What do people do for a living?

good on me?

where are you from, whore?

wow. issues, much? goodnight whore.

issues much?

where are you from? why do you speak like you learned English by watching Kiwi TV?

vesi..you didn't answer..is this a new italian nomdeplum (shit, i failed spelling)..?

if you were mentally ill, and pitiful, and obsessed, what would you do differently?....just wondering..

[hey...did i win any brownie points in your warpo-universe for christening rhino as a "rlt"?]

aboutready, if you truly find that person to be annoying, please do yourself and some of us a favor and refrain from responding to that person. Thank you in advance for your cooperation and have a nice evening.

jim, no points.

vesi, why do you write like someone who's never had any positive personal interactions, EVER?
and that makes me sad. even for you.

vesi..you didn't answer..is this a new italian nomdeplum (shit, i failed spelling)..?
No, I saw an advertisement (advert for you aboutready) for vesicare, and while I don't need anything for an overactive bladder, I thought vesi would make a good prefix

if you were mentally ill, and pitiful, and obsessed, what would you do differently?....just wondering..
I'm not good with theoreticals

[hey...did i win any brownie points in your warpo-universe for christening rhino as a "rlt"?]
I'll send you some walnuts if you give me your address

sunday, to be fair, it seems pretty clear that said sicko needs no encouragement, and in fact apparently can't be encouraged or discouraged...so, engaging or not doesn't have any marginal impact

aboutready, "even for you" is not a sentence.

is it me or nyc has a higher concentration of psychos?

i somehow prefer to think they are all the same person (hs..., vesi, wonderbra)

notadmin, the concentration is not as bad as in a "trailer trash environment" where one of streeteasy's frequent posters is from.

sunday, i'm sure you'd do zero to support yourself against such attack. and would never find it annoying.

jimstreeteasy
4 minutes ago
ignore this person
report abuse sunday, to be fair, it seems pretty clear that said sicko needs no encouragement, and in fact apparently can't be encouraged or discouraged...so, engaging or not doesn't have any marginal impact

Jim, let me be clear, once again: I'm gone as soon as the repugnant people on streeteasy are gone. columbiacount is already gone. aboutready would make a big dent but not be the full catalyst for my departure.

So yes, I can be motivated to disappear. But it will take work. Are you prepared to contribute by calling out more than Rhino for bad behavior?

vesi...if someone hired some techie to hack in here and trace who and where you are, and your posts were revealed to your mother, what would she say?....

notadmin
5 minutes ago
ignore this person
report abuse i somehow prefer to think they are all the same person (hs..., vesi, wonderbra)

yes ..., yes, no

jimstreeteasy
2 minutes ago
ignore this person
report abuse vesi...if someone hired some techie to hack in here and trace who and where you are, and your posts were revealed to your mother, what would she say?....

jim, if someone showed you this image, what would you say?
http://vote08.freedomblogging.com/files/2008/02/rorschach-test.gif

ar, I am not suggesting that you have no reason to be annoyed. I am giving you a suggestion on how to solve the problem. Use the 'ignore this person' functionality and s/he will lose interest, EVENTUALLY. Taking away the joy s/he gets from seeing a response from you is a good revenge, no? If not, how about the idea that 'living well is the best revenge?'

> "I'm gone as soon as the repugnant people on streeteasy are gone."
but why not ignore those that are repugnant to you? vesi/hs did you have success forcing people to behave and say things that always please you? why would you want that anyway?

> "trailer trash environment"
what is that? bullying people whose parents weren't well off?

sunday, that presumes some level of rationality, some kind of normal response to incentives...but the patient isn't necessarily rational....

when he was a child his mother, "tried everything I could think of, lord knows i tried,"...then it was doctors and big pharma..nothing worked...but he can't hold a normal decent job, hasn't got a normal portfolio of friends, and so found his world out here on the internet....

jim, do you believe s/he enjoys getting a reaction (response) from ar? I am almost 100% sure that s/he does and that is good enough of a reason for ar to stop responding.

well..i think it's not your or my choice...and he ain't going anywhere, apparently...

the cheap bozos at se ought to do an isp trace, is what i think....if he is using either a mobile device or from a home then i think it can be traced....

