Welcome to It Happened One Weekend, our weekly roundup of the New York Times real estate section...
1) Rich people. What are they spending millions of dollars on? What are they complaining about? This is What's Up With Rich People?
Along with the baked enigma that is the cronut, bike-sharing is the topic of conversation among rich people in New York. CitiBike was recently launched to much fanfare and outrage, and it seems Related Companies has hopped on the trend and started offering bikes as an amenity in ten of its luxury rentals in Manhattan. A resident of Related's Tribeca Tower, Ms. Penelope Crabtree (a name ripped from the pages of Harry Potter), already owns a bike but claims that the program is great for guests who enjoy cycling. Ernie and Inge Popke (more great names!) of The Westport are likewise impressed. ['The Two-Wheeled Amenity'; photo by Scoboco]
2) Every "The Hunt" column begins with the hunters describing the apartment they want, and ends with them rationalizing whatever they came away with. This is The Hunt: Dreams vs. Reality
The Hunters: a couple and their two cats, looking to rent "in a neighborhood, versus a high-rise complex," with reasonable parking.
Price
Dream: around $2,800/month
Reality: $2,500/month
Neighborhood
Dream: "Brooklyn"
Reality: Boerum Hill
Amenities
Dream: space, parking,
Reality: two bedrooms, downstairs storage, street parking
Summary
So the hunters, Rebecca Rumph and Andy Pocock (funny names in the Real Estate section are killing it this week), were looking to move out of their one-bedroom in the gargantuan West End Towers in favor of a more spacious apartment with a "neighborhood-feel" and convenient parking. They began searching in the wilds of Brooklyn and quickly became disheartened by a broker who demanded a veritable pound of flesh for a fee, weird smells in hallways, and sterile, lifeless buildings, before finally catching wind of the perfect one-bedroom in a row house in Boerum Hill for $2,500 a month. Definitely a success.
[The Hunt/'A Home for Us, a Street for the Car']
3) Every once in a while, stories about young people and real estate inspire a weird mixture of pity and irritation. Kids these days...
The main crux of this week's story is that young people are pretty much incapable of making an informed commitment to a lease, let along a relationship with another human being. The kids are Mike Byhoff, who was working for Gawker at the time and began dating his intern, Cassandra Seale. The two co-signed a lease on an apartment on the Lower East Side and lived together for a while, before Byhoff allegedly announced, "I'm no longer attracted to you." What happened next is a nightmare out of a bad sitcom, as Seale and Byhoff decided to power through this bizarre living arrangement, navigating a tension-filled apartment and even continuing to sleep in the same bed for an entire month. The article is filled with other similar tales that will leave you shaking your head in disbelief. ['All Over but the Lease']
?Rowley Amato
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