Booming Manhattan Pieds-À-Terre: Driving Out Middle Class And Reducing City's Vitality

"Donald Trump says that more than half the condo owners at his buildings on Central Park West and Park Avenue are part-timers. These people "may not even know the address" of their New York holdings, says Mr. Trump, but "they'd still rather own a place in New York than schlep to a hotel."

"But the occasional occupants are troubling to some full-time residents, who say their buildings are left depressingly hollow. And the popularity of the costly apartments helps boost Manhattan prices for everyone, draining away developers' interest in erecting middle-class buildings on the city's few available parcels and making one of the world's most expensive real-estate markets even more forbidding to average buyers."

"To have so many apartments sitting empty when there is an affordable-housing crisis in New York City raises a "political question," says Mitchell Duneier, a professor of urban sociology at Princeton University."

"In general, these part-time residents aren't speculators angling to make a quick profit by flipping their units. Instead, they view Manhattan property as an excellent asset, especially since it has largely escaped the real-estate downturn that has hit much of the country."

"The rise in absentee owners worries some Manhattan residents and urban-affairs experts, who say too many out-of-towners can sap the vitality out of buildings. "It deadens the whole neighborhood," says society decorator Keith Irvine, a long-time Upper East Side resident. "You sometimes get a sense that whole streets are deserted."

"Mr. Duneier of Princeton and others believe Manhattan's building boom over the past few years is contributing to the rise in wealthy part-time residents. Developers completed more than 4,506 condo units in Manhattan between 2001 and 2003, compared with 2,167 in the prior three-year period, according to the Real Estate Board of New York. Because the bulk of these units target the upper end, which often attracts out-of-town investors, many buyers in the middle are being priced out…Cooperative buildings -- the most prevalent form of apartment ownership in Manhattan -- rarely allow absentee owners."

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