"> "trailer trash environment"
what is that? bullying people whose parents weren't well off? "

nope, not at all. pointing out people who live in glass houses and won't close the curtains because they think there's no point.

"the cheap bozos at se ought to do an isp trace, is what i think....if he is using either a mobile device or from a home then i think it can be traced...."

jim you aren't that bright. This week I probably had a dozen IP addresses in 3 or 4 states. And last week I was in different locations.

And mobile devices have multiple IPs and home IPs in dense areas can too easily be neighbors, building amenities and nearby retail locations with open access.

jimstreeteasy
44 minutes ago
...
... big pharma..nothing worked

Jim you are part of the problem if you think pharma changes humanity.

Sunday
18 minutes ago
ignore this person
report abuse jim, do you believe s/he enjoys getting a reaction (response) from ar? I am almost 100% sure that s/he does and that is good enough of a reason for ar to stop responding.

Sunday, do you recall when aboutready said she was ignoring me. I didn't disappear. Then of course she showed her weakness (on my original name), which is characteristic of her 230lb weakness.

Grr, too lazy to type "depressed about living conditions, RE-wise" - seems to me that most of us here have pretty good living situations to be depressed about that. Biochemical sitch - another story altogether.

Maybe depressed is too term of art. I should say, it sounds like most of us have pretty satisfactory living situations, apart from price point issues and to kvetch about buy-sell ratios, high class problems, my friends.

somebody asked why I don't see a return to '90 pricing in real terms. i honestly don't have a good inflation adjusted sense of what pricing was in the '90s (what should I multiply things by?). I am saying in NOMINAL terms I don't see a return to the '90s. I do think prices are a too high and will come down, but I don't see prime Manhattan going to $500 psf. Maybe what I call "off prime" Manhattan (decent neighborhoods with good schools, especially for less desirable places (postwar, awkward layouts, etc.)

at the end of the day, I don't think you can discount the fact that more families want to live in the city (and cities in general). this is a massive cultural shift. today's safer cities don't hurt either.

hey hfs, you got rid of cc, well done!!

"at the end of the day, I don't think you can discount the fact that more families want to live in the city (and cities in general). this is a massive cultural shift. today's safer cities don't hurt either."

totally agree. difficult to see whether that change is real or was overhyped during the bubble. do young households really prefer the small apartment to the large house when having 2+ kids? not sure yet.

i agree that higher urban safety and standard of living are real though.

"if someone showed you this image, what would you say?"

I would say it looks like the troll Jim Hones, vesi. What would you say?

sunday, i think "it" is only limited by "its" access to new IP addresses. that's it. i think "it" finds joy simply in "its" invective.

"it" might also enjoy us discussing "it", not merely engaging. in which case you should stop telling me to stop. and so on and so on and so on.

once in awhile the hypocrisy really gets to me. sorry, we all have our moods. other times i'm just amused.

notadmin, how much of that standard of living was from debt, though? incomes in the area have not risen, and if you consider that some are now paid so much more, most must be paid therefore much much less. and costs have skyrocketed. there is increased safety and more school spots, although i think we're about to see some real hurt in the latter area. but affordability just tanked. i can't see that not reversing now that debt isn't so freely available as a backup and for some a way of life.

although i must say that it seems as though SE must have records of the original IP addresses "it" used. i'd be surprised if "it" never used ones that could be traced, at least initially.

Original poster - you are basically right. The apartments that changed hands from 2001 to 2007 were likely weighted to bankers, equity research and hedge fund PMs and analysts...for whom earning $500K+ can be common. Now if it was advisable for them to buy $1MM-2MM+ homes when most of that $500k+ was bonus is a different story.

