Homes define New York City. More than any of the cultural attractions the city is known for, the one feature of the city that sticks out in most people's minds when they visit the city for the first time is the endless – as far as the eye can see – ocean of buildings. The vast majority of these are residential, and there is the fundamental New York City in a nutshell: Gone are the suburbs, gone the typical city's dance of urban and suburban; gone the grassy fields at the edge of town... In New York, all is city, and thus all is mankind's culture.

This overwhelming sense of a culture permeating all the physical space of one's existence shines in much of the world's memory. Some are disturbed by it, but many are enthralled. Indeed, much of the city's population first came to the city and saw the city's lights and bars, nightlife and endless ocean of buildings for the first time with a certain powerful sense of awe.

There is a downside, though, to so much of the world recollecting New York City with starry-eyed thoughts: the worlds a big place, and though you wouldn't know it by looking out at those New York apartments, that ocean of buildings does end, and it just can't fit the whole world.

And this is the modern world, so the laws of supply and demand waxes powerful just about everywhere, especially in NYC, the seat of American Capitalism. So, homes here are more expensive than just about any place in the world.

So expensive here, in fact, that real estate concerns sometimes parry in people's minds even with the holy grail of all human existence, love. Stories abound in real estate offices here of couples that either did or didn't get married at a certain time because of concerns over New York apartments.

For every example of the couple that had known each other for a few weeks before deciding to snatch up a great condo, there are stories of those loving partners who simply loved their home neighborhoods more. When it came time to move in, they just couldn't settle on a place. So, their relationship drifted for a while, and relationships that drift are relationships that might die: And so the prime part of human supply and demand – the need for shelter, or – the real estate market, runs up from the most mundane, practical part of life to bid challenge in mankind's mind with the loftiest emotion of all.

But then again, great New York apartments are quite hard to come by. Almost as hard as great lovers. So, here in a city where man has covered the vast majority of nature with tar, concrete and buildings, real estate can be as important for some as love.