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housing

Saturday 24th of October 2026

1%ers The latest real estate trend among internet billionaires and hedge fund tycoons is, apparently, buying bunkers. These individuals, who have made fortunes disrupting the present, predicting the future and then making the future happen, are preparing for the end of civilization. … This new group of tech-savvy survivalists prefers the name “preppers”. It implies something preppier than the redneck gun-nuts in battered pick-ups with whom they might otherwise be confused. Financial Times, April 9, 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
2007 financial crisis Compared with whites, minorities absorbed heavier losses in the housing collapse. From 2005 to 2009, “inflation-adjusted median wealth fell by 66% among Hispanic households and 53% among black households, compared  with just 16% among white households.” From 1984 to 2009, the wealth gap between whites and blacks nearly tripled, and in 2009, about a third of both black (35%) and Hispanic (31%) households had zero or negative worth, compared with 15% of white households. Ronald P. Formisano, Plutocracy in America, quoting from a Pew Research Center study  © 2017 Kwiple.com
Bullshit TREATMENT ROOM For Curated Facials and Massages One of nine "wellness" amenities touted in a full-page advertisement for 200 Amsterdam, a new 55-floor “perfectly composed” condominium "At the nexus of Lincoln Center and Central Park," in New York City © 2022 Kwiple.com
Bullshit The XI. One square block. Two unprecedented icons stretch skyward. Nestled between the Hudson River and the High Line in the heart of New York City. Parallels are drawn — from the yin & yang duality of the sister residences to the unique balance between convention and avant garde. Timeless travertine and dynamic technology. At these crossroads, where a storied New York neighborhood meets trails yet ot be blazed, Bjarke Ingels' feat of engineering connects with an international paragon of the world's most visionary minds. Advertisement for a NYC apartment building, New York Times, October 7, 2018 © 2015 Kwiple.com
By the numbers 67 percent of markets require at least 30 percent of wages to buy a home headline, PR Newswire, September 26, 2019 © 2019 Kwiple.com
By the numbers 2014 NEW YORK CITY AFFORDABLE HOUSING LOTTERIES 10 lotteries citywide 698 units, 486,000 applicants 0.1436% winners Upper West Side “poor door” building 55 units, 88,000 applicants 0.0625% winners 2014 ELITE COLLEGE ACCEPTANCE RATES Stanford - 5.1% Harvard - 5.9% Yale - 6.3% Princeton - 7.4% © 2015 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Number of San Francisco homes for sale in September that were affordable on the average local teacher's salary: 1 Harper's Index, December 2016 © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Palo Alto's minimum wage is $12 an hour, but someone would have to earn $42.69 an hour to rent a two-bedroom apartment while having enough left over for other necessities. The Guardian, June 29, 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Percentage change since 2006 in the number of U.S. cities that have banned living in vehicles: +143 Harper's Index, March 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Perentage of Americans worth $25,000,000 or more who make at least $10,000 in charitable contributions each year: 65 Who spend at least that much on home improvement: 69 Harper's Index, February 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Percentage of U.S. apartments under construction that are unaffordable for those making less that $75,000 a year: 83 Harper's Index, March 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Portion of Americans aged 18 to 34 who live with their parents or other family members: 2/5 Harper's Index, March 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers A study by the Pew Research Center released Thursday found that homeownership rates since the peak in 2004 are down across the board. But while the rate among white households has fallen 5%, it has fallen 16% for African-American households. The rate among households age 65 and up has fallen just 3%, compared with 18% for those younger than 35. Wall Street Journal, December 16, 2016 © 2016 Kwiple.com
Housing 67 percent of markets require at least 30 percent of wages to buy a home headline, PR Newswire, September 26, 2019 © 2019 Kwiple.com
Housing About three-quarters of the US is now “housing unaffordable” for average wage earners. Rana Foroohar, Financial Times, October 6, 2019 © 2019 Kwiple.com
Housing Adorned with gold and marble, it looks like Saddam Hussein went on a shopping spree with Liberace. Edwin Heathcote, on Donald Trump's penthouse apartment at Trump Tower Fifth Avenue, in New York Financial Times, February 17, 2016 © 2016 Kwiple.com
