$700 Bay Space micro condo is the SF housing disaster in a nutshell

If claustrophobia and the lack to cook dinner a meal at house is your bag, then that is the San Francisco rental for you.

Because the Metropolis by the Bay’s AI increase continues to ramp up the localized housing disaster — with large actual property valuations and an inflow of sky-high salaries — the housing actuality for everybody else has turn out to be more and more dystopian.

Common San Franciscans (and even some mid-level tech bros) are pressured into more and more artistic and cramped dwelling conditions, like this $750-per-month “condo” in North Seashore.

The tiny field is a chief instance of what our bleak futures may seem like when the SF-created robots lastly take over — no kitchen, a shared toilet, and nothing however a tiny sink to desperately slurp water from.

A minimum of there’s a window — however that’s just about it. There’s barely sufficient room to exhale. No dwelling space. No pets allowed. Simply 4 partitions and the quiet despair of recent metropolis dwelling as you stare at that crisp wall and medical tiled flooring. It’s like a tiny physician’s workplace ready room — however the nurse by no means comes to avoid wasting you.

The tiny 64-square-foot studio positioned at 301 Columbus Ave in North Seashore (Unit 314) has been listed on Zillow for 20 days, and it’s six sq. toes smaller and cheaper than its 70-square-foot, $800 cozy cousin in the identical constructing that’s been in the marketplace for a whopping 259 days.

The listings don’t sugarcoat it a lot. They’re primary, they’re minuscule, they usually’re in probably the most costly and vibrant cities within the USA. And but, folks pay premium costs for the San Francisco expertise, and these glorified closets probably nonetheless have potential renters sniffing round.

With a high walkability rating of 100 and transit rating of 90, these two models are favorably positioned within the North Seashore neighborhood, proper on the border the place it meets Chinatown and the northern fringe of the Monetary District.

In a city the place an honest one-bedroom can simply eat up most of your revenue, tiny sleeping pods with shared loos are being marketed as “reasonably priced” choices.

Nonetheless, due to their minuscule footprints, we don’t should marvel why these two micro studios are nonetheless languishing in the marketplace in a housing local weather the place a rental takes a mean of simply 20 days to be snapped up, pushed by the tech AI-hiring increase.

In San Francisco, the median hire for a one-bedroom hovers round $4,000, whereas these micro studios really feel like a dystopian fever dream and are even cheaper than the in-demand $900-a-month “pods” which can be a symptom of a metropolis the place demand from the AI gold rush has pushed housing prices into the stratosphere.

It’s a stark reminder that whilst Silicon Valley celebrates its newest breakthroughs, the town it calls house is quietly constructing a future that appears extra like a sci-fi nightmare than a tech utopia.

Name it the final word image of the housing disaster: Even our robotic overlords of the long run are giving us tiny packing containers to reside in whereas they work out find out how to substitute us.

If that is the brand new customary for “reasonably priced” housing in San Francisco, we’re all going to wish much more remedy — and much more sq. footage. Maybe digital actuality glasses will assist.

---

Obtain The California Submit App, observe us on social, and subscribe to our newsletters