Tuesday, March 20, 2007

I couldn't resist


Are there that many people out there having their parents buy them apartments? Not that I'm jealous but I'm jealous.
image from curbed.com
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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

There was an article in the Times about this the other day. I'm not so sure it's a surprise, though: it's really hard for young first time buyers to get the money together one needs in New York - when (unlike BellTel) you have to put down 10% and you are buying into a sponsor sale, a buyer needs to come up with anything between $70,000-$100,000 in deposits and closing costs (and that's based on a $500K unit). That's pretty much prohibitive for the majority of wage earners in NYC.

Moreover, I think parents helping kids buy their first home is not that unusual... but the difference is, I think it usually is LOANS, whereas a lot of what you see here are gifts.

Two things get to me, though - (1) buying the condo outright for the child (as opposed to a loan, for example; or even giving them enough to cover closing and deposit); and (2) the "strings attached" emotional creepiness some parents put into this. The Times piece goes into a whole "I'll buy the condo and make the payments, but your boyfriend can't move in" or "you can't bring that sofa to the new place" stuff. It's like a way for a parent to still run their child's life. So not only is the son or daughter not learning anything about having to save and make it in the world on their own because mom and dad will buy them a condo; but worse, the parents foster even further domination (and thus continued dependence) by playing puppetmaster with how they live their lives.

And this is old news...

All that said, the T-shirt is hilarious. I may have to buy that.

March 20, 2007 at 1:47 PM
guyfromdobro said...

I guess I was looking at it from the gift angle. I don't think your doing your children any favors by giving them an apartment outright. They need to have fiscal responsibilities. That being said, I hope all the parents reading this, run out and get their kids an apartment at Belltel.

Also, I agree with you about the emotional manipulation that comes with the "free" apartment.

March 20, 2007 at 3:09 PM

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