Word: condos
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...guys I came out with from New York) would be a little perplexed, but I could figure out an excuse and leave a note at the condo before I left. When I got home I could send out a preemptive e-mail to everyone whom I (stupidly) had told about the trip. My wife knows me well enough, she wouldn't say a word, she'd just let me sleep it off. Nobody really cares about biathlon anyway. I could make up whatever I want.... Say that I did really well. They wouldn't even be able to find...
...Blairs are among 75 owners and 12 prospective buyers lined up for condos priced from $2 million to $6.8 million. In the bigger picture, though, they are part of a well-heeled, spending-friendly stratum of society that marketers circle like cats at a sushi bar, proffering exclusive riding clubs in the West or 400-year-old farmhouses in Italy. The minimum net worth for the World's condo buyers is $5 million, an elite group that marketers call "penta-millionaires." The niche might seem rarefied, but data issued in February by the Spectrem Group estimate that...
This being real life, however, there is also a bill: annual condo fees are about 6% of the purchase price, which works out to more than $400,000 a year for top-priced units...
...creator of the World is Knut Kloster Jr., a cruise-industry veteran whose father founded what is now Norwegian Cruise Line. Kloster originally planned a ship with 286 condos and 183 hotel rooms. After scaling back, he was able to attract investors, including the Continental Casualty Co., a subsidiary of Chicago-based insurance giant CNA Financial Corp. But to persuade penta-millionaires to buy, ResidenSea assembled a cadre of credible associates, including its blue-chip investor Silversea Cruises, which will manage maritime and hotel operations. ResidenSea also marketed through sophisticated make-believe. Inside a factory near Vienna, the company built...
ResidenSea had planned all along to launch three such ships and, after its success with the World, has already ordered the second. The company expects to complete financing later this year, using many of the same investors. The World's condo buyers are proof that if you build a floating town, they will come. But will they stay? Industry insiders say that granting residents ownership creates potential friction with ship operators. Others foresee an inevitable shake-out as passengers shun certain amenities or even one another. Andy Vladimir, co-author of Selling the Sea: An Inside Look at the Cruise...