Housing But the fact that a multinational PE [private equity] firm can become the country?s biggest landlord is something that simply doesn?t sit well with a lot of Americans. It illustrates all too starkly how the financial markets seem to exist in in a closed loop of service to themselves. Rana Foroohar, Financial Times, February 13, 2022 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Housing During the boom years, IndyMac charged high interest rates (defined by the government as more than 3 percentage points above prime) to 24 percent of its white borrowers, but 36 percent of Hispanics and 43 percent of African Americans. Aaron Glantz, Homewreckers: How a Gang of Wall Street Kingpins, Hedge Fund Magnates, Crooked Banks and Vulture Capitalists Suckered Millions Out of Their Homes and Demolished the American Dream © 2020 Kwiple.com
Housing Every fucking room here is round. The New Yorkers love this shit. Gil Dezer, developer of the round-roomed Armani Tower and the Bentley, the Porsche Design Tower, and several Trump towers chock full of multi-million dollar apartments replete with such sought-after luxuries as onyx, Turkish steam baths, and Japanese toilets, in Sunny Isles Beach in Miami-Dade County, a.k.a. “Moscow by the Sea” or “Little Moscow” © 2023 Kwiple.com
Housing The fact that some thirtysomethings now own pricey homes in London, New York and San Francisco, despite it  taking the average earner 20 to 30 years to  save up the required deposit in these cities, gives away the open secret of millennial success: substantial parental assistance. Research from property broker Redfin in February showed that 36 per cent of young Americans had financial help from family when buying their first home. Seemingly, home ownership in the US is becoming increasingly hereditary, just as it is in Britain. John Burn-Murdoch, Financial Times, April 12, 2024 © 2024 Kwiple.com
Housing The Fuenteses’ fall from homeownership into housing instability offers a preview of how climate change will affect us over the century to come: It will alter not just where we live, but how we live. Long-term homeownership will become more difficult and more expensive in many places, and many communities will find themselves upended or erased, separating millions of people from the places they call home. By the end of the century, our ideas about what “home” means will have been substantially unsettled. Jack Bittle, New York Times, February 4, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Housing Housing accounted for 23 percent of the average household's total expenditures in 1901, 27 percent in 1950, and nearly 33 percent in 2018, according to data from the United States Consumer Expenditure Survey. Those squarely in the middle of the income distribution spent slightly more, or 34.5 percent. New York Times, October 3, 2019 © 2016 Kwiple.com
Housing Housing units earmarked for low-income residents have virtually no impact on surrounding property values in major U.S. metro areas, according to an analysis of home-price data that that runs counter to the conventional view that such projects cause nearby property values to decline. Wall Street Journal, November 29, 2016 © 2016 Kwiple.com
Housing I wish the rent Was heaven sent. from “Aspiration” by Langston Hughes © 2017 Kwiple.com
Housing If you have a windmill anywhere near your home, congratulations, your house just went down 75 percent in value. And they say the noise causes cancer. Donald Trump © 2019 Kwiple.com
Housing In a typical year,  the country builds more three-car garages than one-bedroom apartments. Dante Ramos, The Atlantic, July/August 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Housing In this booming housing market, many homeowners earned more last year from home appreciation than from their jobs. Zillow Group Inc.’s home value index, which estimates the value of the typical  U.S. home, rose 19.6% in 2021 to $321,634, an increase of $52,667 from 2020. That figure was slightly higher than what the median U.S. full-time worker earned, which was about $50,000 last year before taxes, according to Census Bureau data cited by Zillow. Wall Street Journal, March 17, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Housing More square footage is dedicated to parking each car than to housing each person. Henry Grabar, Paved Paradise: How Parking Explains the World © 2023 Kwiple.com
Housing Queens man evicted — — — — — A 74-year-old Jamaica Estates developer has less than three months left at his current address after Americans overwhelmingly voted him out the White House, the AP projected Saturday. headline and lead, Queens Daily Eagle, November 7, 2020 © 2020 Kwiple.com
Housing Since the early 1970s, the lion's share of national income growth has accrued to the wealthy, who used some their gains to build ever larger houses. The near-wealthy, who travel in the same social circles, also built bigger, and so on down the income ladder. Although median incomes grew little during the past half century, the median new house grew from about 1,500 square feet in 1973 to almost 2,400 square feet today. Without invoking the power of behavioral contagion, it's difficult to explain this change. Robert H. Frank, The Atlantic,  March 2020 © 2020 Kwiple.com
