<p>“Im not sure why blue collar workers are considered to be more " common” than an office worker.
I’m also not sure why someone who works with their hands is expected to be uneducated."</p>
<p>No one said either of those things. Fine, use the words “average Joe” instead, my point still stands. If the Chicago Sun Times were to do an article about a $4 mm house, it would have an undercurrent of “for crying out loud, would you believe these rich people, smh.” That’s neither good nor bad, just a different tone reflecting a different audience. The NYT has its audience, and they aren’t shy if they don’t like something. </p>
<p>So fun to read back through this thread and see how folks can read things so differently based on geography and life events. My views change often, sometimes based on something as silly as the last tv/movie I watched, hopefully I can maintain some compassion and empathy but envy definitely creeps in now and then. “Input Stephanie” - we are all individual. Okay, no one probably remembers that silly movie.</p>
<p>Yes, views change. But I think some of the conflict that emerged in this thread is that people are trying to take their world view and apply it to an article that is nothing more than a feature story. It is not like this was a lead news story on the front page of the Times. Trust me, the New York Times have been writing feature stories like this for decades. It is not newsworthy. But a few people are trying to make it into more than it is, and do not get what the NYT is about.</p>
<p>I’ve been reading the New York papers everyday for the last 50 years or so. I would wake up every morning to see the New York Times and the Daily news on the kitchen table when I was a small child growing up in Brooklyn. My father, a blue collar worker, would come home from the evening shift as a printer and leave the the early morning edition of both papers for me to read.</p>
<p>The Daily news had more local news, middle class ads and coupons/ circulars. The Times, more international news, feature stories, and “society” news. The high priced stores would advertise in the Times; lower priced stores in the News and Post.</p>
<p>Many NYers would read more than one paper to get an idea of what was really going on in NY from different perspectives.</p>
<p>For Igloo to try to teach the Times a thing or two over a feature article like this is laughable.</p>
<p>Being from the fairly staid Philadelphia suburbs and now owning an apartment in New York, I have noticed that money and value can be viewed differently in NYC. People in the financial industry and the tech world have a great deal of money at a young age. There is no saving for twenty years before living well. I like to believe that these people are donating serious money to the museums, orchestras, non-profits and other needy organizations that certainly can’t get by on the amount that I give them each year. If they are, I can’t begrudge them living in pretty cool digs…even if to my mind they are grossly overpriced. What the market will bear.</p>
<p>My D’s apartment in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn is four doors from a large low-income housing project. Regardless the proximity to the projects, the brownstones on her street are going for over two million. It is a pretty tree-lined street (and her apartment is tiny and adorable) but still. Two million plus, people. The story I would like to have read (incorporated into this family’s tale) is why the normal rules of real estate don’t seem to apply in Brooklyn. The area around the Gowanus Canal is being developed - it is an EPA superfund site and people will still invest knowing that there is a market. There is a coolness factor that overcomes financial common sense. I would like to read about that.</p>
<p>I live in NJ, New York’s stepchild. I have nowhere near enough money to hunt for a place like this. So what? Where we live, rich and poor actually do live together, within a mile or two. and sometimes a block or two.Diversity is a thing around here, and I love that.</p>
<p>I’m interested in how much people pay to live in “The City”. I’m also interested in the process of renting an apartment in New York, as I know a lot of young people who want to move there.My own DD was checking out a place in Harlem, to be shared with 2 roommates. VeryHappy’s link was interesting, and it’s the same series. I think this series IS news, in a way, for people who live around here, and are considering a move. </p>
<p>I did feel sorry for the family, that the fire destroyed their possessions. I didn’t see them as whining at all. And I like the photo of their kitchen, which I’d love to have, but I have more square footage than they do, plus a backyard pool and a nice vegetable garden. Which they don’t want, because they live in the city, and have different lives. And if they did move down here, they could buy a beautiful home near the beach, but maybe not oceanfront. So there you are.</p>
