The Suburbanization of the Hamptons; Moving Out of TSq

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?
Rich people love arguing about Joe Farrell, the oft-reviled Hamptons builder, profiled by The Times earlier this week. To some, he's providing an important service, building in-demand homes for a (relatively) affordable price. To others, he is the spawn of Hell, gentrifying (hey, the arguments basically sound the same!) the East End with his dull, homogenous McMansions lined with cedar shakes and topped with gambrel roofs. While some of the criticism of the guy is perhaps undue (as our friends at Curbed Hamptons point out, he does, after all, employ hundreds of locals), it's worth nothing that he also has his own ATM. In his house. Stocked with $20,000. Kind of hard to defend that without sounding like a total schmuck. ["Hamptons McMansions Herald a Return to Excess"]

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 Hunter: a young woman looking to move out of Times Square
Price
Dream: No set budget
Reality: $585,000
Neighborhood
Dream: West Side, "somewhere downtown"
Reality: Flatiron District
Amenities
Dream: dog-friendly, co-op
Reality: dog-friendly, elevator, attended lobby
Summary
The hunter this week is a transplant from Texas who's been living in Times Square for the past few years. Because she is a human being, she wanted to move to a less horrible neighborhood, looking "somewhere downtown," with no budget in mind. After seeing a few boring places, she got her mother to fly to New York to look at a studio apartment in the Flatiron District for her because she was too busy to do it herself. However, she did end up skipping church the next week to check it out (tsk tsk!) and ended up putting in an offer. [The Hunt/"Escape From Times Square"]