city I live in. He also has an unmatched eye for detail, and will notice right away if something is not right, or if it is something especially nice about a place.
But really, one of the greatest things about Steve is that he is honest, and sincerely wants the best for you. These are rare qualities in the first place, and to have them in your real estate agent is a beautiful thing.
TL;DR Steve’s number is saved in my phone as «Steve SF Real Estate Angel». He’s that good.

I am referred to GoWest by my employer in SF and they quickly get in contact with me through email and Skype message. Unfortunately I was not in SF area at the time of house hunting so I introduce them to my friend who was in SF. They are very responsive through email and they keep posting options for us to consider. In the end they successfully nail the place that is perfect for us.
Thanks GoWest for the wonderful experience!

I am intern at Twitter for 4 month. Two days before moving to San Francisco, the place we secured returned our deposit and said they found longer term tenants. lucky for us, a friend of us interned at pintrest referred us to Steve and Rachel and we settled in a nice studio in nob hill. I would highly recommend rachel and Steve for interns, especially u Waterloo interns as they take out all the hassles of renting a place here short term.

I was waiting until the end of the summer to write this review. I’m a Canadian so it was a bit more work on GoWest’s end. I prefer the suburbs over a densely populated city and the guys and gals at GoWest worked hard to find us an awesome place to live for the summer. They found a nice little house in Noe Valley. Rent was a bit high comparatively speaking to the rest of the city. Rachelle and Marla were awesome at setting up the lease and the initial payments to the landlord. I had an awesome summer in SF and GoWest did an awesome job at finding the perfect housing for the summer.

I was referred to GoWest by my employer; on moving to San Francisco from the Midwest, I had absolutely no idea how to go about finding housing that would meet my expectations.
A little background: In Michigan (where I lived before) prices are about 40% of SF and the process is much less competitive. My last lease was agreed to over the phone, sight unseen, with no credit check! Needless to say, I now had to deal with California reality. Reality out here kind of stinks in this regard, but oh well: for my dream job, I was ready to brave any sort of housing market, no matter how terrifying and expensive.
GoWest not only made the process palatable, they made it fun! From my first phone call with Steve and Maria, they made sure to closely understand my needs, not promise what they couldn’t guarantee to deliver, and yet try to fulfill even my most unreasonable desires.
My package with them was their base type: for a half month’s rent, they show you at least ten properties (I forget the exact number) that meet your preliminary criteria. They assist you in making up a rental packet (which is a huge deal, which I never would have known to do, and which made the entire difference in getting the apartment I live in now). They also help with talking to/​negotiating with your landlords, and they coach you in how to deal with counteroffers (and associated BS that no normal market should have, but I digress).
I flew to SF on a Friday, then on Saturday morning Maria and Rachelle picked me up at my hotel. They were extremely friendly, and they began to give me the rundown on how SF housing works. When we arrived at each apartment, they introduced me to the landlord’s agent, talked me up as a highly qualified tenant, and pointed out both the strengths and the shortcomings of each property. They educated me on the various neighborhoods of the city and their respective qualities — a very useful service since I didn’t know exactly where I wanted to be or where I would fit best!
Late on Saturday, I found the perfect apartment in Noe Valley, filled out the application, and after a very pleasant meet and greet with the landlord felt we all felt like the place was mine! But sadly, it was not to be: later that night the landlord decided to rent the place to another tenant. This was all based on the landlord’s very questionable reasoning (someone else couldn’t pay as much as me, so they gave it to them on the assumption I would find something elsewhere?!) but throughout it all Rachelle was on the phone, texting and arguing with the landlord, and supporting me 100% even though it was 10 at night on a Saturday. I mean, that’s dedication! It still impresses me when I think about it now.
Because Saturday didn’t quite work out, Maria went out with me again on Sunday to look at ANOTHER eight or so properties. This was completely above and beyond — GoWest was under no obligation to take me on another day of showings — but Rachelle and Maria wanted to see me into an apartment and weren’t content to do the minimum. That willingness to go the distance, in fact, characterized all of my interactions with GoWest — they really do work to their clients’ best interests.
Luckily for me, Maria and I encountered another perfect apartment that day: a sunny, back-​facing, top-​floor one bedroom with parking in the Mission at below the market rate. I mean seriously, this unit is the polka-​dotted orange unicorn of the SF apartment menagerie. I made the offer/​application right away, the landlords checked my references and credit that evening, and on Monday morning (right before going back to the airport!) I signed the lease and picked up the keys.
tl;dr
I went from complete Midwest real estate naïveté to an ideal San Francisco apartment in three days, and I enjoyed the process. If I had not gone with GoWest, I would have gone home angry and empty handed. They really are the greatest asset you can have when searching for the perfect place in the city. I recommend them, without reservation, to ANYONE who wants to take the pain and agony out of real estate.

