Guess what? Apparently this whole Internets thing is having a broad impact on how today’s twenty- and thirty-somethings go about buying an apartment. Daniel and Luciana Hyman, above, did online research on more than a hundred buildings in Manhattan before settling on a $875,000 two-bedroom co-op in Midtown. That sounds like nothing in comparison to the page-and-a-half financial analsyis that one young Goldman Sachs banker submitted with her bid in an effort to convince the developer to accept her 11-percent-below-offer bid. (He didn’t.) We’re more comfortable with taking on debt and paying tomorrow, Mr. Hyman said, displaying the kind of blind optimism that seems to characterize many buyers today. If the cards topple, you can rent your place out and go somewhere cheaper. Or, if you are among the 65 percent of first-time home buyers that finance more than 95 percent of the purchase, maybe you shouldn’t be too worried. You can always walk away from your small deposit if the market crashes, right?
Young Buyers, Prepared and Fearless [NY Times]