Quirky apartments, doors that dont fully close, and Murphy beds are just a few things youll see in Caleb Simpsons home tours he posts on TikTok, YouTube, and his other social media accounts. Despite doing this for close to six months now, Simpson told Fortune hes still shocked at how small some of the New York City apartments are, saying his jaw hits the ground sometimes. But more often than not, youll also see him trying out his hosts beds, playing with their pets, and asking how much they pay for rent.
With close to seven million followers on TikTok alone, and a bio that reads, lets do a house tour, Simpson has become a go-to content creator for home tours and this generations version of MTV Cribs. The 31-year-old, who lives in Brooklyn, creates TikTok videos that not only take viewers inside apartments across New York City but also sheds light on how much theyre paying for the adobes.
We all live inside a box, Simpson told Fortune, stressing that its something we all mostly have in common, And were all curious.
Simpson has been a content creator for years, but it wasnt until his home tours series that he felt hed finally found the content he wanted to be producing. Before his home tours, Simpson was doing pizza reviews. Hed ask New Yorkers their favorite pizza and try it out, but in the end, he felt like the series was all about himand he was getting tired of eating pizza all day.
So he started looking for his next idea, with the approach of making something that hed actually want to see, and saw that a lot of people were posting home tours. But those home tours werent featuring the average persons home, instead they were all luxurious and/or owned by well-known figures. So Simpson filled the gap, playing on the fact that most people can relate to his curiosity, and theres already enough celebrity-focused shows.
I think social media and people in general have really moved away from this idolized lifestyle, Simpson said. And its interesting to see how all walks of life live.
Simpson has filmed apartment tours with rent as low as $650 a month in New York City to a home in Miami that cost its owners $6.5 million. He even filmed a home owned by Shark Tank star and businesswoman Barbara Corcoran that costs her $10,000 a month in maintenance. Each video begins with Simpson asking them how much they pay for rentor how much it costs to own their propertyand he then asks them for a tour of their home. And sometimes, theyll recognize him, like in Corcorans video where she calls him the apartment guy.
If they say yes, he walks his viewers through the home, filming on his phone, casually chatting with whoevers home it is about their occupation, how long theyve lived there, and anything else that comes to mind. Typically the tours are light-hearted and entertaining, partly because seeing the inside of someones home makes you feel like an outsider looking in and partly because of Simpsons persona that seems to instantly make his hosts comfortable. Simpson makes himself at home, and his hosts seem to be all for it, showing him all over, letting him mess with their things or even try on their clothes.
When I first started this series, I kind of made a deal with myself that if I was going to do this, I needed to treat everyone like theyre my best friends and Ive known them for 10 years, Simpson said. When he goes into someones home, Simpson said, he just tries to be himself and ask a lot of questions because hes actually curious about them and their living situation.
But sometimes his videos are a bit deeper. In one video, Simpsons viewers are introduced to a family thats about to move because they cant afford their place anymore. The husband and father, speaking to Simpson, said that his wife lost her job after contracting Long Covid. But he still gave Simpson a tour, showing him their kitchen that has a bathroom. After meeting them, Simpson helped promote the familys GoFundMe. In another video, a woman explains that her rent is $39 a month because its designated for people who were in the foster care system, like herself. It was unfortunate that I had to go through that to get this, she tells him, adding that its a lottery system. She also told Simpson that she was in school to be a social worker, so he helped raise money for her last semester of school.
Its a challenge, Simpson says, going up to random people, not knowing how theyll react, or how itll be once hes at their home. But thats part of what he loves most about what hes doing.
When I went back and started to think about how I wanted to experience life and just what I want my day to day to be like, he said. I wanted to meet new people, I wanted to experience new things.
Simpson seems to be doing just that, shooting up to three home tours a day and meeting all kinds of people, some that live in vans, some that live on houseboats, and your everyday New Yorker, where Simpson says his content will always be based in.
I just love it so much, he said. I feel like it gave me so much, and I feel like the people of New York [are] the only reason Im successful.
It all started in New York, but Simpsons taken his gig to Los Angeles, Miami, and San Francisco per the requests of his viewers and the need for some warmth in New Yorks chilly seasons. And hes headed to other countries next, telling Fortune that hell have to learn the basics: asking how much they pay for rent and for a tour.
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