I always wondered who was buying those penhouse apartments, but what makes this article great is now I also understand how someone can afford to work in the music business:
Buying With Help From Mom and Dad
"LIKE many parents, Madhu and Kishore Agrawal do whatever they can to help their children. For their 25-year-old daughter, Natasha, that help has ranged from sending her through Tufts University to watching her cat, the General, when she traveled to India to visit relatives late last year. Recently, they made the most financially demanding commitment so far: they are putting up most of the money to help her buy a two-bedroom penthouse apartment in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, for $900,000.
Space and privacy will be a big change for Ms. Agrawal, who now lives in a sixth-floor walk-up in Chelsea with three roommates, but it does not come without complications. Or, as some might say, strings.
In exchange for getting financial help from her parents, there are certain things she knows she cannot do: for instance, she cannot let her boyfriend move in. She accepts that. More contentious is the matter of the couches she bought from a thrift store.
Ms. Agrawal says the couches will be moving with her, because they will blend with the deep greens, yellows and oranges that she plans as the color themes for the new apartment. “I’m not ready to give in,” she said while seated in a SoHo cafe during a break from her job, working in the promotions department at an independent music label. “It’s not like me having furniture I like will depreciate the value of the house".”