Housing Studies have found that the rich and the poor are more likely than middle class to live in flood zones, and are thus the most likely to be faced with property destruction and a mandate to try to rebuild. Annie Lowery, The Atlantic, December, 2017 [aesthetics of liveing near water vs. affordability of housing] © 2020 Kwiple.com
Housing There is that most ubiquitous of all “luxury features,” a bidet in the master bedroom. There is one of those kitchens which seem designed exclusively for defrosting by microware and compacting trash. It is a house built for a family of snackers. Joan Didion, on “Taj Mahal,” the 8-bedroom, 8-bathroom, 12,000 square feet Governor's mansion built in Carmichael, CA, for Ronald Reagan by his friends, but never lived in by Reagan or any later governor © 2017 Kwiple.com
Housing These are assets, not homes. Thomas Frank, on suburban McMansions © 2018 Kwiple.com
Housing This is what the recovery from the 2008 crash looks like. People scrambling to pay rent for decrepit houses, houses that let everyone cash in except the occupants: the company that bought the home, the investors that financed that company, the bank that securitized the home's debt, the bondholders who bought those securities, and the speculators who make bets on whether the bonds will pay out or not. Francesca Mari, New York Review of Books, June 11, 2020 © 2020 Kwiple.com
Housing Would it have been nicer if we got Osama bin Laden a lot sooner than that, wouldn't it been nice? Living – think of this, living in Pakistan, beautifully in Pakistan and what I guess in what they considered a nice mansion. I don't know, I've seen nicer. Donald Trump © 2018 Kwiple.com
Kwiple dictionary luxury apartment (luk'zha rē ə pärt'mənt), n. An apartment with hot running water and toilets en suite. © 2015 Kwiple.com
Kwiplers say Impose a $10,000 per occurrence fine on renters who advertise or provide rentals of less than thirty days in a multi-family residence if the tenant or owner isn't present © 2016 Kwiple.com
Law Racism and segregation is no longer de jure, but it is still de facto.  Alvin Holmes © 2017 Kwiple.com
Making money the new-fashioned way The buyer who purchased a Manhattan penthouse for a record $50.9 million in early 2014 is relisting the same unit for $70 million … the seller … declined to comment … When the penthouse was sold by the developers for $50.9 million in 2014, it set a record for the most expensive home sale downtown … The apartment … has never been occupied Wall Street Journal, May 22, 2015 © 2015 Kwiple.com
Making money the new-fashioned way 1. Buy a cheap, foreclosed home 2. Conduct a seller-financed home sale 3. Let the tenant make improvements 4. Evict the tenant 5. Go back to Step 2 © 2016 Kwiple.com
Making money the new-fashioned way Buying gobs of foreclosed homes © 2016 Kwiple.com
Making money the new-fashioned way Contract with a developer of luxury apartments to sell it a building restricted for use as a not-for-profit healtcare center for the surrounding poor neighborhood, buy the building saying it will be a nursing home, pay $16.15 milllion to have the deed restrictions removed, then sell it to the developer for $116 million, making a tidy $72 million profit for reducing services to the poor and dumping high-priced housing where it's not wanted © 2016 Kwiple.com
Making money the new-fashioned way Turning your home into a luxury short-term rental property © 2019 Kwiple.com
Markets Demand for low-priced houses grows, so few are built and prices rise; demand for high-priced houses drops, so they're overbuilt and prices fall © 2016 Kwiple.com
Poverty The reason for the disconnect between the actual housing nightmare of the poor and “poverty,” as officially defined, is simple: the official poverty level is still calculated by the archaic method of taking the bare-bones cost of food for a family of a given size and multiplying this number by three. Yet food is relatively inflation-proof, at least as compared with rent. In the 1960s … food accounted for 24 percent of the average family budget … housing 29 percent. In 1999, food … 16 percent … while housing … soared to 37 percent. Barbara Ehrenreich, Nickel and Dimed © 2016 Kwiple.com
Republicans say Cutting funding for rental assistance is change we believe in © 2017 Kwiple.com
Segregation Segregation did this to Gary. When the jobs left, the whites could move, and they did. But we blacks didn't have a choice. They wouldn't let us into their new neighborhoods with the good jobs, or if they let us, we sure as hell couldn't afford it. Then to make it worse, when we looked at the nice houses they left behind, we couldn't buy them because the banks wouldn't lend us money. 78-year-old black Gary, Indiana, resident quoted in The Guardian, March 28, 2017  © 2017 Kwiple.com
Snapshot Bruce Makowsky knew exactly what he wanted: a gigantic photograph of a statuesque blonde clad in a black gown and standing on the trunk of a Rolls-Royce Phantom Drophead, a $500,000 coupe with interiors swathed in Hermès leather. In her hands would be a chainsaw branded with Rolls Royce emblems. Bruce Makowsky portrayed by The Wall Street Journal in an article about megamansions being built in Los Angeles, including his “Billionaire,” a 38,00 square foot, 12 bedroom, $188 million spec home featuring a 40-seat movie theater, crocodile skin-lined elevator, helipad and wall of candy dispensers each several feet tall © 2018 Kwiple.com
