PROS: Clean, modern, and spacious (at least for Bay Area standards) and good value for the price (again, for the Bay Area). Easy access to the BART (9 min walk) and ultra close to the Fox Theater and multiple bars/restaurants. For UC Berkeley visitors, the property is a quick 10-15 minute Uber ride away to main campus. The host also communicated quickly via the app and phone.
CONS: The house is located directly in front of a freeway on ramp and next to a Chevron station. This means that cars will stop for gas regularly + accelerate into the freeway resulting in lots of car noise for the majority of the evening. It seems like it was something of a tradition for the Oakland mustang and challenger club to pull up near the Chevron and accelerate rapidly into the freeway. It was pretty neat during the day, but somewhat bothersome at 3am.
In fact, the noise of the accelerating cars was so loud that traditional ear plugs did not work. In fact, even my $500 pair of Bose noise canceling headphones did not mute the sounds at night completely. For comparison, I recently went on a multi day fishing boat with twin 720 HP engines near the sleeping quarters and the same headphones muted the engines. If you can sleep through the noise of 1440HP boat engines, then this property will suit your needs.
Furthermore, the neighbors in the duplex next to us decided to host a house party on the weekend. This is normally fine but the party went pretty late, the walls are fairly thin, and a new sound system seemed to be installed by the neighbors. This resulted in bass drops that were deeper than the front row at RL Grime and literally shook the house. Although I think that the neighbors have promising careers in electronic dance music, I was a bit uncomfortable with the house vibrating at 1:30am.
Overall, when I pick housing accommodations I expect it to be clean and somewhat quiet after 11pm. For me at least, if either one of these factors is not obtained, then the housing situation becomes uncomfortable. Although this house is very clean, the host is very communicative, and the house is close to public transportation, the location and noise from said location was a real deal breaker. I honestly wish I could have given a better review.