I worked with GoWest to find an apartment during my internship. I had the pleasure to work with Rachelle and Maria and they are absolutely great. They were very easy to contact and responded very quickly if I had any problems. When I worked with Rachelle, I was not in San Francisco and she made it very easy to see and find information about places they were pursuing.
Rachelle found a place that fit me and my roommates needs almost perfectly. She worked with the current tenant and did most of the heavy lifting for us. Once I got into the city, almost everything was taken care of. They even helped find some furnishing for one of the empty rooms.
Rachelle and Maria were a pleasure to work with and I highly recommend The GoWest Group.

This summer, I got the opportunity to do an internship in San Francisco, and I met up with the GoWest group to help me find housing before I landed in SF in May. Rachelle and Maria were really great in finding places (I think they brought up 5 places for consideration that met my preferences), finding a roommate who also works at the same place as me, and negotiating lease start/​end dates. Definitely a great group to check out for anyone looking to relocate to San Francisco.

My summer employer contracted with GoWest Group for finding an apartment during my internship. I worked mostly with Rachelle and sometimes with Maria as well. They are nice, friendly and did work hard to find an apartment of my interest. I am impressed with the way they did everything to please a customer like me. I have never been in San Francisco before and do not have an idea of which place should be the best. However, I do have special requirement that my place should have enough privacy so that I can host my wife, who visits me a short time during the summer. Rachelle found me a studio in the outer Richmond area, which pleased me since it fits my budget, and transportation to my work place is pretty straightforward.
One story that I will tell everyone in recommending their service is this. Rachelle found me a studio that was subleased from a tenant. The first day I got into the apartment, I was so disappointed that the apartment was left dirty and messy. The tenant obviously did not do a great job in cleaning it before subleasing to me. I complained that to Rachelle by email, and immediately before I put my hands down to clean the thing, they called me and said they would send the cleaning service at no cost to me. The next day, a clean lady came and made the apartment clean and shiny. I really appreciate that service.
The reason for the four stars not five is that I think there is still room for improvement, although I doubt that any real estate agent in San Francisco can give me a complete satisfaction. Housing in San Francisco is crazy, unless you are a millionaire and don’t care how much you pay.

I’ve been debating whether or not to leave four or five stars. First and foremost I want to state, the actual tour of places I went on was well done. Steve and Maria were great hosts and very efficient. They began honing in on the sorts of places I would like and tried to tailor their search. They were also very aggressive in helping me secure my top two choices. Ultimately I was able to sign a lease for my top choice within a couple of days, and that’s with needing to have a place that would allow for my two dogs!
Despite this I gave four stars, and here’s why. I’m guessing I had a bit of an atypical experience with The GoWest Group. I am moving to the city soon and was introduced to The GoWest Group by the company I’m moving out there for. Initially, for the span of approximately 4 weeks, I was dealing with an individual who was non-​responsive. I began to be concerned because I was coming out to visit San Francisco and hopefully tour some properties, but had not heard back at all. Shortly after I was in San Francisco, I was contacted by Maria who told me that the individual I was dealing with was having some personal issues which is why I was not getting anywhere with her. We then set up a time to tour housing accommodations for Saturday. It turns out that the person I was initially dealing with should have solicited a bunch of information from me which didn’t happen, so at 10pm on Friday night I received an email stating all the information they needed from me. So I had to scramble quickly to deliver that information that night before the showing the next day.
If not for that, everything else they did was very helpful in securing a place and was well above five star quality.

Much like Nader, my experience with GoWest was a little bit atypical in that my summer employer contracted with them to find and provide housing for the interns who were moving across the country.
From the start they were very thorough about making sure that they had a good feel for my needs and exactly the type of property that I was looking for and preparing me for the process of renting an apartment in San Francisco for the summer. After they had that information, I didn’t hear from them for a little as they placed other interns in apartments across the city, but they were always prompt in answering questions when I asked them.
Once GoWest started searching for housing for the interns with my start date, they were very active in communicating information about exactly what to expect out of the process and various information about the properties in San Francisco. One thing that was a bit disappointing was that I felt that GoWest took some of the deicision out of my hands by saying they would visit properties and then unilaterally deciding that they were not up to my standard. Part of this was likely due to my employer having set forth restrictions on where they would like for us to live, but I would have prefered to get information on a slightly wider range of properties.
Ultimately I’m happy with the property that The GoWest Group placed me in; it’s at the upper end of my original price range and I would have prefered something slightly less expensive, but it did conform to the original information that I set forth in the rental information they collected.
Given all of that, I would recommend the GoWest group if you’re looking for someone to find a temporary apartment in San Francisco when moving out here. They helped take much of the stress out of my move to the Bay Area.