Subprime Crisis Hits Those Who Created It
While the merely superrich have been unable to sell or buy homes in the Hamptons for some time now, the mega-rich have continued purchasing giant estates for absurd prices. But as Vanity Fair explains, no more! Now there is precisely one man rich enough to buy a Southhampton property for an insanely inflated price, and he is the man who predicted and bet on the subprime crisis taking the toll it has. Now former Bear Stearns employees are worried about their mortgages, JUST LIKE REAL POOR PEOPLE, and it's all very, very, very sad. Listen to just how sad it is!
"I do have clients who worked at Bear Stearns-husband and wife both worked there," says Lynda Ireland of Prudential Douglas Elliman. "They'd finally found a beautiful home they loved, and they bought it." The house is in Bridgehampton, in the $2 million range. "Now they may have to sell it. They've told me it's not that they're afraid of being foreclosed upon. But they're frightened. They have a big apartment in New York, and they feel they have to choose between New York and out here-they can't carry both. And they have small children, so they want to be in New York for the kids. It's very sad."
We can relate! Since our own recent budget problems, we have been forced to choose between pawning our complete Showtime Pizza animatronic puppet collection or giving up our controlling stake in Dreamworks.
But actually the $20 million and up sector of the market is still doing just fine, thank you, thanks mostly to a man who everyone thought was Tiger Woods but who turned out to be a different guy named "Tiger" and then turned out to perhaps be a shadowy LLC that may actually belong to Tiger Woods. Also Sag Harbor is filled with 100-foot mega-yachts (everything is so mega!), movie stars and James Frey are still hanging out in Amagansett, and various hermits and bloggers have a "colony" in Montauk. Some rich people even have (ironic?) double-wide trailers!
In conclusion, the market is still crashing but we haven't hit the bottom yet but maybe there won't even be a bottom because of Barack Obama but on the other hand the wealthy may just begin burning their giant houses to the ground, which will actually be pretty awesome.