Williamsburg RE tanks as Trustafarians lose parental income

This, is taking place largely on the North Side of W'Burg.

I was clearly born into the worng family.

Sure my family left me things....
High Blood pressure
Diabeties
Male pattern baldness (thanks grandpa)

How could I ever thank them enough?

did I mention green with envy?

"40 percent of the mortgage applications he reviewed for buyers in Williamsburg included down-payment money, from $50,000 to $300,000, from parents"

Where were those folks who talked about "diversity" in Williamsburg again?

10022, if you define "diversity" as gifts ranging from $50k (poor) to $300k (rich), I'd say you have a well-diversified bunch of trust babies.

Williamsburg have the biggest bunch of yuppies. You can tell most of these folks never had a job.

RE: Williamsburg have the biggest bunch of yuppies.

Yuppie = Young Urban Professional -- by definition, yuppies are employed (typically well-employed!)

They are SLACKERS, not yuppies!

thank you West34, I was going to post the same thing.

anyway, maybe professionals are replacing the slackers, which is fine by me.

More like hippies and bums, definitely NOT yuppies. LOL!

Good one, evnyc. I've been wondering for a while when this would hit, not just in WB, but in any "young, hip" neighborhood. I've been to too many open houses where some clueless late-teen/early 20-something is staring at her shoes while mom and dad schmooze with the broker.

http://www.brownstoner.com/brownstoner/archives/2009/06/dose_of_reality.php

What is the meaning of this stupid video?

http://curbed.com/archives/2009/06/08/williamsburg_armageddon_parents_pull_plug_on_financial_aid.php

"Where were those folks who talked about "diversity" in Williamsburg again?"

How is financial assistance a marker of diversity (especially varying degrees of assistance)? It says nothing about race, age, gender, and interests. tenemental is right - this is certainly happening throughout the city.

I must say I feel ridiculously vindicated by that article. This feeling is quickly leading towards smugness.

mmarquez,

Don't feel that way.

mmarquez10: how do you feel vindicated? because you've settled on Harlem? or because you're a boot-strapper? you're new on SE, but i haven't seen any posts that would lead me to believe you'd be a Williamsburg hater. BTW, I used to live at 145th and after getting mugged one night, the stitches experience I had in the Harlem Hospital Emergency Room made me conclude that if I ever needed medical attention, I would not go there if at all possible.)

10022: I think Williamsburg, taken as a whole (north, south and east sides) is one of the most successfully integrated and diverse communities on the planet. Old Italians and Poles, Hispanic and Black, Hasidim and JAP, professionals, artists, working class, bums and hippies of all incomes. Any parents (who can presumably afford it) investing/gifting down payments are helping support the low-income people living at Northside Piers and/or helping keep rents down. The RE market isn't pretty right now, but I think the people who are buying here are pretty diverse, at least as much so as buyers anywhere south of 96th st.

evnyc: funny, yet truthy

mutombonyc: the video might be the curbed guys making fun of the lameness of supposedly "williamsburg trustafarian" creative output.

bjw: keep fightin the good fight

general thought on nytimes article and reader comments: bad journalism, but got people talking.

my take:

most people don't like the oppressiveness of work, yet many (lucky) people find satisfying work.

the rich often avoid it because they can, compromising their ability to find satisfying work. they often fail to appreciate their opportunities and realize their potential. their failure to be happy or do satisfying work is all the more tragic because of the missed opportunities, but it's hard to feel sorry for them, especially when they're driving up RE prices.

the bootstrappers often resent people who don't work, but many bootstrappers realize that life isn't fair and that just because they worked hard doesn't necessarily make everyone who worked less hard than them morally bankrupt or a lesser person. even if trustafarians drive up rents as a group, individually they probably have no ill will.

some people succeed despite coming from money. some people succeed despite lack of support from family. to the extent that this article rings true, it's because it's hit on something that's true of New York and America and Civilization, not just of Williamsburg.

OK. But the article still makes me happy. And it would make me just as happy if they said Jersey City, Hoboken, harlem, the UWS, UES, Chelsea, Prospect Heights, Manahattan Beach, the Marina District, North Shore, South Beach, Georgetown....

