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Just say that you love the property but you are unemployed and so can't purchase. Make yourself appear unqualified to purchase. The don't care about interest, but ability to write a check that won't bounce.

Thanks for all the feedback and comments. Really getting me to think. A few more comments: (1) NYC was ranked #10 in Money Mag's recent Best Places issue. (So there. :)) (2) A good portion of our extended family has moved to NY-metro (Westchester, etc.) since we moved here 8 years ago. This...

Average Manhattan 2 bed price is about 1.2 mill. Prices are not going down at present.

Congrats!!

Well, the feedback has been different from what I expected to get. I thought a "retire early" forum would generally say "go for it!" But instead the majority of posters (not all, but a majority) so far have confirmed the viewpoint that the cultural density and variety of NYC is not easy to...

Housing in NYC is surprisingly still strong. Listings are up, but no one is selling except at high prices. Unless people have to sell quickly, they are still getting their price. All new construction is at tippy top dollar - 1500 a sq ft at minimum.

A few more comments: Upper Hundreds = 500k to 1 mill a year.   I am not asking for sympathy, but just assume that my job involves long hours, significant random stress, and is boring to boot.   Moreover, if I quit, I would never be re-hired at a similar position, income-wise.  I get paid the...

Has anyone taken the home equity from their expensive big city real estate and used it to retire early to a smaller, lower-cost of living town? What are your experiences? Did you like it or regret it? I am 39. If I took my NYC home equity plus savings I could retire to a smaller town...

One more bump and then I'll finalize the results. At present 70% LBYM, 20% pension, 10% financial windfall (inheritance, stock options, etc.)

There are programs where you can exchange your home for a few weeks to a few months with someone else in another city. This would save on vacation costs. Does anybody have any experiences with these sort of programs?

Not to retire, but for a vacation. Anyplace you liked/didn't like?

by Juliet Schor, Harvard economist Anyone else read this?

Bump. We are getting some interesting results. Saving is the clear winner, followed a distant second by pension. Only 2 got a financial windfall. I'll keep this unscientific poll open a while longer. :)

The one problem with this is that the high-tax states (Cali and NY) are also where it is easier to make big incomes and get big house appreciation. Sure if I could make big bucks in Wyoming it would be fine, but it is easiest to make a big income in NY or Cali. Where are the millionaires? In NY...

Please also add the age at which you retired. Thanks - NYC

I've lurked these boards for about a month or so, and it seems that there are several ways people ER. This is a very informal survey, please add any observations you may have. Definitions: Ultra Early Retirement - retire before 30 Extremely Early Retirement - retire before 40...

Notth - Of course, here is the latest editorial in the JUne 18th edition of the Economist: "We have been warning for some time that the price of houseing was rising at an alarming rate all around the globe, including in America. Mow that others have noticed as well, the day of reckoning is...

Sparky - Does no prescription coverage also apply to chemo or cancer drugs, or just to regular medications like antibiotics or Lipitor? Also, if one doesn't have a union plan, how would one cut down the cost of buying the drugs? Do some pharmacies negotiate, for example? Thx.

How do I contact them for information? Just call BC/BS and buy direct? Sorry to be so dense, I've always worked for large companies.

I checked ehealthinsurance.com and found a full-boat plan for a family of 3 for about 900 a month in my state. I wanted to research high-deductible policies (say with a 10k deductible a year) just to insure us against medical catastrophes, not against normal medical expenses. Has anyone...

I've also lost money on real estate. The first house I bought was in a new townhome development in the midwest. Maybe 95k or so. The trouble was that there was endless farmland around it, and a new developer could just buy another farm and put up more mushroom houses. When we had to sell...

Notth - Good points. But of course a one-bedroom on the Upper West Side is about 4-600k, not 3 mill. Metro-NY real estate should go up and down in synch. Sometimes the burbs go up a bit more, then the city catches up and pulls ahead, then the burbs do better. You can have a Victorian mansion...

Logically, it seems like a RE "bubble", but prices are still determined by supply and demand, and here in NYC, there is little supply and lots of demand. Unless NYC becomes an unattractive place to live, I don't see this changing. We bought our 2 bed co-op in October 2001, after about a 15%...

Here: http://www.theonion.com/news/index.php?issue=4124&n=1