How do you rent apartments in SF when self-employed?
SwellJoe: My problems are compounded by having a big dog, and planning to spend more than $1500/mo on a place (I'm looking for a townhouse or a duplex on the outskirts of SF in the $2.1k range).  So, I've been looking for quite some time, but not finding much that fits my needs (I'm in Mountain View, currently).I've talked to my current landlord about how pervasive this problem is in this area in the past, and it's partially a side effect of how hard it is to evict someone in California.  It costs a fortune and takes several months from the time you actually stop paying rent for your landlord to kick you out of your home in CA.  So, property owners do everything they can to make sure the cost of you declaring bankruptcy or other tactics to avoid paying your rent while still living there are higher for you than for them.  It's one of those unintended consequences of regulations intended to help poor people; it actually hurts the poor the most, since people with high net worth don't have any problems jumping through these hoops, but poor folks get stuck living in the absolute worst locations and paying exorbitant prices because no one else will deal with them.If you deal with folks who have decision making powers within the company, showing historic tax records indicating you can make the payments, or showing a history of paying similar rents on time and for a long period of time, may be enough.  When I moved out here, I had to show I had been making mortgage payments on a house in Austin for several years.  My tax records weren't very impressive since I had shut down my prior company two years prior and hadn't started making much money with Virtualmin yet.  Landlord also wanted an email confirmation from YC that we actually had some kind of funding, and had some expectation of making money.A friend of mine was able to get a place, despite having low net worth, no credit history to speak of, and no historic tax records to speak of, and no history of paying similar rents, by just showing pay stubs from her current job which pays enough to cover her rent.  But, I would guess that would be dependent on having a job, and dealing with someone that could make a judgment call and has the power to accept a lease from someone without all that other stuff.