Chinese Mother Buys $6.5 Million Condo for 2-Year-Old Daughter
Talk about preparing for the future. A Chinese woman reportedly
bought a $6.5 million Manhattan condo for her daughter – who is now 2 years old
– according to China's state TV, CCTV.
The lucky toddler’s new condo is in the Park Hyatt-managed One57 tower, currently under
construction. The building, at 157 W. 57th Street, will be one of New York's
tallest skyscrapers when finished in 2013 at a height of 1,004 feet. The
residences will sit atop the Park Hyatt hotel with floor-to-ceiling windows,
high-end appliances and hotel amenities. One57 made headlines last October when
Hurricane Sandy caused damage to a construction crane on the building, blocking
access to the
street for several days.
Kevin Brown, a senior vice president at Sotheby’s International Realty, told CCTV that he helped the woman look at various apartments
in the city and asked why she was buying. “And she said, well, her daughter was
going to go to Columbia, or NYU, or maybe Harvard so she needed to be in the
center of the city and that was why she was picking this one particular
apartment,” Brown told CCTV. When she said her daughter was only two years old,
Brown was shocked, he told CCTV. Both Sotheby’s and Brown declined to comment
about the sale.
The mother’s identity is unknown, but The Telegraph writes that many on the Chinese social
network Weibo are speculating that she must be the wife of or related to a
corrupt government official.
Needless to say, the daughter’s all set for housing for around 2029 when
she’ll likely start freshman classes. (And no sharing a bathroom for her!)
Although, if she ends up going to Harvard, that’s going to be a long commute—at
least a 4-hour bus ride from Manhattan each way.
Extell Development Co.
The residents will have access to VIP concierge and doorman services, fantastic views of the city, a performance room, an indoor pool and much more.
Surely, parents financing their children’s New York lifestyle isn’t a new
phenomenon, but this case is no doubt an outlier. The U.S. real estate market
has been attracting foreign investors, particularly Asian buyers, for years,
especially since the housing crisis.
Residential international sales in the U.S. totaled $82.5 billion in the year
ending in March 2012, according to the National Association of Realtors’ latest data
available. That figure was up about 24% from $66.4 billion in 2011.
Specifically, 4% of total international sales are in New York, and Florida has
the highest number with 26% of sales.
Global commercial real estate investors also named New York as the top city
to invest in, according to an annual survey by the Association of Foreign Investors in Real
Estate. For the first time in 12 years, four of the top five cities were in the
U.S., indicating a better view of the U.S. economy and real estate compared to
prior years.
Foreign buyers come from everywhere, but China, Canada, Mexico, India and the
UK account for 55% of all international transactions. In 2012, Canada accounted
for 24% of the sales, and China accounted for 11%. Real-estate agencies have
been appealing to the Chinese market by hiring Mandarin-speaking agents, and
some developers are placing their top units on “lucky” floors, such as Apartment
88 at One57, according to a WSJ report. (The number 8 is considered lucky in Chinese
culture.)
More Photos of One57
Extell Development Co.
Extell Development Co.
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