Teens and preteens are becoming savvy connoisseurs of New York real estate.
“They choose where they and their parents are going to have dinner or where they’re going to go on vacation,” Stuart Moss, an associate broker at Corcoran, told the New York Times. “So why shouldn’t it extend to where they’re going to spend several million dollars for a residence?”
One reason why more kids are calling the shots when it comes to condo hunting in New York these days is perhaps because they’re so comfortable with the Internet. Or perhaps it’s because they’re lured by online images of condo amenities like an indoor pool or a children’s playroom or because they’re fans of “Million Dollar Listing New York” on Bravo.
Or maybe it’s just because it’s become business as usual for children in certain precincts of Manhattan to participate in family decisions.
Bonnie Hut Yaseen, an associate broker at Fox Residential, said that she is “seeing this trend where parents are coming in to look at my listings and proudly announcing that it was their son or daughter who found it.”
Yaseen said that in the past, children saw their homes-to-be only when it was time for the parents to assign them their bedrooms. “Now, in some cases, the kids are coming on the first visit to an apartment because they want to know if it’s as good in reality as it looked online,” she said. “They’ll sometimes be there with paperwork, with a printout from a website.”
Brokers told the Times that kids’ real estate knowledge can be quite granular.
“We had one teenager who knew the specifics of our floor plans. He knew that the C line apartments are 2,296 square feet and that the L units are 2,277,” said Justin D’Adamo, the managing director of Corcoran Sunshine, the marketing and sales team for River & Warren, a condominium development in Battery Park City. “He told his mother that the C line would be better because of his baby grand piano.” [NYT] – TRD