Topper, you think price to rent ratios are reasonable in CT? We've looked in Rowayton and Darien and the homes for rent at $5500-6000 ask $1.7-1.8mm. That seems to me a worse ratio than Manhattan. In Manhattan, in a coop variety that rent is more like $1.2mm to buy.

" " I have yet to meet a Harvard grad that didn't go to private school."

Ratio at Harvard undergrad of public to private high school has been 50% for at least 15 years.

Gopher, I'm a real estate agent -- but I'm also a Harvard grad who went to public high school.

To answer pandaboy's original question, your friends have come in at close to peak. People just like them could (and did) buy decades ago. Now people like them buy when they are older (ten years make a lot of difference at a six-figure salary) and/or with parental help.

Also, people live in very small-footprint housing (hubby, a Big Ten grad, and I lived in a studio for five years).

In addition, a very high percentage of income is budgeted towards housing: close to 30% if you're in a co-op and probably closer to 40% if you're in a condo.

Your friends see what their bosses have, and despair that they can't have that, and they can't -- but it doesn't mean that they can't have something. Sometimes this board acts like buying a C6 and renting are the only two choices in the world.

ali r., Adams House '87

if they wait they might be able to.

Ali, its not so much sour grapes as interesting to wonder how and why affordability here has plummeted, even since the 1990s. Seems to me cheap money, more mid-range finance people (bankers + hedge fundies), and a general improvement in living conditions has made NYC a good people are just willing to pay more for. Also interesting to wonder how much those first two conditions have and will change it going forward.

Rhino, I think it's that last -- NYC is waaay more desireable a place to live than when I moved here in 1988, when people regularly had their cars broken into in Park Slope and rats overran Tribeca.

ali r.

Inonda,

Sorry it took so long for me to respond. I think you misinterpreted my point, because I absolutely agree with you. A combined income of 500k will get you a great lifestyle in NYC, but not a dream apartment. It's absolutely insane for a person with that kind of $$ to complain about where he or she can live. That's a shit-ton of money, and you can have a wonderful lifestyle anywhere on that kind of cash.

My point is simply that it is bizarre that people feel entitled to live in splendor and are so surprised when they can't get exactly what they want. There are, apparently, richer people out there who will pay more for a home, so you can't live in that townhouse on perry street. get over it.

Or, if you need a dream home, you can get it very easily in Philadelphia, Dallas, Houston, Chicago, DC and perhaps (depending on your definition of dream) in SF or Boston.

NYC10023,

You are dead wrong to state that NYC had the same relative desirability 30 years ago. That's just not true. The population of NYC was in decline, people wanted out, coops were given away for nothing because people didn't want to cover the maintenance. Public schools were awful, even in prime Manhattan. Crime peaked 20 years ago at around 10x as many murders as today. When my dad first arrived in Manhattan in the mid-70s, he had no trouble finding a low-priced rental on Central Park West with side views of the park--and he arrived with no money and an entry-level job. The Park was a disaster then--he ran around the reservoir every day and his friends were shocked: they never went to the Park because the considered it too dangerous.

among many changes, we've had an enormous increase in the concentration of wealth in this country. since a lot of rich people want to live in manhattan, it should not be surprising that, as their ability to pay for valuable real estate has shot up, real estate prices have inflated in the places they want to live. Forbes has some index of inflation for "living well," and the difference between their index and general price inflation directly corresponds to the increasing concentration of wealth and income.

I am more or less bearish on Manhattan real estate, but it is simply wrong to pretend that there has not been a major secular change in NYC and Manhattan over the past 30 years, and that we should expect the ratio of real estate values in manhattan to the rest of the country to be higher.

HR, i really don't disagree with you. but looking back, NYC seemed pretty safe, clean and stable in 1996 also. same goes for 1998. and 2000. there were quite a few good public school options in 1999 when i was looking to move. how much did the quality of life improve from 2003-mid-2008? or 1998-mid-2008? 300%?

i realize i'm oversimplifying, other forces were at work. i just tend to doubt that this huge run-up was fueled primarily by QOL issues.

