I doubt you can do much better. You'll have to compromise on either the commute or the rent. Live near BART and you'll pay up for the convenience. Oakland is

I doubt you can do much better. You'll have to compromise on either the commute or the rent. Live near BART and you'll pay up for the convenience. Oakland is the 4th most expensive city to rent in the US; further out and you start looking at even longer commutes. You literally can't get less than an hour commute by public transportation into SF from the East Bay. Trust me, I've tried. Live by yourself, and you won't find a decent place for less than $2k/month anywhere. Accounting for taxes, that's about $40K/year, which is more than someone with a $100K income should be paying for rent if they want to stay financially stable. And while Facebook might have East Bay shuttle buses (though I don't think they do to any meaningful extent), what about all the other companies that aren't Facebook?