Hi<BR><BR>Parts of my family will be in NYC for a week from 16 September. So I'm looking for recommendations to house five people (three adults plus two teenagers). They did have a 'firm' Internet booking at Radio City Apartments, but it has fallen through. They are now looking at Belleclaire, however it is near 77th St and Broadway, and the room config is not quite as good. They would prefer to be nearish to Midtown or Times Square, but if they could find a suitable hotel further Downtown (my recommendation) they would certainly consider it. Budget about $US400 per night - but it could be two rooms at $US200, or even three at $US150, or whatever. One apartment would be preferred if possible, I guess, but adjacent rooms okay as well. Cooking facilities not essential, but handy of course.<BR><BR>Any ideas for mid-range recommended hotels or apartments, broadly Midtown/Times Square maybe, and near the subway? Boutique or mainstream bland - they're not too fussy. Or any relevant pointers to FAQs or related threads would be good. Have done a search as well - hard to pick key information on housing five, out of the threads.<BR><BR>Thanks for any input.
Check the Affinia hotels in New York. They're not cheap but they are very nice. Converted apartments. They have some two-bedroom apartments, which along with the sofa bed in the living room ought to be enough for your group. They come with a complete kitchen.
Thanks Willy - very, very nice indeed. Might be somewhat upscale for the travelling family though, unfortunately.
Did you check all of their properties? Maybe I'm wrong, but I thought some might be cheaper than others. I've got to tell you that hotel rates have gone absoutely out of sight in New York over the past couple years. It's the real estate boom. Several thousand rooms got converted into condos, so the supply has shrunk.
Holy cow, Ian, I just went and checked their site. I don't shock too easily but I was shocked. In the late 1980s I often stayed at the Affinia Dumont for weekend rates ranging from $99 a night to $125 a night + tax. During the week, they'd go up to $130-$175. Now they're getting $414 a night. To be fair, they've pretty extensively refurbished them, but not that much. Amazing. I'm going to have to stop mentioning Affinia here.
I should say that I was there in the summer of '05 and paid rates close to what they're charging on the site, but I guess the reality hadn't really sunk in. Wow.
<blockquote>Quote<br><hr>but I guess the reality hadn't really sunk in<hr></blockquote>Doesn't that drive the whole housing bubble Willy? Not just the US - here too brother!
Funny thing is that the reality sinking in about New York hotel rates is going to do the trick, and I think fairly soon. They've probably got another year of sky-high rates, but I'm going to be surprised if things aren't a lot more normal by the end of 2008.
It's all a function of the real estate boom, which was driven by the U.S. Federal Reserve having flooded the economy with money after 9/11. That can only go so far, and now we're seeing it come back down. It's interesting to watch it happen, because this one has been ever crazier than the stock market was in the late '90s.
Like then, you've had a whole lot of forces trying desperately to keep it going. Now they're in full damage control mode, trying to convince people that's it's only a temporary decline. But we're so overbuilt that I think it's going to be more than temporary. Real estate moves in slow cycles because you don't have the level of turnover that you do with stock. It's going to be a relentless grind, and it'll have big consequences.
The construction industry is starting to be in trouble, and pretty soon they'll be talking about a lot of associated businesses like home furnishings. But that's small compared to what it's going to do to the banks. The last time this happened was in commercial real estate back in the 1980s, and I can tell you that the financial system was much, much shakier in about 1990 than it looked to the average person. It's all going to happen again.
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