Wealthy New Yorkers are buying second apartments to use as offices
Key Points
- Rich New Yorkers are buying or renting second apartments in the city for more space, The New York Post’s Zachary Kussin reported.
- The second apartments help them separate life from work in a remote world.
- Other urban dwellers are taking advantage of the sharing economy, renting out apartments or hotels by the hour or day for an escape from home.
Many wealthy New Yorkers fled the city for their vacation homes when the pandemic struck.
But those who stayed behind are renting out or buying second apartments for more space, The New York Post’s Zachary Kussin reported. He spoke with several New York City residents who found a work-life balance hard to come by while working remotely. They told him a second apartment acts as an office to create that needed separation – and a getaway after spending too much time with their loved ones.
Apartments overlooking New York's Central Park. iStock
They’re paying anywhere from a $US2100 ($2900) a month in rent for a 450-square-foot (41sq m) studio in Manhattan to a $US195,000 contract for studio co-op in Queens.
While some are renting apartments in the same building a few floors down or buying a place in the same neighbourhood, Kussin wrote, some are buying the apartment next door with plans to combine it with their current apartment.
Ariel Moses, a 34-year-old communications professional, is doing just that. “I’m working in my bedroom right now and it’s not productive,” she told Kussin. “I need to maintain some decorum in some sense, and some professionalism.”
Citygoers also use shared services
But renting or buying a second apartment in the city isn’t the only way urban dwellers are taking a breath of air from cramped quarters.
Others are turning to new services for an escape, such as the day rates mainstream hotels are now offering to cooped-up individuals. While renting a motel by the hour isn’t a new concept, this move has made it more socially acceptable.
Many big hotel brands, from Marriott to Sheraton, have created daily office packages for parents looking for a calm, childless workspace, reported The New York Post’s Lisa Fickenscher. Hilton’s Cincinnati Netherland Plaza hotel, for example, is offering guests a room from 8am to 8pm for $US69.
There’s also Globe, an app launched in 2019 that offers short-term apartment and home rentals by the hour. The platform has had an uptick in demand since the pandemic began in March, CEO Manny Bamfo told USA Today’s David Oliver. Users include everyone from essential workers looking for breaks during the workday to non-essential workers looking for a reprieve from those they’re stuck at home with, according to Bamfo.
Brittney Gwynn told The New York Times she used Globe to book a vacant apartment in Brooklyn for two hours at a $US50 hourly rate to take a break from the boyfriend she’d been quarantining with. “We’re getting on each other’s nerves,” she said.
This story first appeared in Business Insider. Read it here or follow BusinessInsider Australia on Facebook.
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