Luxury home sales soar CNN/Money

[flygal]

http://money.cnn.com/2004/11/19/real_estate/mil_life/luxuryhomesales/index.htm

snip

BEND, Ore. (CNN/Money) – Consumer confidence has sagged for five consecutive months. Yet the wealthiest Americans are spending with gusto.

Luxury car sales are up this year, even while U.S. car sales overall are essentially flat. Yacht makers are backlogged, private jet companies are booked, and cash registers are humming at high-priced boutiques.

This all comes as no surprise to Nikki Field, senior vice president of Sotheby's International Realty in Manhattan.

"Our market for property over $10 million is phenomenal," she said. "This quarter will end strong and next quarter will be even stronger."

[Nevernose]

1. This will make me richer, right?

After all, that's why I vote Republican.

[flygal]

2. My repug inlaws used to have a poster over their bed of a woman

in jodpurs leaning against a rolls royce and it said "poverty sucks". They didn't have two dimes to rub together and made horrible financial mistakes - but they bought into the 80's excess. So tacky. Such wanna bees :puke:

[Hieronymus]

5. There are plenty of ignorant cons..............

who think it's going to make them rich. Poor sods.:silly:

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

11. As long as you come up with a business that caters to the wealthiest

Americans, sure. I am starting a grape peeling business for upscale people too busy to peel their own grapes while they browse through high end brochures desperately seeking some product they don't already own.

[SleeplessinSoCal]

3. Did those overtime cuts help?

The thread on the block of overturning the rule on overtime cuts is a perfect follow-up to this story on yachts and private jets - burning fossil fuel I might add by the tons).

Yup. Welcome to our new Gilded Age - abject poverty and all.

[Bozita]

7. That thread should be locked together with this one

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1014905

BTW, welcome to DU.

[Bozita]

4. "A rising tide lifts only some of the boats" -- old adage adapted ...

... for today's America

[lastliberalintexas]

15. And drowns the rest of us

:hi:

[CityDem]

17. Our middle class tax cuts hard at work

I am sure the millions of people who received middle class tax cuts are on the waiting list at Gulfstream for a new jet.

[Dover]

6. So 2% of the country is thriving.......that makes for a healthy economy

according to the GOP. Of course who needs American consumers when you can sell to some other third world country.

[LeighAnn]

8. Good cheap homes for our grandkids

Some of the cheapest rent where I live is in a run-down neighborhood that 80 years ago was a neighborhood where the wealthies all lived and looked down on regular people. If only they could see it now!

These luxury homes will no doubt go the same way, offering cheap (but neat!) housing to our descendants, which is the least we can do seeings how we cheated them out of an environment, and whatnot.

[saigon68]

9. I'm glad those mexicans work at my packing plant

That way I can buy some new polo ponies.

[GoBlue]

10. Your tax dollars at work

AKA Trickle down (piss on you) economics

[Tracer]

12. There's not a new home in my town ...

... that's under $1,000,000. And they are selling.

When visitors to my (small) home comment on the McMansionization, I tell them that I believe that these monstro-homes of today are tomorrow's 3-families.

[RivetJoint]

14. What town?

[Kathy in Cambridge]

20. 1 million doesn't buy you much in the immediate Boston area

How 'bout this nice rehab in Brookline?


Opportunity knocks! Rehab, add 2nd floor or demolish! 3br, 2ba slab contemporary on 1/4 acre lot in Olde Chestnut Hill. Large EIK, step down den with built ins, vaulted ceilings. Convenient to Heath School, T, Rte 9

[hippiegranny]

21. this is selling for

$1,000,000? damn...

[On the Road]

16. That's Right -- That's What Will Happen to Them

Just like all those gigantic 1890's townhouses that were converted to rooming houses during the depression. Tons of 'em in Baltimore.

[cliss]

13. This reminds me of the US around 1910.

It was an era of unprecedented wealth. The money was concentrated in just a few hands.

And we all know what happened, only 19 years later....1929.

[Blue_Tires]

18. more vipers,bimmers, etc for the rich

what else is new?

[ckramer]

19. Here is the reason why

Harvard pays 2 top money managers $25m

The rich get richer, the poor get poorer.