For What It's Worth
The Swallows Return
Each year around Thanksgiving the real estate market shuts down for the holidays. Buyers and sellers spend their energy locating the latest Chicken Dance Elmo or GameBoy rather than keep our local army of real estate agents well fed and plump. Shame on them. And each year, just as we in the business despair at ever selling another house, just when we are convinced that people have finally given up on Greenwich and decided that they’d much prefer to live in Port Chester, thank you, January 10th rolls around. This past week was no different.
The buyers are back. The tire kickers of December are now seriously looking. Contracts are being signed, houses are selling and that activity, in turn, is flushing new inventory onto the market. There’s no point looking for a new house, after all, if you don’t think you can sell your current one. But when your neighbor’s house is sold (yeah, that one—that wreck, with a kitchen that’s not nearly as nice as yours and a basement you wouldn’t lock your worst-behaving kid in), the possibilities seem unlimited.
From Friday, January 10th through Wednesday, January 13th, twelve properties (asking prices from $550,000 to $4,695,000) went to contract. By the time this article sees publishing daylight, many more will have joined them, as there are a lot of accepted offers out there waiting for the lawyers to do their magic. Two new properties of note this week: 58 Park Avenue South, in Old Greenwich. Renovated by Lee Neuberth, this house is a perfect example of how to update an old house while preserving neighborhood sight lines. The owner/developers have built what is essentially a new home with everything demanded by current buyers (granite, marble, hardwood floors—you know the drill) but kept within the building’s original side lines. 3,850 square feet of quality and asking $1,875,000. I think they’ll get it. The second home is on Greenwich’s other Park, Park Place, across from Christ Church. Another renovation, very well done, with a great view of the Putnam Cottage from whence Israel Putnam fled during the Revolutionary War (why we choose to use a picture of a fat coward fleeing for his life on our town seal is a matter for another forum). William Steele of my office has the listing but that’s a disclosure, not the reason I mention it. $2,195,000.
Real Estate For Dummies
What is a stupid price? One which, despite numerous showings, fails to produce a buyer. There are few certified geniuses in this industry and mistakes are made. When first asked to price a house, a broker will consider the location and condition of the home, calculate what comparable houses have been selling for and make an educated guess at the proper asking price. If the broker is lucky, and she often isn’t, her client doesn’t over rule her with his own “knowledge” of what the price should be and the house goes on the market at the suggested price. If it sells that day, she guessed right (and is promptly criticized for under-pricing it). If twenty agents show their clients through the house, clients who are all actively seeking to buy a house in that price range, and not one comes up with an offer, the broker guessed wrong. There’s something about the property, some defect she didn’t notice, that is convincing buyers there are better houses elsewhere. Nothing is so wrong with any house in Greenwich that the right price can't fix so the “cure” is as obvious as it is painful: drop the price. So far, nothing stupid has occurred, only a miscalculation of the market.
It is when the original price is maintained in the face of a failure to sell that stupidity comes into play. Sometimes it is the agent who hates to admit her error. More commonly it is the seller who turns stubborn. Even though, before he received his agent’s original price opinion he might have been delighted with a lesser amount, once the house has been offered for sale at one price, every dollar’s drop from there is money out of his pocket. This accounts for the sorry spectacle of puny, ten thousand dollar price reductions. Sellers seem to imagine the following internal conversation in buyers: “Oh, I would never bid on that house at $790,000, but now that it’s only $780,000, here I come!” So soon after Christmas, it seems needlessly cruel to remind readers that there is no Santa Clause, either.
Each year around Thanksgiving the real estate market shuts down for the holidays. Buyers and sellers spend their energy locating the latest Chicken Dance Elmo or GameBoy rather than keep our local army of real estate agents well fed and plump. Shame on them. And each year, just as we in the business despair at ever selling another house, just when we are convinced that people have finally given up on Greenwich and decided that they’d much prefer to live in Port Chester, thank you, January 10th rolls around. This past week was no different.
The buyers are back. The tire kickers of December are now seriously looking. Contracts are being signed, houses are selling and that activity, in turn, is flushing new inventory onto the market. There’s no point looking for a new house, after all, if you don’t think you can sell your current one. But when your neighbor’s house is sold (yeah, that one—that wreck, with a kitchen that’s not nearly as nice as yours and a basement you wouldn’t lock your worst-behaving kid in), the possibilities seem unlimited.
From Friday, January 10th through Wednesday, January 13th, twelve properties (asking prices from $550,000 to $4,695,000) went to contract. By the time this article sees publishing daylight, many more will have joined them, as there are a lot of accepted offers out there waiting for the lawyers to do their magic. Two new properties of note this week: 58 Park Avenue South, in Old Greenwich. Renovated by Lee Neuberth, this house is a perfect example of how to update an old house while preserving neighborhood sight lines. The owner/developers have built what is essentially a new home with everything demanded by current buyers (granite, marble, hardwood floors—you know the drill) but kept within the building’s original side lines. 3,850 square feet of quality and asking $1,875,000. I think they’ll get it. The second home is on Greenwich’s other Park, Park Place, across from Christ Church. Another renovation, very well done, with a great view of the Putnam Cottage from whence Israel Putnam fled during the Revolutionary War (why we choose to use a picture of a fat coward fleeing for his life on our town seal is a matter for another forum). William Steele of my office has the listing but that’s a disclosure, not the reason I mention it. $2,195,000.
Real Estate For Dummies
What is a stupid price? One which, despite numerous showings, fails to produce a buyer. There are few certified geniuses in this industry and mistakes are made. When first asked to price a house, a broker will consider the location and condition of the home, calculate what comparable houses have been selling for and make an educated guess at the proper asking price. If the broker is lucky, and she often isn’t, her client doesn’t over rule her with his own “knowledge” of what the price should be and the house goes on the market at the suggested price. If it sells that day, she guessed right (and is promptly criticized for under-pricing it). If twenty agents show their clients through the house, clients who are all actively seeking to buy a house in that price range, and not one comes up with an offer, the broker guessed wrong. There’s something about the property, some defect she didn’t notice, that is convincing buyers there are better houses elsewhere. Nothing is so wrong with any house in Greenwich that the right price can't fix so the “cure” is as obvious as it is painful: drop the price. So far, nothing stupid has occurred, only a miscalculation of the market.
It is when the original price is maintained in the face of a failure to sell that stupidity comes into play. Sometimes it is the agent who hates to admit her error. More commonly it is the seller who turns stubborn. Even though, before he received his agent’s original price opinion he might have been delighted with a lesser amount, once the house has been offered for sale at one price, every dollar’s drop from there is money out of his pocket. This accounts for the sorry spectacle of puny, ten thousand dollar price reductions. Sellers seem to imagine the following internal conversation in buyers: “Oh, I would never bid on that house at $790,000, but now that it’s only $780,000, here I come!” So soon after Christmas, it seems needlessly cruel to remind readers that there is no Santa Clause, either.
posted by Chris Fountain at 12:18 PM
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