Ever Larger
A Mixed Review
The new home at 347 Sound Beach Avenue is . . .interesting. On the one hand, it represents everything unpleasant about what’s happening in town: it is huge and towers over the adjoining houses, making them seem lilliputian by comparison. But once inside, it is a very nice house. Solidly built, high ceilings, great kitchen and nice public rooms. I like it, even if I wish it weren’t there. But it is there and it won’t look as out of place when more homes on that side of the street get blown up to its size. Perhaps in ten years or so that section of Sound Beach Avenue will be a row of gracious, albeit very large homes. If so, then the town will have changed but not necessarily for the worse.
At 1.5 million, 13 Shore Road is half the price but just as nice in its own way. It has been thoroughly renovated to be a bright, cheerful home. Fairly priced by Shelly Simms Tretter of Soetheby’s, it overlooks the Innis Arden golf course (where you can watch coyotes—see below—chase golfers around the greens; so entertaining).
49 Tomac, a completely renovated home on not much land and a fairly busy street, came on the market via Joyce Somm for $2.375 million on a Thursday and was gone by the weekend. The owners made some really smart decisions when renovating: they spent money on a great, huge kitchen and a terrific master bedroom suite. Those two areas, properly executed, will sell almost any house, especially when it’s a nice as this one.
No Dog In This Fight
I note with regret that a professional trapper has been retained to catch the coyotes marauding near the end of Cedar Cliff Road in Riverside. Too bad; one of the few improvements to town in the past decade has been the return of wildlife: deer (in Riverside!) wild turkeys, hawks and now, briefly, coyotes. As a wicked college student I once sabotaged a trapper’s efforts by placing 2” plastic African animals in his traps. He eventually gave up—no Daniel Boone, he—but I’ve always wondered at his reaction when he first discovered that he’d captured a (very small) tiger in Upstate New York. But it’s against the law to interfere with a trapper, so don’t do it (and don’t confess to doing it until the statute of limitations has expired). A better course of action would be to upgrade your dog. My own old campaigner, Casey the Wonder Dog, was a hundred-and-ten-pound Lab who would have brooked no nonsense from a coyote. My guess is that, were Cedar Cliff folks to super-size their menagerie, they’d drive the coyotes to more accommodating neighborhoods, all without the risk and pain of leg-hold traps.
“No One’s Going To Steal This House!”
This cry of the beleaguered homeowner is usually heard when he’s rejecting a low offer. It is a legitimate sentiment but often the wrong reaction. Someone is actually offering to buy his house, after all; not steal it. Often, the first bid, albeit lower than hoped-for, turns out to be both the best and the only one the owner will receive for a long, long time. Happens all the time. A bid this September ($1.65 million bid, $1.85 asked) was rejected with those words. The house still sits unsold. Similarly, an Old Greenwich owner rejected a $4 million dollar offer for his $4.5 million home (which he himself had purchased two years before at $3.5, down from a $4.25 asked price). When he finally sold it eight moths later he settled for $3.7 million. In the lesser range, clients of mine bid $720 for a house that was asking $895K. No go, so my clients bought another home. The listing broker called me last week, wondering if they were still interested. Nope.
Here’s the point: buyers quickly learn comparative values. Anyone able to afford a house in Greenwich probably already possesses keen financial acumen and, even without a Harvard MBA, can soon distinguish between a house that’s worth, say, $2.2 million and one that merely wants that price. So if your house has been shown 20-30 times and one offer finally comes in, cherish it; blow on its embers and keep it going because it may well be an accurate reflection of your home’s value. Of course, if the offer is presented by a sunglassed-thug holding a large pistol at your head, you’re right: you’re being robbed.
The new home at 347 Sound Beach Avenue is . . .interesting. On the one hand, it represents everything unpleasant about what’s happening in town: it is huge and towers over the adjoining houses, making them seem lilliputian by comparison. But once inside, it is a very nice house. Solidly built, high ceilings, great kitchen and nice public rooms. I like it, even if I wish it weren’t there. But it is there and it won’t look as out of place when more homes on that side of the street get blown up to its size. Perhaps in ten years or so that section of Sound Beach Avenue will be a row of gracious, albeit very large homes. If so, then the town will have changed but not necessarily for the worse.
At 1.5 million, 13 Shore Road is half the price but just as nice in its own way. It has been thoroughly renovated to be a bright, cheerful home. Fairly priced by Shelly Simms Tretter of Soetheby’s, it overlooks the Innis Arden golf course (where you can watch coyotes—see below—chase golfers around the greens; so entertaining).
49 Tomac, a completely renovated home on not much land and a fairly busy street, came on the market via Joyce Somm for $2.375 million on a Thursday and was gone by the weekend. The owners made some really smart decisions when renovating: they spent money on a great, huge kitchen and a terrific master bedroom suite. Those two areas, properly executed, will sell almost any house, especially when it’s a nice as this one.
No Dog In This Fight
I note with regret that a professional trapper has been retained to catch the coyotes marauding near the end of Cedar Cliff Road in Riverside. Too bad; one of the few improvements to town in the past decade has been the return of wildlife: deer (in Riverside!) wild turkeys, hawks and now, briefly, coyotes. As a wicked college student I once sabotaged a trapper’s efforts by placing 2” plastic African animals in his traps. He eventually gave up—no Daniel Boone, he—but I’ve always wondered at his reaction when he first discovered that he’d captured a (very small) tiger in Upstate New York. But it’s against the law to interfere with a trapper, so don’t do it (and don’t confess to doing it until the statute of limitations has expired). A better course of action would be to upgrade your dog. My own old campaigner, Casey the Wonder Dog, was a hundred-and-ten-pound Lab who would have brooked no nonsense from a coyote. My guess is that, were Cedar Cliff folks to super-size their menagerie, they’d drive the coyotes to more accommodating neighborhoods, all without the risk and pain of leg-hold traps.
“No One’s Going To Steal This House!”
This cry of the beleaguered homeowner is usually heard when he’s rejecting a low offer. It is a legitimate sentiment but often the wrong reaction. Someone is actually offering to buy his house, after all; not steal it. Often, the first bid, albeit lower than hoped-for, turns out to be both the best and the only one the owner will receive for a long, long time. Happens all the time. A bid this September ($1.65 million bid, $1.85 asked) was rejected with those words. The house still sits unsold. Similarly, an Old Greenwich owner rejected a $4 million dollar offer for his $4.5 million home (which he himself had purchased two years before at $3.5, down from a $4.25 asked price). When he finally sold it eight moths later he settled for $3.7 million. In the lesser range, clients of mine bid $720 for a house that was asking $895K. No go, so my clients bought another home. The listing broker called me last week, wondering if they were still interested. Nope.
Here’s the point: buyers quickly learn comparative values. Anyone able to afford a house in Greenwich probably already possesses keen financial acumen and, even without a Harvard MBA, can soon distinguish between a house that’s worth, say, $2.2 million and one that merely wants that price. So if your house has been shown 20-30 times and one offer finally comes in, cherish it; blow on its embers and keep it going because it may well be an accurate reflection of your home’s value. Of course, if the offer is presented by a sunglassed-thug holding a large pistol at your head, you’re right: you’re being robbed.
posted by Chris Fountain at 12:54 PM
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