Saturday, July 14, 2007

You have got to have rocks in your head...

...to pay $900,000 for an efficiency apartment. I don't care if it comes with cabana boys and hot & cold running beer and the view out the living room window is nothing but sunsets and nekkid Vin Diesel. Come to think of it, actually buying a condo apartment has always struck me as an odd thing to do.

9 comments:

staghounds said...

My littermate's apartment is a fourth floor walk up, built in 1900, 620 square feet. In a moderate neighborhood. In Europe. $580,000.

But then, we expect to get $200,000 for my late mother's "condo" in Knoxville.

Go figure.

Tam said...

...and thank you for another post idea! :)

Your comment got me fondly recalling la vie boheme back in the day, and why it just wouldn't be possible for me now.

Anonymous said...

Uhm, Tam, this is Manhattan, not Knoxville - a condo under a grand a square foot is considered "a steal". $900K may sound like alot, but when run of the mill studios are $700-800K.. Manhattan is the most expensive real estate in North America.

Tam said...

I don't care where it is: You have got to have rocks in your head to buy an efficiency apartment for $900k.

I'd rather just sleep on my Gulfstream down at LaGuardia.

theirritablearchitect said...

Fools and their money, and all that.

phlegmfatale said...

What baffles me, even working in that industry, is the bovine strainings of people toward being warehoused in stacked shoeboxes with other folk. It drives me 'round the bend to think of so little elbow room. Luxury condo high-rises in Dallas are springing up like mushrooms after a rain, and I don't understand how the market will even support this hell-on-earth. Part of the good thing about this town use to be that it's NOT New York or San Francisco.

Anonymous said...

A Gulfstream is $2-4 million. And quite frankly, they're pretty small.

And private aircraft in the city are mostly based out of Tetetboro airport. Wait till you see what hangar rent is there..

You think $900k is crazy for an efficiency appartment? I live an HOUR AND A HALF from downtown by public transportation, and the average 1600sf detached house is now $750K. a 2 bedroom apartment here is $1300/month. and this is living a 3 hour(round trip) commute from the financial district..

You say it's crazy, well, how many people do you know making $125K a year? That's like 2/3rds the neighborhood.. Those that can afford it, and want the "urban experience"(or don't want to spend a quarter of their waking hours on the subway) move to Manhattan. The middleclass that can't afford to either moves to the suburbs in the outer boroughs, or moves to NJ, and spends 2-4 hours a day commuting. It boils down to this: NY is the most expensive place to live in the US, and Manhattan is the most expensive place to live in NYC. Part of the equation is rent control, but the other half is supply and demand.

Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't live there either - Hell, I'm trying to get out of this city!

Anonymous said...

Data point:

A studio apartment in manhattan goes for about $2000/month.

That's the kind of studio where you fold up the bed so you can get to the toilet, btw.

And you wonder why so many stupid ideas come from New York?

Anonymous said...

It's more a case of supply and demand - There's only so much land, only so many apartments(and about a third of them are rent controlled, reducing the available ones even farther), and the number of people moving here is getting bigger every year. People come here to make money/get rich. This is one of the largest financial areas in the world - bigger than the london exchange, and about even with the Nissei market. Most of the major banks are headquartered in and around here. virtually all of the brokerages. NY is where money comes to, and flows from, for the US. That means they're are alot of people making alot of money dealing with said money.