Deep Questions, brooklyn, corcoran group, real estate, grups, hipsters, home buying for hipsters...

Is 'Home Buying For Hipsters' Actually Just For Tools?

hippy%282%29.jpg Like "cool," "hipster" is a multivalent word with no set definition but many different meanings. But from a real estate developers' perspective, if you live in Brooklyn, have read a Jonathan Lethem book or have gone to Studio B, you qualify. Sorry! Even so, no real hipster admits to being one. That's worse than saying you want to be cool. Which makes Home Buying For Hipsters — a monthly real estate advising meet-up with ties to the Corcoran Group — so perplexing. What tool would show up to their event tonight, which is aimed at a demographic no one would acknowledge being a part of?

The "hipsters" who go to Home Buying For Hipsters are probably not hipsters at all, even if Fortress of Solitude totally spoke to them. It may be a Tuesday night, but it's New York in spring. The rooftop garden of the Met is open! Jenna Bush is giving a reading! American Idol is on! Who wants to spend their time hearing about mortgage rates?

Most likely, these "hipsters" aren't actually buying a home themselves. Their parents are. And with bankers uninterested in the skyscrapers on the Williamsburg waterfront and now too broke to afford them anyway, you have to credit the Corcoran Group for going after America's home-owners a second time through their kids. It's like renewing your vows, but with property taxes.

Tonight's Home Buying For Hipsters is being held at Union Pool. Though Union Pool is in Williamsburg (cool) and in a former pool supply store (cred), it is still not hip. It's mostly frequented by people already in the home buying stage, 30-somethings. (Also cougars.)

Home Buying For Hipsters: really Home Buying For Adults. Adults who are still trying to be cool.

(Although— buying a home in this economy may be genuinely edgy. So maybe some real hipsters should try it!)

4:50 PM on Tue Apr 22 2008
By rebecca
2,987 views
26 comments

Comments

mattymcd at 04:56 PM on 04/22/08
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What, is McKibbin for sale or something?
Bell County at 04:59 PM on 04/22/08
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Connectedness Index: 112

Blue States Close.
StabbyFerosh at 05:11 PM on 04/22/08
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How to be a douche 101
Prof. Hipster Doofus, Cosmo Kramer
oneinsixbillion at 05:13 PM on 04/22/08
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Maybe we'll get lucky and this is just a sting to weed out the hipsters from the general population.
StrawBerryShortCake at 05:13 PM on 04/22/08
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pottery for pot heads on the other hand is great!
FitnessMadeSimple at 05:16 PM on 04/22/08
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What kind of poster would a clever person who is in-the-know make to attract hipsters to such a meeting?
StrawBerryShortCake at 05:17 PM on 04/22/08
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Baking for burnouts meets everything other thurs in the same building!
if_i_only_had_a_heart at 05:19 PM on 04/22/08
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hey if parents are gonna be supporting the little greasy bastards they might as well make an investment vs paying rent

i have a friend whose parents bought a 2br apt in college and made her get a roommate and the roommate pretty much paid the mortgage

now that's capitalism -- making the kids get you a tenant and coming out ahead on room and board for college instead of taking out loans

i have to go kill myself now
Clare at 05:30 PM on 04/22/08
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What perfect timing! I just met with a realtor today to buy a condo. If I hadn't already had an anxiety attack today, I'd be having one right now. Thanks, Gawker! So servicey!
JesseJb at 05:30 PM on 04/22/08
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A paragraph in one of those links includes:

"Fun Fact that provides a fictional and somehow functional, yet probably arbitrary anchor: HBfH's age on MySpace is 34."

CouGrrrrreat!
disslexic at 05:30 PM on 04/22/08
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Even the graphics on the posters are completely off key. Are they trying to entice cool cats like Bob Vila? I'm going to call Eve and give her a piece of my mind.
unutterable at 05:31 PM on 04/22/08
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coincidentally (?), one of the owners of union pool was recently featured in the ny times real estate section [www.nytimes.com]

so there you go. it's about time people realized hipsters today are what hippies were in 1973 - passé.
PickleTitsTurner at 05:39 PM on 04/22/08
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Of course there's the other side to this: the secret, smoky back room shennanigans of "Slumlording for Soshes"
FitnessMadeSimple at 05:42 PM on 04/22/08
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I bet they could attract way more hipsters if the flier said:

Home Buying for people who are able to use sideburn combs.
NewMrsAstor at 05:43 PM on 04/22/08
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I bet its packed.
if_i_only_had_a_heart at 05:47 PM on 04/22/08
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@unutterable: and both supported by mumsie and pops
izzodee544 at 05:55 PM on 04/22/08
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@FitnessMadeSimple: free drugs! photos by the cobrasnake.
fileunder at 05:55 PM on 04/22/08
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La petite mort(gage)
Bell County at 06:08 PM on 04/22/08
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@fileunder: A lien and hungry look.
I_Think_Its_A_Pomeranian at 06:13 PM on 04/22/08
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@NewMrsAstor: ...with guys who look like Jason Bateman in "Juno."
htotheomo at 06:40 PM on 04/22/08
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@ rebecca (sic): I wondered why this post seemed familiar:

[gawker.com]
Mike_Jahn at 08:25 PM on 04/22/08
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Is there a chapter on proofing your new home on the L line against drive-by shootings?
ADismalScience at 08:29 PM on 04/22/08
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I'm in the housing market. The NorthEast is very different from most of the rest of America, in that there wasn't the explosion in building and values experienced elsewhere. So it's actually quite competitive! And a pain in the ass.
miss_msry at 07:01 AM on 04/23/08
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@if_i_only_had_a_heart:

I tried to talk my parents into the same scenario while I was in college in the early '70s. They looked at me like I was crazy. Fools.

But, eventually I bought a duplex and had my renters basically pay my mortgage.
dado at 07:45 AM on 04/23/08
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I'm going to get in a Death Cab for Cuties and head the other way.
di at 12:59 PM on 04/30/08
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i'm clearly delayed in responding to this, but that's hysterical. i haven't seen any of these posters around and i live in brooklyn and take the G to lorimer/metropolitan often, for that matter. still, i'm no hipster (or maybe i am and am just denying it), so i'm not the targeted demographic anyway.

doesn't corcoran know that hipsters are dirty, unbathed and pretentious and would never deign to attend one of those monthly meetings? they're also broke. hmm.

but, then again, maybe they're onto something and i should targeting the hipsters, too?

[www.tregny.com]