Your quoted rents are kind of -- surprising to me. I'm paying $3500 a month for a 2BR/2BA apartment in Santa Clara (a nice one, to be fair: 1100 square feet, W/D in unit, blah blah blah), and a quick look at San Diego apartment prices on Rent.com suggests I could very easily find a comparable apartment for hundreds less. My apartment management company shows a 1300-square foot apartment in San Diego's East Village with better amenities than my current place for just over $3100 a month.
You could pay a lot less if you didn't live downtown. I live in north county, where most of the tech jobs are. I'm about 5 minutes from work. I'm paying $2300 with water and a monthly dog fee. That's for a 2 br with W/D in unit.
