Actually I know many people who work in NYC real estate — it's all about making as much money as you can with the least investment. In fact the irony that prove

Actually I know many people who work in NYC real estate — it's all about making as much money as you can with the least investment. In fact the irony that proves this is that the quality of construction on "luxury housing" can often be terrible! The thing is that people get into NYC real estate to make real money, this isn't spread out suburbia where you want to go after the middle class with retirement communities for baby boomers who don't want a house as a good example. Because of the limited space in Manhattan there's no such thing as a true free market: In that way it's like a very finite resource like Picasso paintings (only more of them). If you were in Williamsburg during the "recession" you would have seen buildings going up without pause. And the only reason for that was because it's slightly cheaper than Manhattan. In fact even after 9/11 I was shocked to see that real estate actually went up because everyone assumed that they would game the suckers who would flee the city. NYC real estate may be one of the few places where there is no such thing as gravity. In fact when people would talk about a housing bubble these past few years it was like they were describing an alien life form outside our solar system. In fact I would say that if I had the free capital I would invest in NYC real estate as a more sure thing than anything else.