Manhattan landlords now charge $100,000 per month for luxury rentals. That's not a typo. That's not an annual figure someone accidentally divided by twelve. That's the monthly rent.
Brokers report a surge in wealthy renters driving prices to record highs. These are people who look at a six-figure monthly housing bill and think "seems reasonable." They're not buying. They're renting. Buying would imply they plan to stay in one place long enough to justify the transaction costs, and commitment is for people who check their bank balance before dinner.
The technical analysis here is bulletproof. Draw a line from zero to $100,000. That line goes up. Bullish signal for landlords. Bearish signal for anyone who thought their finance degree might one day afford them a Manhattan studio.
You're grinding out risk-adjusted returns on your three-share Robinhood portfolio. Calculating Sharpe ratios. Backtesting momentum strategies. Reading Bloomberg at 6 AM because you think information gives you an edge. Some guy just signed a lease that costs more per month than you'll make this year. He didn't read a single earnings report before doing it. He doesn't know what EBITDA stands for. He doesn't care.
The market rewards capital allocation efficiency, they told you. Work hard and deploy your savings wisely, they said. Nobody mentioned that the game was designed by people who spend your annual salary on rent every six weeks and still have enough left over to complain about the service at Cipriani.
Your technical indicators can't chart the spread between what you earn and what these people spend on climate-controlled shoe closets.
Photo by Pedro Farto on Unsplash
Leave a Comment