What is Luxury in terms of an apartment? What qualities... no that may be overreaching... what objects must it contain to be labeled as such?
Having toured a dozen or more buildings and units, it appears the common elements that Luxury apartments have which those that do not mention Luxury are:
1) Washer and Dryer in unit
That's not aiming very high in what is it now, nearly 2010?
Most buildings have front desks and a secure packages room, most have some form of on site workout room... but these are pretty basic as well.
It seems that the lifestyle that they attribute to living in the Luxury building has little to do with the building itself.
The location of most of these buildings are very good - I suppose that can be Luxurious. Close to bars, restaurants, public transportation links (er, that doesn't match with the advertised lifestyle)
I guess to me what makes an apartment Luxurious is 1) it is quiet and 2) it is cheap enough that it only takes a small percentage of my income to live there.
With all of the real estate/credit mess that is still going on, several people I know have bought houses. This brought back memories.
In retrospect I don't fault the house I bought 3.5 years ago (and then sold 1.5 years ago) - it was a unique design, solidly built, on a quiet street, in a quiet neighborhood. However I think I fault my motives. I wasn't ready to live that life, be that committed to a single location. It was an obvious investment (which as I've detailed earlier returned a decent amount, but relatively small annual percentage yeild, of money) but one which consumed a lot of time and made me question what I wanted out of life.
What would make me buy a residence again? It would have to be small for ease of maintenance, cheap to not eat into the travel budget, and not impede a reasonly pedestrian pace of day to day living. Doesn't sound like a recipe for a luxury lifestyle community brochure: small living space, old building, have to walk everywhere - well, depends on the definition of luxury.
As someone who currently lives in a "luxury" apartment, I am wholly convinced that the term is absolutely empty.
ReplyDeleteGood luck with the search!
Thanks for the comment! I just realized I don't get automatic comment notification. Our current apartment would unfortunately be classified as one as well - it has been interesting seeing the variety of people that live here. Given the neighborhood I expected a higher percentage of gelled hair post college types. That demographic does exist, however there are a notable number of older couples with no kids, and even a few families with kids. Our main goal in this move is to get some outside space in a building not under construction for approximately the same money as we're currently paying. It seems possible.
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