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About five years ago I saw a chalkboard outside a trendy SoHo NYC apartment. For sale: 2 million euros. The same story is playing out in London as well, with
by jzwinck 12y ago
About five years ago I saw a chalkboard outside a trendy SoHo NYC apartment. For sale: 2 million euros.
The same story is playing out in London as well, with the consequence that many central flats lay empty most of the time, owned by foreigners who would rather lose out on some rental income than risk the hoi polloi damaging their artwork.
By the way, in NYC it is usually not as hard to find the true, human owner(s) of apartments purchased by "corporations" as the article implies. It takes more than a quick Google search, but the information is usually around if someone wants to know about a particular unit.
- junto 12y agoA new expression for me - "Hoi Polloi". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoi_polloi http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoi_polloi
- DrJokepu 12y agoThis is actually not uncommon in British English.
- logicallee 12y agoit's problematic, because people use it to mean the commoners (the prolitariat) and the snooty (the few). It doesn't matter that the latter is technically wrong - it's where you're likely to hear it in conversation. it's like the phrase "fulsome praise". Can't really use it. is it lavish, or overdone/excessive? http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fulsome http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fulsome
- deathcakes 12y agoAlso it is frequently misused - hoi polloi means 'the masses' but people always say 'the hoi polloi', meaning the the masses. </pedantry>
- logicallee 12y agoso use hoi polloi 'correctly' as a noun in a sentence, without 'the' for me. This pedantic objection is just another reason not to ever use the phrase. You just can't. :)
- deathcakes 12y ago"This is something hoi polloi would enjoy" May sound weird but thats only because people have been using it incorrectly for so long.
- logicallee 12y agoAnd what does "This is something hoi polloi would enjoy" mean for you? :) what kind of example things would you say that of?
- robmcm 12y agoIt's like some kind of retro RAS Syndrome
- illumen 12y ago... and now literally means figuratively. Language is silly.
- sanoli 12y agoBecause internet.
- riffraff 12y agomy favourite: "egregious" meant "outstandingly good" (which it still does in languages other then english), and now means "very bad".
- RyanMcGreal 12y agoAnother one is "terrific", which used to mean "causing terror" but now refers to something big and impressive.
- psykovsky 12y agoMaybe in your country, but not in mine.
- eli 12y ago"Literally" has actually been used informally in that sense for a few hundred years.
- michaelochurch 12y ago"Snob" used to mean a low-class pretender, not a jerk of high social class. The abbreviation was "S. Nob", or "without nobility". (Sine is Latin for "without.")
- benjaminwootton 12y agoOn similar lines, I was in Hong Kong a few months ago and saw quite a few adverts for investing in London property. Global markets really do exist for top tier property. It's really quite depressing being in the top few % income wise but not having a hope in hell of competing with the global market and the people taking on reckless levels of debt. Our housing markets are broken on so many levels.
- pjc50 12y agoIt's not enough to be in the top few %, the top 0.1% have orders of magnitude more money than you.
- BSousa 12y agoFor me, it was even more surprising when I was driving out of Algarve recently (South of Portugal) and saw a billboard about buying and selling Hotels. Not villas, full blown Hotels like it was freaking Monopoly.
- sgift 12y agoIt is - with the difference that playing Monopoly doesn't disturb the life of non-players.
- citricsquid 12y agoThe BBC did a feature earlier in the year about London property and Hong Kong investors, it provides a good insight. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dINbQGgVEN8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dINbQGgVEN8
- 001sky 12y agoThis is also happening in Vancouver, BC since the 1997 era. A lot of money is "parked" there, and asset prices are way out of line with local income levels.
- michaelochurch 12y ago
- arethuza 12y agoHasn't Monaco been the base for that kind of property speculation since at least the 1960s?
- Jacqued 12y agoThe same thing happens in Paris, where about 15% of flats are said to be empty. In central areas, 25% to 30% are empty. There has been some talk about new laws to fight off this rampant death of the city but nothing was enacted so far. I think municipalities and local governments ought to make it really hard (or ridiculously expensive, even for the .1%) to own a place in tense areas without either living in it or renting it.
- ars 12y agoIt's not that hard. You make a high property tax, but add a homestead exemption[1], if you live there you get a discount on the tax. Either off of the percent or a fixed dollar amount you can deduct. This doesn't help if you want to encourage rentals though. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homestead_exemption https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homestead_exemption
- eli 12y agoThat would be kinda rough on renters, no?
- Raphael 12y ago50% cutoff. As long as a property is half occupied, the tax is zero.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- TheCoelacanth 12y agoIf you wanted to encourage occupancy on any kind (including renters), you could tax vacancies instead.
- disputin 12y agoLand Value Tax. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_value_tax http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_value_tax http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_George http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_George http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_rent http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_rent
- mathattack 12y agoUnfortunately this does have some livability implications for those of us trying to live side by side by other people's piggy banks. I'm not sure what the answer is, other than to zone very heavily for new construction.