The Economics Of Vanity Addresses

December 30, 2014 in Daily Bulletin

432 Park Avenue in New York City, at 426 meters, is the tallest residential building in the world. It’s become notorious for its high prices; the cheapest two bedroom unit costs $17 million. Because of this and other factors the address ‘432 Park Avenue’ has become a buzzword in the city but people trying to find the entrance of the building are wasting their time walking along Park Avenue wrote Patrick Clark:

  • While one of the building’s sides is on Park Avenue, the skyscraper’s main entrance is on 56th street.
  • However an address on Park Avenue can raise a property’s price by up to 10%.
  • Getting such a ‘vanity address’ is relatively cheap, and an excellent return on investment. The government evaluates each application on a case by case basis and charges an $11,000 processing fee.
  • Such vanity addresses are a particular problem on Times Square where buildings far from the Square may claim an address there.
  • Inaccurate addresses can sometimes lead to tragic consequences. In 1987, in Chicago, rescue workers were unable to find a burning building in time because the building, 1 Illinois Center, was actually on East Wacker Drive.

Read about the practice, periodic outrages about it, other popular vanity addresses, and more over here.

Source: Bloomberg