Bjarke Ingels’ West 57th Street project in New York (developed by The Durst Organization) has just started renting apartments (March 1). 

Since I’m in the rental business, I thought it would be worthwhile to take a look at the rents – though I tend to obsess over all buildings and not just rental ones.

Firstly, the project has a total of 709 apartments and 178 different unit types because of the architectural variations in the building. Of these units, 142 of them (20%) have been designated as affordable and were offered up via a lottery to people who fall within certain incomes ranges. 

Here are the affordable rents via 6sqft.com:

This morning venture capitalist Fred Wilson wrote a post on his blog talking about the gig economy and Hillary Clinton’s economic speech last night. 

Here’s a snippet from Clinton’s talk:

Meanwhile, many Americans are making extra money renting out a small room, designing websites, selling products they design themselves at home, or even driving their own car. This on-demand, or so-called gig economy is creating exciting economies and unleashing innovation.

But it is also raising hard questions about work-place protections and what a good job will look like in the future.

So, all of these trends are real and none, none is going away. But they do not determine our destiny. The choices we make as a nation matter. And the choices we make in the years ahead will set the stage for what American life in the middle class and our economy will be like in this century.

The headlines this morning are making it seem like Hillary Clinton is taking direct aim at companies like Uber. But the transcript suggests that she’s being far more balanced than that: these new companies are creating exciting opportunities, and they are

I was at a good friend’s wedding last night (congratulations again to Adrien + Rachel!), and one of the topics that came up at our table was whether it is better to own or rent your home. Now, in North America, conventional wisdom would suggest – almost mandate – that you have to own your place. If you’re still a renter, well then you’re “throwing away your money” my friend.

But are you really? 

A big part of the value of owning your home is that it’s forced savings. Every month when you make those principal and interest payments, you’re paying down your mortgage and socking away money for the future. And this can be a great thing for a lot of people, particularly if you’re not disciplined enough to save otherwise.

But when you own a home, you’re also spending time and money on maintaining that home, and you’re also tying up capital that could be used elsewhere. So consider this: what if, instead of putting your savings towards a downpayment, you simply continued to rent and created an investment portfolio that you then contributed to on a regular basis just as you would a home?

Depending on your assumptions, renting could turn out to put you further ahead financially. Here’s an