People calling for mid- to early 90s pricing are ridiculous. There is a world of difference to NYC between then and now. It's like these people want the city to devolve into a crime-ridden mess again so they can feel better about the fact that they have been renting all these years.

1998

Ali, whether its more desirable that 1988 to me is less important than how much more desirable it is than 1998. Ultimately the market will tell us what combination of desirability, easy money, and the finance explosion caused the increase in price...and what part of that appreciation will prove "durable". And by durable I mean, maintain itself even at the trough. We're already at 2004. To expect a full dial back to 1998 is probably aggressive. This is also circular because we don't know what the new normal is in the finance industry.

The issue isnt 1992 pricing...Its 1998 pricing....which is the same as 1988 pricing. If we went to 2002 pricing, what would be interesting to look at this the appreciation 'enjoyed' by a peak of 1988 purchaser.... I'm gonna guess that it would be a disappointing figure for people who think home ownership is such a grand proposition. And for people who buy now, the outlook is probably similar. All this said, as long as you don't expect your home to be a retirement ATM like it was for your parents...as long as your payment isnt wildly stupid vs. a rental... It is what it is. As Steve says, capitalized rent...just recently capitalized at a very low discount rate.

I knew people would come back at me regarding my Harvard/private school statement, which is fair as it was a pretty weak comment (true though, as I haven't met many Harvard grads). However if Rhino's statement is correct, then it has the same private/public ratio as Oxbridge which is really the point.

Anyway enough arguing about schools. I do see housing heading lower, as banking continues to get neutered by the government (rightly some would argue), however I suspect this year may see a bump or slowing of decline as everybody I know at major banks is pretty happy with their comp this year. In fact derivatives week was reporting that the GS bonus pool would be 80% cash and that base pay there was doubling.

How low housing goes in NYC is a precise function of how the finance industry settles out in both size and comp...and how the lending market normalizes. One thing that is permanent is the change in attitudes toward spending money, relying on bonus for lifestyle, private school and all the rest. That GS cash percentage sounds really aggressive. Also, people seem to forget that a lot of the people who are getting paid this year have always gotten paid and many already own...they are the ones that drove the bubble. Another thing people forget is that hedge funds just only made back their 2008 losses...so performance fee bonuses = nil. I dont know the numbers of persons there vs. banks, but its a big number, and was also a big contributer to the buyer pool. Also the unemployed and zero bonus stints people in finance have had, this whittles away at the buyer pool from a coop board passability perspective for at least the next few years.

PS: I dont really know what the point of bringing up Harvard in the first place was.

a lot of non-bankers bought apartments in the last 10 years. in the last 5, even. many of them compromised on quality and space. for condo purchases, many grossly overextended.

let's say you bought an UES standard coop, 20% down building, 2 kids in a 2/2, 6 months in reserves. both kids in private school. 2000 is the date. since then you've likely seen your maintenance increase by 20%, your monthly health care costs by about $1000, and private school tuition for each child by $10000 yearly. then there's food, etc. electronics, however, are probably cheaper.

some people have had income increases enabling them to keep up. many people haven't. this is just a hypothetical, obviously they could put the kids in public school. but many people i know would move before they would make that move, particularly at the middle school level. this is happening everywhere, people don't have the increases in income (and in many case just jobs themselves) to keep up with expenses. credit has plugged the holes, but it really can't be relied upon to continue to do so.

this is true not just for condo/coop owners, it's true for renters as well. there is not enough income to support the total housing stock. which is why we're seeing rents decline as well as purchase prices. rents are less sticky, people have more mobility and will move to something cheaper much faster than owners.

