Can’t afford a studio apartment in New York? Try shopping for a one-bedroom then.

Get this: Per some estimates, the square footage of studios in some Manhattan neighborhoods is more expensive than that of one-bedroom apartments.

Go figure.

Pulling data from Radar Logic, a real estate data analysis firm, The New York Times reported that studios in the financial district are selling for $1,012, compared with $948 a square foot for one-bedrooms.
“The studio market has been so strong that it sort of counters the underlying axiom of real estate in New York that there’s a premium placed on larger spaces and that one plus one equals two and a half,” Jonathan Miller an executive vice president and the director of research of Radar Logic told the Times.

Demand for studios is stronger and the offer, while slower to pick up, is more diverse, at least when size is considered. Luxury condos have propelled the size of studios that now appeal not only to home buyers, but also to investors, purchasing those pieds-a-terre. The $1million studio is not frowned upon time and again. It has become ordinary (How can I live in this city????). At the (new) Plaza a studio was sold by over $2 million just recently.
Still, there are not so many studios in the market, since buyers have bought neighboring apartments to expand their studios, converting them into bigger apartments.
Yet, in the uber volatile New York real estate market, studios remain a risky choice because “In a really hot market, they will be overvalued on a per-square-foot basis,” Adam Rosen, president of Rose Associates, which develops and manages apartment buildings across the city, told the Times. “But in a soft market, they’re worthless, because everyone who can afford it will shift to a one-bedroom.”

I wish I was somebody like Dae-Hoon Kim, a 29-year-old lawyer and also film student (l love the diverse interests) who just bought a 680-square-foot studio at the Plaza for $1.4 million to live for “just a couple of months,” and make money out of it afterward. It amazes me how buying power can make the same world look so different to from one person to another. “It’s the Plaza Hotel, and the price per square foot was a pretty decent deal, especially considering the name and the location.”

 (Oh Lord! Please forgive him)