My life inside the luxury real estate bubble

Taylor Antrim had a dream job being flown around the world to write about high-end property - but he missed the signs of an economic disaster in the making

The section of the magazine was called Real Escapes and in 2005 I was in charge of it, despite having never owned any real estate in my life. This meant that all the renovated castles in Scotland, subdivisions of modernist prefabs and Tuscan villa communities that crossed my desk looked pretty seductive.

I would paraphrase press releases at a length of 1,500 words, and the magazine - a bimonthly lifestyle supplement to a major national business publication - would run enticing photography or renderings supplied from the developers.