[Aunche]

> But despite the breathtaking views, Schmied says the multi-million-dollar condos were dishearteningly dull

How many new apartments aren't dull? If you're spending $90 million on an apartment, the last thing you would want is for it to be in the style of some architect's avant-garde idea of beauty. If you want to add personality, you hire your own interior designers to find your own aesthetic.

[paxys]

Exactly. Staged apartments are supposed to be dull. Prospective buyers should see a blank canvas, something as neutral and inoffensive as possible. And this applies to all sales, not just new apartments. There's a reason your realtor wants you to move all your stuff out before starting showings, no matter how much you think looking "homely" will help.

[LimaBearz]

I can’t speak for the artist but I find these places quite drab because of the material choice and color. Grey/white marble, satin paint, light flooring, etc all make it dull to me. The problem I see though is to sell a unit at that those asking prices it’s not Home Depot marble or $2/f flooring it’s the crap Davis was sculpted from or whatever. That’s cool and all but yawn…

[JumpCrisscross]

> material choice and color

If you’re buying a $70mm apartment and living in it, you’re renovating it before moving in.

[LimaBearz]

You’d think right?! So why the hell is the same marble used to craft David already in the unit? Why spend so much on finishings if it’s just gonna be redone. That’s part of the 70 million. Feels like rentseeking and waste to me

[JumpCrisscross]

> Why spend so much on finishings if it’s just gonna be redone. That’s part of the 70 million.

Sales.

> Feels like rentseeking and waste to me

It’s wasteful. But it’s not rent seeking [1]. If it makes you feel better, there is a healthy secondary market in New York for these materials.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking

[Scene_Cast2]

A counterpoint - if having style increases the variance of liking the property, then with increased variance, there will be more people who really like the property (and thus be willing to pay more).

[lesdeuxmagots]

in such a niche market, you're better off creating competition among a few bidders, rather than putting off a significant % of the demand and relying on a person really liking the property to bid up the price.

Put another way, 4 people moderately interested in the property will probably yield a higher price than 2 people that are very interested in the property.

This is especially true in luxury real estate, where buyers go in looking to substantially change the property. They expect to bring in their own architects and designers. The staging is just a canvas.

[Broken_Hippo]

Put another way: Compare a newish construction to equally staged houses from yesteryear. Something built in 1918 will probably have wood paned windows and wide trim - and keep these sorts of details around the house. Art nouveau and art deco have their details, even when you stage them to as much of a blank slate as possible. Something from the 70's has some details from them in the construction. Folks still apply their own aesthetic to these places.

These "luxury" apartments do not seem to have things like this. They are missing built-in character, that realistically has nothing to do with the color of the walls or the furniture in the place.

And honestly, even a plain place shows the architect's sense of beauty (or lack thereof).

[sp332]

It's what happens when places are investments, meant to be inoffensive for a broad addressable market. If a house or apartment were made for a rich person to actually live in instead of flipping, it could be more personal. https://medium.com/message/the-american-room-3fce9b2b98c5 (discussion https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8109595)

[Aunche]

If it's an investment anyways, then there's no harm in giving it some artistic flair to give investors something additional to speculate about. I find it far more likely that foreign CEOs are just using it for their the couple weeks a year they spend in NYC when they visit their NYC office.