Sure a lot of them...but without the finance industry paying what it did to so many more people than it did in the 1990s, in my view we could not have seen the prices we did. I'd argue without the hedge fund 2/20 model, same thing. We needed to have liberal lending, banks and hedge funds.

I do see your point. And I do imagine many of these people will realize it was not appropriate for them to have this kind of overhead...and they will trickle out of the city at higher than bubble time rates. And over the next two years, my guess is we find out the price level that balances the inflow/outflow. This is why it seems such a bad idea to me right now to guess that the current price level is the right one. It should take at least three years from Lehman to see whats what.

The funny thing is landlords kept wanting 40-50x rent in earnings when mathematically the banks were requiring less coverage on the payment for owners. In my view, that means there is less slack in the rental market when lending standards become tougher... Also more renters as lending standards became tougher. For instance, all potential 10% down condo buyers...they are renters now. How many years does it take that person to save the other 10 or 15% they now need? Some may never save it. Their 10% of $1.8mm is 20% of $900k they might chose to heave ho and buy a house.

> Sometimes this board acts like buying a C6 and renting are the only two choices in the world.

totally agree

> In addition, a very high percentage of income is budgeted towards housing: close to 30% if you're in a co-op and probably closer to 40% if you're in a condo

for how long will people in their 20s and 30s tolerate this inflated housing costs? nyc is losing population in this demographics, many going to cheaper cities like philadelphia. but another added bonus to doing this is lower health care costs for the young and healthy (vs nyc with community rating and high mandates).

ali, how do you feel about your investment for retirement (house in the beach)? we are thinking about doing the same with my husband but don't know much about that mkt. any advice would be great. thanks in advance!!

rhino, and doesn't that make the decline in rental prices even more amazing? although honesty forces me to admit that there is a fair amount of supply entering the market when the market is quite vulnerable. remember, landlords don't check yearly to make sure you're still at 40Xs, plenty of people live on credit for quite awhile to last out a lease, for example. a lot of people also have guarantors.

my point is that the total value of the housing stock, as expressed by both sales prices and rental costs, is too high for the total income.

> notadmin, how much of that standard of living was from debt, though?

wow, no idea. on how much rising home prices lifted temporarily consumption, i saw studies on the housing wealth effect and where home equity went to, but they were very incomplete. for example, many people in their 20s and 30s bought thanks to $ coming from their parents. the old folks thought they were getting a piece of the apple to complement (or even solve) their unfunded retirement savings. i'd guess that's gone.

if aging parents want to help out, they will insist their kids on being price conscious and not "buy as much as you an stretch to" with the idea of helping their kids versus making a foolproof investment.

sorry, what i meant is that intergenerational allocation in RE should be counted when thinking about how much the bubble changed normal consumption patters. and i've never seen it being included on those papers.

notadmin, i can't find the chart right now, but there was a time period late in the last decade where if home equity withdrawals had not existed the GDP would have been negative. ALL of the positive GDP was driven by HEW. mind-boggling. that doesn't include all the other sources of debt. car loans, student loans, and of course, credit cards.

Aboutready, I see what you are saying, but rental prices are already at 2000 levels...and tightening lending standards and shattered myths are converting many would be buyers into renters.

Hi, again.

You bring up an interesting point, Rhino, as regards CT price-to-rent ratios.

I was speaking in terms of price-to-rent ratios that I'm seeing for "condos." I'm seeing something like 16 X to 17 X. Typical condos are generally fairly interchangeable with typical rentals.

All in all, I don't think it has been particularly normal - particularly for communities like Darien - to have lots of rental "single family" homes. I think they are just temporarily off the market due to perceived market conditions. Seems to me you'd be getting a great bargain at the rents you're quoting. Not sure, though, whether you'd be able to rent for all that long as such properties have historically been for "ownership" rather than "rental."

My impression is that you tend to see a similar phenomenon in Manhattan as well. I looked at a full townhouse in the Village that was for rent a while back (just for the fun of it). It was being offered at $22,000 a month rent. It ended up selling for north of 30 X its annualized rent.

rhino, there are additional issues complicating the stew. namely the number of people per room statistics. demographics are complicated.

the key right now is unemployment.

