This is just a way for rich people to park their money in an investment that quite likely will only go up. This isn't a new phenomenon really or even local to

This is just a way for rich people to park their money in an investment that quite likely will only go up. This isn't a new phenomenon really or even local to New York city. I live in Delhi, India in a somewhat upmarket locality. Not too far from where I live there is an appartment complex called Kings Court, where appartments were I think in the range of 20-25 crore INR each (at the time of writing, that is 2,623,982.00 USD, something only the 0.1% can afford). Yet, I have seen very few people actually living there. There are some appartments that have people (as I see people in the balconies cause I have passed by it pretty much daily for several years). However, it is possible that people just haven't bought it but I don't see that as being likely.