Surely you jest Cultish devotion to heated-seat Japanese toilets © 2015 Kwiple.com
Surely you jest Describing a plain roof as “outdoor space” and including it in the townhouse's square footage in real estate ads  © 2017 Kwiple.com
Surely you jest Saying tidying up gives joy © 2015 Kwiple.com
Surely you jest To me it doesn't make sense that somebody spends $250 million on a boat where they spend eight weeks a year, but they're living in a $30 or $40 million house. citation Bruce Makowsky, developer of a $250 million, 38,000-square-foot, 12-bedroom, 21-bathroom spec house featuring $30 million worth of cars and motorcyles, elevators lined with crocodile skin, a seven-person full-time staff, and 125 art installations. Quoted in Wall Street Journal, Jan. 20, 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
Surely you jest Trump Family Wedding Planner to Head New York's Federal Housing Office headline, New York Times, June 16, 2017, announcing the appointment of Lynne Patton, longtime Trump family associate and planner of its golf tournaments and Eric's wedding, to head the New York and New Jersey office of the Department of Housing and Urban Development © 2017 Kwiple.com
z Surely you jest While art collections have long graced great rooms and hallways, some luxury homeowners display cherished pieces in bathrooms. Art lovers say they like the jewel-box effect when vibrant art is featured in small spaces. Wall Street Journal, December 9, 2016, on the best place for a $110,000 Damien Hirst depiction of a diamond-encrusted skull, according to its owners © 2016 Kwiple.com
Tea Partiers say How many of you people want to pay for your neighbor's mortgage that has an extra bathroom and can't pay their bill? Raise their hand. President Obama, are you listening? Rick Santelli, CNBC commentator ranting on Feb. 19, 2009, from the floor of the Chicago Board of Trade against a program to refinance mortgages and help people avoid foreclosure © 2017 Kwiple.com
Wealth inequality  The housing-value gap between households earning more than 200% of their area's median income and other homeowners widened significantly over the decade. In 2010, high-income homeowners held 28% of of all U.S. housing wealth. By 2020, that figure rose to 42.6%. The share of housing wealth held by middle-income households declined to 37.5% in 2020, from 43.8% in 2010. Low-income housing wealth fell to 19.8% in 2020, from 28.2% in 2010. Wall Street Journal, March 9, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Wealth inequality  Full floor condominiums priced from $16,000,000 From an advertisement for 111 West 57th Street, New York City, a 1,438-foot-tall residential middle finger © 2015 Kwiple.com
Wretched excess Home car turntables so you never have to back out of the garage © 2015 Kwiple.com
Wretched excess The home is entering its fifth year of development. When finished this spring, it will be one of the largest private homes in America – 100,000 square feet – and, at an asking price of $500 million, will bill itself as the most expensive as well. The property has 20 bedrooms. … The largest bedroom is a 5,500-square-foot master suite. … The house has a commercial-size beauty salon and a lounge where the walls and ceilings are made of jellyfish acquariams. Asked why, Mr. [Nile] Niami [the developer] shrugged, looking slightly baffled by the line of questioning. “Because it's cool,” he said. New York Times, December 24, 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
Wretched excess  Laundry rooms with disco balls, a sound system and dance floor  © 2016 Kwiple.com
Wretched excess Home theaters with concession stands © 2020 Kwiple.com
Wretched excess A penthouse at the Manhattan megatower 432 Park Avenue is slashing its price by more than 20% to $139 million, according to the listing agents. … [Fawaz] Al Hokair bought the Billionaires' Row penthouse in 2016 for $87.66 million, one of the highest prices ever paid for a New York apartment, records show. The unit has never been lived in; the seller hasn't spent the night there once, [Tai] Alexander [one of the listing agents] said. A representative for Al Hokair declined to comment. Wall Street Journal, May 19, 2023 © 2023Kwiple.com
 
Wretched excess Porsche Design Tower, the new Sunny Isles Beach condo that has attracted worldwide attention for its unique car elevator, has sold a four-level penthouse with a garage for 11 vehicles for $25 million. Dezer Development said the unit totals 9,560 square feet of interior space, making the price equate to $2,615 per square foot. It includes a “car gallery” on the 56th floor where the tower's specially-designed car elevator can transport the vehicles from the ground to the sky-high space. South Florida Business Journal, April 3, 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com