‘Soul-crushing’: converted Bay Area office apartment fail goes viral
More people are working from home these days, but a video of a California office-to-residential conversion that recently went viral on TikTok would blur the line between office and home life completely.
The TikTok profile zillowtastrophes posted the video which features a one-bedroom, one-bath “recently converted” property in San Rafael, California, just 18 miles (30km) north of San Francisco, priced at $520,000, a steal for the area.
Converting office space to residential has been touted as a solution to the Bay Area’s housing crisis, but this one doesn’t seem to be much of a conversion. As Jessica More, the person behind the zillowtastrophes profile, says in the video, the owner basically just “plopped a kitchen on this wall”, the industrial carpeting looks like the sort found in corporate office buildings worldwide, and the bedroom definitely has that conference-room feel. You’d half expect to wake up to Jim and Pam from The Office in the living room.
“Be on the forefront of a new way to work,” touts the Redfin listing which labels it as a live/work unit. The condo, at over 1,000 sq ft, comes with an inunit laundry, a bathroom so tiny that it’s obvious the shower was never meant to be there, and access to a shared outdoor deck complete with break room table.
“I’ve never seen it done so lazily as they did in this conversion in San Rafael,” More says in the video. “I think living here might be just as soul-crushing, if not more soul-crushing, than working here.”
The listing bills it as an “amazingly convenient location” close to a Starbucks, a Bank of America ATM and a FedEx Kinko’s and that it has “ample parking”. Which makes sense because the property is in a strip mall.
Commenters on the zillowtastrophes video found humor in the listing. “We just got used to work from home, now we have to home from work!” said user Travis. While user garrickaven couldn’t believe their luck: “Whoa, whoa, whoa … you’re telling me that for only half a million dollars … I can LIVE in my break room at work ???? ”
“The building at 777 Grand, historically has been used exclusively as commercial space but it is zoned multiuse. So the seller wisely installed a kitchen, shower & laundry to create versatility,” Jeanette Cling, the real estate agent representing the unit, told the news outlet SFGate in an email. “As far as an investment goes – the conversion creates a versatile opportunity for an investor – to be able to pivot from residential to commercial leases – whichever market an owner feels is better.”
Redfin lists the average home price in San Rafael, a city of about 61,000, as $1.3m, just a bit higher than the San Francisco Bay Area’s average of $1.25m, according to the California Association of Realtors.
“Some people in the comments are saying it’s a good price considering the area, which is of course so depressing for people looking to become homeowners,” More told SFGate. “I just find it more depressing that the seller/ agents/landlords feel so confident in the lack of affordable housing that they didn’t bother changing the carpeting or making adequate changes to actually convert this to a living space.”