By David T. Valentin
Twitter may be pretty dead as of lately, but from time to time some little comedic gem comes out of its now very strange algorithm. For me, it was seeing “New Fire Island “trending. As most New Yorkers may know Fire Island has a rich history with the LGBTQ+ community dating way back to the 1930s when artisans and theatre folk ventured there to get away from the judgment of the city and venture to a place they could make their own.
In modern times, Fire Island is still very much an LGBTQ+ getaway, a getaway known for its wild, extravagant parties (most of which are uniquely themed).
For New Fire Island, whose website you can view here in greater detail, the goal is, “bringing together a community of gay men to build a new paradise, inspired by the original Fire Island Pines – in the sunny Mediterranean and for a new era.”
The idea is to create home ownership that is “accessible to a younger generation” – a generation that has been priced out of Provincetown or Mykonos, as the website says.
So, to create an accessible exclusively LGBTQ+ owned vacation paradise, houses are priced at an affordable USD of $500,000 for a four-bedroom freestanding house with a pool, in a gay paradise. The island is set to have close to 1,000 houses on an island location somewhere in the Mediterranean, a location that those on the waitlist (which is already up to 543 people) can vote upon from a pre-selected list.
Now, the idea might be a good one if you had about five or six or 10 people split the cost of the house and maybe share it? And maybe if a few in the group have money from their parents? Or have been living in their parents’ home for the past decade and have been saving up? And that’s not even considering the cost of the plane tickets to and from the Mediterranean.
It’s important to mention most younger generations can’t even afford their own first home, let alone mentioning moving out of their parents’ homes.
But I digress.
It gets worse.
The idea comes from three entrepreneurs: Nigel smith, the Partner and Chief Product Officer; Aron D’Souza, the non-executive chairman; and Brett Fraser the managing partner. Each of them are incredibly successful in their own right, none of which are particularly in touch with the financial realities of the everyday person.
Of course, Twitter had much to say about the matter (and rightfully so). Here are just some of my favorites: