Here at the clean, quiet, well-manicured intersection of Purgatory & Hell, you'll find the kind of high-end luxury living you crave!

Spectacular views of the intersection!  Breathtaking panorama from the roof includes: vacant buildings with boarded-up windows, KFC and Dunkin Donuts, and a Cash Checking joint right across the street!  There's also a Store 24, and a crack park a block away, for all of your luxury-living needs!


You'll have to forgive me my cynicism, but my question is, can we really trust that they know what "luxury" means when they can't spell "furnished"?

(Or do they really want to say "furnited"?  Some cursory research on the web brings up a UK site referring to some sort of modular office furniture as "furnite."  But following the link to www.furnite.com you'll find a consultancy firm.)
 
You know, I think there should be some broad set of general criteria a property must possess if it is to be marketed as "luxury".  Just as The Advertising Standards Authority has certain criteria to ensure truth in advertising in other markets.  According to the Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), for example, "a product labelled low fat must not contain more than 3 grams of fat per serving; and to be labelled fat free it must contain less than 0.5 grams of fat per serving." 

I have asked many of my real-estate-savvy friends if there are any such criteria for labeling a property "luxury-living," and have to draw the conclusion that there are none.  It is apparently utterly subjective—for someone used to sleeping on a park-bench, sleeping in a stationwagon could be considered "luxury living," I guess.  Caveat Emptor: Latin for "Luxury Living."

For me, the problem seems to be that when a property like the one in the picture above can shamelessly flaunt the "luxury" label, it could be a hardinger of credibility problems on the horizon for the real estate market as a whole.  I mean, at some point you have to draw the line, and define "luxury," if only in broad terms, if the word is to have any meaningful connotations at all.

And there are any number of criteria that might be used:
 
square footage of property
premium building materials used in construction/decor 
one-of-a-kind design/accents
if furnished, designer-furnished
high-tech-ready
above-standard mod-cons
number of walk-in closets
number of bathrooms with bathtubs,
size of bathtubs (can you actually bathe in them?) 
quality of infrastructure
distance to facilities, types of facilities in the neighborhood
if there are schools in the area, how are they ranked?
murder-rate

Just to name a few. 

The sad thing is that nowadays in Boston, just having shelter has become a "luxury."  That's what I'm thinking when I see a sign like this hanging on some tenament that's been home-depo'd.  A new coat of paint you paid some illegal day laborers hanging out in the South Bay parking lot a buck-fifty an hour to slap on, and some cheap furniture you picked up at some other big box store, get yourself a sign to hang on the outside, and voila!  It's "Luxury Living"! 

It's just so wrong.