A high-level executive at Sotheby's International Realty recently revealed to China's state television broadcaster that he personally helped a Chinese mother buy a $6.5 million Manhattan apartment for her daughter.
"We were running around the city looking at things and I finally said: 'Well why are you buying?," Sotheby's International SVP Kevin Brown told CCTV. "And she said, well, her daughter was going to go to Columbia, or NYU or maybe Harvard and so she needed to be in the centre of the city and that was why she was picking this one particular apartment. So I said: 'Oh, how old is your daughter?' and she said: 'Well she's two'. And I was just shocked."
The mother finally settled on a luxury space in Midtown's ultra-extravagant, Park Hyatt-managed One57 skyscraper, which is still under construction.
Planned amenities include: A private fitness center and yoga studio; a private dining room with full catering kitchen; a private concert hall; a private library with billiard table and 24-foot aquarium; a "pet wash room"; and an additional "discreet entrance" on 58th Street.
While the mother's identity has yet to be officially revealed, many on the Chinese social network Weibo have arrived at the conclusion that she must be the wife of, or otherwise related to, a corrupt government official.
[screengrabs via One57]