There's always room for an operator like Airbnb, but it's quite a different thing to my serviced apartments. Airbnb is a different market - it has nothing to do with me.
There's a simple arithmetical logic at work. Build more unaffordable and not always architecturally sympathetic apartments, watch the rents rise, the tarts leave, the small shops, production offices and design studios close down, and hey presto, we have another fashionable London suburb indistinguishable from the rest.
You have to invest the money in a certain thing, because, you know, at 40, I want to enjoy my life. So I do a lot of investments. Apartments back in Russia and New York. It's a good thing to do.
In addition to public housing, South Williamsburg is home to shabby artists' lofts like mine, apartments of Hasidic Jews, and one extremely tall, high-priced condo.
The real story in housing will be a recovery in the economy that will drive a recovery in housing, When people are working, when there are more jobs, more households forming and people go back to buying cars, they're going to want their apartments and homes. And that's when you'll start to see a recovery in home prices.
When I first moved to L.A., I cleaned apartments after people moved out. When people move, they leave stuff behind and haven't cleaned for weeks. I like to clean - I have no problem with cleaning - but some apartments were filthy and disgusting. And there'd always be a random flip-flop left somewhere on its own.
We lived in one of those half-basement apartments, and on our first night of being in America, someone reached through the grate that protects the window and stole our laundry detergent - which wasn't a big deal, but it felt symbolic when I heard about it later as an adult.