New wealth litmus test: are your Weekday Apartment and Weekend Apartment one and the same? Oh. Sorry. What's that like?

On Friday evenings, Eric Straus and his wife Varinda Missett pack their things, grab their dog and leave their Midtown Manhattan apartment for their weekend home—50 blocks downtown. Last summer, Mr. Straus and Ms. Missett paid $1.988 million for a two-bedroom apartment in the Manhattan neighborhood of Tribeca, which they use as their weekend getaway. “What I love is that unlike the Hamptons, it’s a quick subway ride down there, and it totally feels like you’re on vacation,” Mr. Straus, 56, said...Some home buyers are buying vacation homes in the same city or metropolitan area as their primary residence. They say the key to relaxation is a change of scenery, even if it’s just a few miles from where they normally live. “Different neighborhoods have different experiences,” said New York City real-estate agent Shaun Osher of Core, who said he has several clients with more than one home in the city. “If you walk on the street in the West Village, it’s like a different world to the Upper East Side.”