Residences

Once upon a time, there were "apartment houses", which soon got shortened to apartments. In England, we have flats. Sometimes, when people start talking in real-estate jargon, you might hear about condos and co-ops and duplexes and other such arcana.

But if you're selling a luxury condominium development these days, you don't call it a luxury condo. (Everything is luxury, these days.) Instead, you call the apartments "residences". Or, better yet, "The Residences at [enter name of development here]".

It's weird. For me, at least, "residences" connotes dingy housing for old people, or dingier university dorms. But suddenly it seems to have acquired a parallel, ultra-upscale connotation. It'll be interesting to see (a) how long the "residences" fad lasts, and (b) how long it will be before crappy rental buildings get in on the game and essentially every new development starts carrying the tag.

Posted by Felix at 15:52 EST