In my view, I will rent the CT home for $6k until the owner would accept $1.1mm for it...or until the rent goes up substantially. Mind you these are homes in Rowayton with $20k taxes give or take. The broker tells us that the owners either dont want to sell right now, or are asking $1.8mm for them.

You can get finance people back into seats, but if they arent making the same money, or if they are not confident in their income stream, or banks wont lend on it...then the market continues to fall right.

> private school tuition for each child by $10000 yearly

what? $5k annual increase for each? hard to believe. but maybe the parents that opt for a school are kind of captives of those increases. it takes a lot of duress i guess to pull a kid out of an expensive private school due to tuition increases.

> MEW as % of GDP is not a great measure imho. GDP is measured very badly still and MEW sometimes included lines of credit that were unused. my point is that it goes way much deeper than what do you spend the equity you pull out in, same with the wealth effect. you might not take in debt, but the fact that debt is available and super cheap makes you save less (hence overspend). there's no way we can measure that well in econ/finance yet. the papers on the wealth effect seem to me to be as accurate as a ouija board.

notadmin, from 2000 to 2010, increase from $25k to $35k yearly tuition. $10k a year increase per child.

ah, great. i thought you meant annual increase! omg, that would be incredible.

ah, great. i thought you meant annual increase! omg, that would be incredible.

"We’re working to lift the value of a family’s single largest investment — their home" Obama's dixit
--------------

i would love to see him failing on this and realize asap that wasting taxpayers money to increase the price distortions is not productive. but i dislike him for making me want the president to fail. well, it's not him, it's his policy on the RE crash what i want to see failing.

Sometimes this board acts like buying a C6 and renting are the only two choices in the world

Agreed.

Living in prime Manhattan offers a great lifestyle, and most people will sacrifice space or ideal neighborhoods to benefit from the only in NYC experience. Where else can you avoid driving a car and not feel inhibited? In most of the industrialized world, only the very wealthy get to avoid the hassles of fighting traffic in their daily lives. Where else can you have anything delivered practically 24 hours a day? I could get a meal from my local diner in five minutes at 3:30AM. It's faster and cheaper than hotel room service and the cost of my luxury "hotel room" is only $30 per day, thanks to long term ownership.

"Where else can you have anything delivered practically 24 hours a day? I could get a meal from my local diner in five minutes at 3:30AM"

Yawn. Not sure where you get $30 a day. I dont think we need anyone to remind us today in 2010 that buying in 1992 was a good idea. Now that it costs $200/day, the value of a greek dude making you the same omelette and fries you could make for yourself at all hours is suspect.

"the value of a greek dude making you the same omelette and fries you could make for yourself at all hours is suspect. "

lol

Why is "prime Manhattan" so much better than another part that is two or three block away? I think it's because snobs or wannabes like to stick together and build a bubble around themselves.

>>> The issue isnt 1992 pricing...Its 1998 pricing....which is the same as 1988 pricing. If we went to 2002 pricing, what would be interesting to look at this the appreciation 'enjoyed' by a peak of 1988 purchaser.... I'm gonna guess that it would be a disappointing figure for people who think home ownership is such a grand proposition.

I agree that home ownership isn't always a grand proposition. But to pick the "peak" in 1988 and compare to the the expected trough in a year or two as the "typical" scenario is a little unfair (as is it for people who bought in 1998 and sold in 2007 to expect that to happen again).

At the end of the day, I think nothing is going to change the fact that people want to own homes - it's a bit like marriage. The divorce rate at one point was well over 50% (it's now coming down of course and is something like 20% in what I think is the demographic in this board), but people still got married. Both are similar endeavors in that it's how people structure and envision their lives. Hopefully, post-bubble, we'll see the same thing happen with home ownership as is now happening with marriage in more educated demographics: people go into it with their eyes open, realizing the downside risk, not expecting to live happily ever after/get 100% appreciation in 5 years.

