Manhattan Housing Datapoint of the Day

My latest column at Spectator Business is up online:

New York, one would think, is being hit by a double whammy: monster job losses on Wall Street, combined with the deepest nationwide housing recession since the Great Depression. Given that Wall Street professionals tend to be the marginal price-setters in the Manhattan housing market (everybody else has been priced out to Brooklyn or beyond), how can New York real estate still be setting new records?

I also do some back-of-the-envelope calculations about this apartment:

You can fit seven £50 notes into a square foot, which means that at current exchange rates a square foot of £50 notes is worth $690, and that the asking price for Dr Rosenwald’s apartment is equivalent to covering its floors in 22-deep wads of £50 notes.

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