<p>I agree that whatever the topic is (interesting info about housing in different parts of the country, and the entertaining articles in the Sunday NYT, this is not a political thread and should not be.</p>
<p>I suggested that if one wants to open a topic about journalism, a much more debatable topic might be how journalism today has strong political slants. I brought that up in the context of this thread since some posters were talking about the responsibility of journalists. I do not see the NYT publishing an article about expensive housing as a a "hot " topic that compromises journalistic integrity.</p>
<p>No worries. I wasn’t suggesting that liberal vs. conservative news media should be debated on this thread. lol. </p>
<p>Well, I barely consider it journalism since there’s not much there in the way of news value. Instead, I would call it a feature store for the real estate section. And, sure it’s targeting a particular audience but there’s nothing wrong with that at all. </p>
<p>“I don’t understand why anyone is offended by this story. I am pretty sure that the real estate section is not included in versions of the Times that are sold outside the state. Real estate is a perennially interesting topic wherever you live.”</p>
<p>I have no clue why anyone would be offended by a story such as this. I feel bad for the family, spending a year and a half remodeling, and then the place burns down. Then ending up having to pay so much money for so little. That stinks. They aren’t complaining, just telling it like it is. I can’t imagine being jealous of someone in this situation, just amazed at how difficult it is to get a decent place for a less than crazy price in NYC.</p>
<p>Homes in Brooklyn fall well under the $4 million that the couple felt they couldn’t go below.
Even high end luxury homes only average $1.7 million & thats after jumping 18%.</p>
<p>There was a link, in another thread, to an article that reported a significant number of Manhattan apartments were owned (seating empty) by foreign investors as a means of hiding/protecting their wealth.</p>
<p>NYC probably has a lot more millionaires than reported in the census. Many of the NYC millionaires also have property in other more tax friendly states in which they can claim residency.</p>
You are fixated on the fact that people only live in their home, but there are a lot of people view their home as an investment. The couple made over $1.8 on the house that got burned down. They chose to reinvest it into their next home instead of having it sit in their brokerage account. Their financial advisor may have told them it was a better investment, especially in the NYC real estate market. I posted earlier that’s what my father did, he reinvested all of his real estate gains into more expensive house each time and he ended up with a 1.5 mill home by the time he died. He made less than 70K when he retired.</p>
<p>I don’t understand the problem. Why are they doing something wrong to spend more than the average “luxury home”? As long as they can afford it, aren’t going to default on a loan, or turn to society to ask for help to maintain their standard of living, etc., who are we to say what amount of money is unseemly? I didn’t get that they were whining at all. They were looking for their dream house, which apparently they can well afford. They thought they found it, but it burned down, which is sad no matter the value of the home. Perhaps the average “luxury” home in that area doesn’t have the amenities, the square footage, the ideal location, a view, or whatever it is they value in a home, so they are willing to pay the extra premium for those things. Based on their prior wise investing, this more expensive home may not even have a higher mortgage than their earlier homes. In any event, as long as they can afford it, I don’t see what the issue is.</p>
<p>It’s the phrase “the $4 million that the couple felt they couldn’t go below.”</p>
<p>The couple didn’t feel that. That phrase suggests that they considered anything less than $4 million “cheap” or “beneath them” or “not good enough.” I didn’t get that from the article at all. </p>
<p>They found the apartment they wanted. It cost what it cost. They could afford it. Case closed.</p>
<p>^^^Not to mention, “luxury” is a subjective term. 3000 sq. feet and only 3 bedrooms for a family of five is not my definition of opulent over consumption. We had only 2 children and our home was far larger, though significantly less expensive. It’s all about location, location, location.</p>
<p>Agreed^^ I remember when my D’s friends from college would come visit our home. I know that several of them were receiving major financial aid. They lived out of the NYC region where their middle class income could still buy houses substantially larger than ours on Long Island. Two of them kept repeating to me how “cute” and “cozy” our home was. (A typical 3 bedroom, 2 bath split.) They must have thought we were cheap to buy such a small home, considering we didn’t qualify for any aid.</p>