Agree that's it's hard to say where NYC real estate will end up. Something north of 90s pricing and well south of 2004/5 pricing feels right to me.

Rhino. $30 is my daily cost of housing, thanks to equity. I would argue that a comparable 2010 "cost" sans equity would be $125 per day, not $200. And who is to say $125 won't be cheap in ten or fifteen years? In an uncertain world, how can you be so sure of long term Manhattan housing deflation?

Agree that's it's hard to say where NYC real estate will end up. Something north of 90s pricing and well south of 2004/5 pricing feels right to me.

Or in other words, well south of where we are. Or in other words,
we sit on top of the best case. In other words, there is primarily
downside risk from here.

I am not sure of long term Manhattan price deflation... I feel
pretty sure that the short term outlook is negative. 30% down
from here, 50% off the peak, I would probably be constructive,
assuming rents at that time have held in somewhat. I just want
a reasonable 2002 rent/buy relationship. Given that rents are
where they were in 2000, or a little higher than 2002, I would
find 2002 values attractive.

Nice discussion this morning...:)

When discussing going back to prices in "x" year, I also like to look at changes in prices in real terms. The below is a cpi calculator (i know it's criticized by many for various reasons, but i don't have a better idea).

http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl

> Rhino. $30 is my daily cost of housing, thanks to equity.

but that doesn't pay the typical maintenance of a 2 bedroom. where do you live?

"When discussing going back to prices in "x" year, I also like to look at changes in prices in real terms. "

I dont understand why. The only relevant inflation in an owning decision is rent inflation, and there hasn't been any here in NY in the last 10 years.

rhino, i'm fairly certain i read that there has been no increase in rental prices "adjusted for inflation."

I dont think so. I think rents are basically where they were in
Manhattan in 2000, before they weakened in 2001-2002, and then began
to rise again.

...and incorporating the recent decline.

I think there was a crazy bubble element to price rises in nyc, part of which was classic greater-fool thinking, (although there were many other elements). There are many ways of gauging whether prices rises are kooky but I think one is to compare the rise in the price to the general rise in the cost of living, to get some reference. I would agree that the income stream of an income producing asset is the logical, fundamental thing to look at for proper "valuation" purposes.

Kspeak... It's like arguing why men 'cheat'. I mean fuck, you can ring it and forget it or knock youself out trying everything that's not nailed down Flmao. Marriage = homeowneship? ppl dropped dead by 40 back in the day so marriage was 'forever' and mrs Edwards would have died of cancer already, but is now around to div him. Hahahahahahahaahahahahhahahhahahaahahaaahha

NYC re today is like comparing marriage rates right after aids in the gay world. We just got an aids vaccine, let's see where marriage rates fall to in a 'new normal.'. What is so hard to grasp? 1997-1999 prices.

I'll end with my very first post in NYC.

The roof is on fire, we don't need no water let he mofcuker burn! $500 psf NYC re prime baby.

67.....if prime is 500psf, where is lincoln towers going (just paying cc?)....how about doing a timeline lime colored crayon chart of the prices of studios in that monstrosity ? (i believe you said they were like 80k back in the day)

notadmin, when I made the original post about a $30 per day cost, I was agreeing to a prior post by frontporch that buying a C6 or renting were not the only options. I don't live in a 2 bedroom. I did once own a 2 bedroom for nearly 10 years, where I built up some equity, then traded down to a 550 sqft condo without a mortgage. My home is nicer than 90% of the hotel rooms I've seen in the city at a fraction of the cost.

Manhattan Rentals (inflation adjusted)
http://www.millersamuel.com/charts/gallery-view.php?ViewNode=1263479338nkvcH&Record=3

Manhattan Sales (inflation Adjusted)
http://www.millersamuel.com/charts/gallery-view.php?ViewNode=1208449530UATUX&Record=3

Fwiw. The marriage comp is hilarious. There r so many holes in it.

