PIffle

When someone tells me I can own some of the most expensive real estate in Miami (or anyone else) I tend to look at them and say, If you say so. Plainly they haven't realised that my pension hasn't increased that much - although it is getting a little rise at the beginning of next month, of a bout $4 a fortnight. That means I can afford to go out and buy one more coffee every two weeks. 

Anyway, One Sothebys in Sunny Isles Beach is the one claiming I'm only a few dollars away from residing in a super expensive location. Why go so far, I ask myself? If I want an expensive location, I can go to Auckland, where a house that my grandmother would have thought rough and ready is going for more than half a million dollars. 

Much of this prime real estate in Miami doesn't come with your own backyard and swimming pool. Nope, it consists of an apartment in a high rise: you may be up on the 31st floor. Yes the view is lovely but you can't open the windows in case you fall out. 

New Zealanders haven't yet got to the point of thinking that an apartment up on the somethingth floor is a good idea; for them it's the old eighth of an acre (or its current metric equivalent), a place where you can plant a few veges, or mow the lawns, or pull the car apart, or dig in some lovely bushes that will one day knock over the fence between you and your neighbour. 

Piffle to living in a high rise, I say!