If you like more "blue-collar" stories of comeuppance, here's one you might enjoy...

http://portraitsofaneconomy.blogspot.com/2009/02/portrait-northern-new-jersey.html

I notice you left your presumed home, the FiDi, off that list. Wouldn't it also make you happy that some bankers and traders can no longer afford down payments too? Or maybe you'd only enjoy sob-stories about FiDi buyers who get help from their families?

@djradon - I understand I am not known that well on this board and have not been posting for long. I came from a somewhat privileged background but I have always worked hard in my life, and will continue to do so. Sure my childhood was better than others, but a hard work ethic was instilled by my parents.
The vast majority of us work to live, and those of us that are very lucky, feel like our jobs make a difference. Those hipsters who live in Williamsburg and don't need to work, and don't do anything productive, as far as I'm concerned, they are just a waste of space. Volunteer, mentor some poor kids, put that education to use. I went to college with far too many of them and have seen it up close. Most of them are not hippies, and they never will be. Individually I don't bear them any ill will, but for god's sakes, do something productive with your live, don't just bum around spending your parents' money.

Fidi would make me happy too. Very happy indeed.

jason, why are you so happy?

@djradon There is a large difference between the ppl discussed in the article and the blog post that you're linking to.

"Individually I don't bear them any ill will, but for god's sakes, do something productive with your live, don't just bum around spending your parents' money."

I agree with the sentiment mmarquez110, but I have to question how many people this really applies to. It may be a product of the circles I travel in, but I just don't see as much of this as some people. Of course there are "slackers" and people living off their parents (and I saw plenty of this while living in Manhattan as well), but Williamsburg, and Brooklyn in general, have also seen a strong contingent of young and successful entrepreneurs - there was this NYT article a few months ago about this trend, mostly in the food business (Mast chocolate, the Marlow guys, etc.): http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/25/dining/25brooklyn.html.

Say what you will, the article makes me happy too. There's long been a problem with the price of real estate in nyc to the incomes generated here (and I work in finance). The numbers haven't made sense. I also happen to know quite a lot of people living in lala land b/c mum and dad are paying their bills (continues on their entire life..30s, 40s). It's another ingredient in the asset bubble, and good riddance to it's departure. Of course, we'll always have family money in ny, but it shouldn't be so prolific that it forces the middle/upper-middle classes out -- that's not good for the city.

What s/he said.

And schadenfreude.

"It's another ingredient in the asset bubble, and good riddance to it's departure."

Absolutely. As I mentioned above, I've been to a bunch of open houses where my "competition" looked to be about 19, being towed around by well-heeled parents.

I think in future decades we're going to look back on the 00s as the 'entitlement generation.' What happened to a young person saying "my parents worked hard for me, i'll take the opportunities, work just as hard and have it even better." Now it seems like "my parents have money, that'll make things easier for me." I know there have always been spoiled ingrates, and maybe I'm just more sensitive to it as I get older, but it does seem to have become a mighty trend.

Yes, it's a disease that was termed "affluenza", and articles cited such charmers as universities that now *have* to build apartment-style housing that's ALL singles, because so few college-bound children grew up sharing a room with a sibling, and "can't" start at 18.

If the bubble hadn't burst when it did, another couple of years probably would've brought university residence halls with little servants' rooms nearby, so that the students could bring along their own valets (as in the Gilded Age).

@bjw2103 I certainly know some of some people who, but I don't know how much of Wburg really consists of this. It will be good for these creative people to work to have to make it on their own. Unless they decide to move back home with their parents.

Geez, even when Iiii went to college (and at a state school) the sororities all had cleaning crews and cooks and such...and even the fraternities all had cooks.

"10022, if you define "diversity" as gifts ranging from $50k (poor) to $300k (rich), I'd say you have a well-diversified bunch of trust babies. "

LOL.

"10022: I think Williamsburg, taken as a whole (north, south and east sides) is one of the most successfully integrated and diverse communities on the planet"

IMHO a nice neighborhood next to the projects for instance isn't "diverse" simply because of proximity. You could be talking about extremely non diverse pockets near each other with little interaction. I don't consider that diversity at all... just like you couldn't "average in" east and west germany.

The average American has one tit and one ball....