But back to op. See Ali is my perfect ex. Went to harvard, went into re borkerage 'owns' in NYC bc she got in early in the bubble. See OP, when your kids go to harvard you can explain to them that they just gotta get in the bubble early and wag your fingers at the next generation. Flmao.

lincoln towers studios were $60k back in the day.

I've never heard someone call real estate cheap on the basis of
what hotel rooms cost. I dont know many places where people decide
to buy a coop or live in a hotel forever.

Yes Jimmy. I remember thinking id rather have a 911 t, than a jumbo studio in lincoln center in 1989? Seriously $80k to $600k. Nope no bubble here mr greenspan.

What is funny is I bet the value of ltowers at peak could've bought some third world cities and it's inhabitants.

WTF, one of our lt posters' apt complex just went bellyup? What is so hard to see?

"then traded down to a 550 sqft condo without a mortgage. My home is nicer than 90% of the hotel rooms I've seen in the city at a fraction of the cost."

--------------------------------------------
omg, you know almost every hotel room in nyc?

you already did what i believe will be the trend from now one, under a cyclical deflationary RE scenario, to consume as little RE as possible as main residency. i couldn't live in 550 sqft myself as i stay inside too much for that to be livable. but kudos to you for doing it!!! having as low as possible fixed costs makes you free from the labor market/wage slavery lifestyle. congrats again.

Rhino, I made the hotel comparison initially based on the NYC lifestyle where you can get deliveries of nearly anything 24 hours a day, like living in a hotel. That is one reason people like living in Manhattan.

sunday, thank you. i recall quite well how crazy rental prices were at the end of the nineties, early aughts. one of the reasons i decided to buy at the time.

Went to harvard, went into re borkerage 'owns' in NYC bc she got in early in the bubble.
---------------

but doesn't she own a studio being in her 40s with a husband? the bubble hurt people that would have normally be able to trade up. i was absent for months, so no idea whether she's now living in a bigger place. but, even if so, how many more years of living in a studio did she had to put up with cause of the bubble?

w67 - your arrogance never ceases to amaze. at least give your reasoning. an intelligent bull on the nyc real estate market at least has to acknowledge whar happened during the price run up - excessive leverage,low interest rates, lots of wall street money - before giving their reasons they think prices will stabilize despite all that has happened to many of the forces that drove prices up. just like even an intelligent bearish person has to ackmowledge that NYC is different than it was 15 or 20 years ago - families are chosing to stay, public schools are better, streets are safer. it's true that by the late 1990s NYC was safe - but this was before the family boom in NY, and frankly, I would argue in 1998 and 1999, real estate was UNDERVALUED in NYC, just like it was OVERVALUED in 2007. It is possible that real estate can be undervaued at certain times.

but instead you just mock people in a non-sensical fashion. this suggests to me their is not a whole lot of insight or intelligence to your arguments.

That's a fine position. Can you explain why Manhattan was undervalued
in 1998? Since rents were = today in 2000...Should we be at 2000
levels? If not, why not? 2002? What is your view on price level?
My gut is 2002....about 30% down from here.

I think in 1998 it hadn't caught up with people that a safe NYC was here to stay. Also people wanted to put their $$$ in the stock market since it was on a tear. Families weren't staying like they are today - that was a post 9-11 thing. Public elementary schools weren't as good.

Mind you, if I had to guess where a right-sized Wall Street is, I would say 1990s levels. But I don't think prices go back to quite those levels because of some of the changes that have happened.

My gut is 2002 pricing too, but I can see arguments for a little higher or lower.

Also when I am talking about pricing I am talking about nominal terms.

I am talking about nominal prices too...anything else is too
confusing. So basically two more years of -10% or -15%. That
would also make classic sixes more competitive with attractive
suburban options.