Friday, March 28, 2003

Pants on Fire
I just returned to town and note that, a year after the town shut it down, construction has resumed on a building project near my own home in Riverside. This is good news for its neighbors who have been staring at an ugly foundation shell since work was stopped. It is also an excellent example of how costly it can be to play games with zoning and building officials. Because several phone calls to those officials were not returned, I’m a bit hazy on the facts here but, as I understand it, a permit was obtained to rehabilitate an existing house. Plans were changed, perhaps inadvertently, and soon all that was left of the house was its front wall, propped into place by a couple of angled two-by-fours. A windy day pushed the wall down, someone in one of the town’s enforcement divisions noticed and work was stopped. I assume that the past year has been devoted to reapplying for coastal permits to build a new house. In any event, the carpenters are back.

This “leave a wall up” idea has been abused throughout town for years, but I believe it may no longer work. Regulations, especially in our coastal zones, are being enforced more rigorously; perhaps because they are federally-mandated. The basic rule is that, if improvements exceed 50% of the cost of the existing building, the project must comply with the new flood-zone regulations. Those include raising the house as high as 17 feet above mean high water (depending on exposure to waves), open foundations, and a host of other changes. And it is not the cost of the land that triggers this, but the cost of the existing building. So if you’re paying a few million for a nice, direct waterfront parcel that holds a run down summer cottage, you should plan on building a new home. If you don’t, if you obtain a building permit for one set of plans and try to build something grander, you might find yourself staring at your own empty foundation for a long, long time. This, as my neighbor will attest, can be expensive.
Ah, Can I See That Again?
A house recently came on the market that my clients and I hated; a builder’s special, cheaply made and poorly laid out, in our opinion. But real estate being personal, another agent that I know had a client who liked it and made a reasonable bid on the place. The owners refused to counter, deeming the offer insulting. Perhaps the owners thought this would generate a better offer. It did not. Instead, another home on the same street came on the market two days later. Better house, nicer yard, same price. The original buyers shifted their attention to that one, made a bid and have already gone to contract. The first house sits unsold. There is nothing wrong with setting a desired price on your house and rejecting all offers that fall below that price, but if you do this, be prepared to own your house for an extended period of time.
Market Activity
Perhaps it’s the Iraq war, perhaps everyone is off to the Caribbean during private school vacation, but not much came onto the market this week. Houses are selling though. 42 Cary Road, perhaps the nicest lot on the worst street in Riverside, went to contract after its asking price dropped from $895 to $840,000. It’s a so-so house one a half-acre with direct access to the Mianus River and abutting town parkland. I’ll be curious to see what the new owners do to the existing house and, if they re-sell it, what a renovated home in that location goes for. No predictions here; I really don’t have a clue.
Kill The Messenger
A number of agents I know have recently lost listings when the properties didn’t sell. The owners blamed the agents; I blame the owners, because they rejected their agent’s advice and insisted on a price way above market value. Now, sadder but wiser, those owners have re-listed their homes at more realistic prices but with new brokers. This switch, I assume, is to punish their original broker for telling the truth. When the home now sells the buyer will feel justified; he really should feel foolish for having subjected his family to months of stress keeping a house in show condition when he had absolutely no chance of selling at his initial price.

Friday, March 21, 2003

Haverson Architects

Unsung Volunteers
Greenwich is populated by many talented men and women who freely contribute their skill and labor to improve the town. They do so without fanfare but one of the delights of having a column is that I can spotlight some of those efforts and thank my neighbors publicly. For instance, some years ago Riverside School was in desperate need of expansion. A standard, “expansion to public school, elementary” plan was provided and an ugly new building scheduled. Riverside parents Jay and Carolyn Haverson thought they could do better. Jay is an architect more noted for his exuberant style (a local sample can be enjoyed at Arcadia Coffee House in Old Greenwich) than for staid institutional buildings but he suppressed his inclinations, went to work for free and came up with an addition that would blend seamlessly with the existing school. He and Carolyn then fought an unappreciative building committee, various town planning authorities and, finally, won approval. The new addition is a huge success. It’s airy, light and almost imperceptible as “new”. So the next time you drive by Riverside School and don’t notice anything different, thank the Haversons. I do, every day.
Old News?
Two houses are, as of this writing, on the market that should appeal to anyone in the $800,000 range. Mary O’Brien (Cleveland, Duble & Arnold) has a listing at 15 Windsor Lane in Cos Cob priced at $830,000. While I would be the first to admit that “charming” and “split-level” are usually mutually exclusive, this one manages to be both. 2,500 square feet on .28 of an acre, it’s clad in vertical siding stained grey and picked up by red trim—to this eye, a pleasing combination. The inside is renovated and pristine. I liked the house and the street it’s on a lot.
The second home of note is Joan Epand’s (Russell Pruner & Associates) listing on 10 Tomac Court in Old Greenwich for $789,000. 1,850 square feet with an unprepossessing exterior but very nice inside. It overlooks the old Congregational Church cemetery with its Revolutionary War veterans’ gravestones. I’ve always felt that, if you can’t buy your view you should at least strive for a protected one and this serene, picturesque view is very much protected. No more veterans from that particular war are likely to be demanding burial, and no one will be building there any time soon (although you never know; my own Huguenot ancestors’ graves now lie buried under the Fresh Kills landfill on Staten Island). Go see it; it’s an excellent value.
Tree House
Carolyn Sarsen’s listing at 332 Stanwich Road is a fantastic glass-walled eyrie perched atop a granite outcrop and overlooking Frye “Lake” (we realtors call any body of water large enough to accommodate a pair of bullfrogs a lake-you might call the same thing a pond). It’s not for everyone—my own clients decided it was too open, thereby disappointing me and freeing me to write it up in this column—but I love it. Great, sweeping views, flooded with light even on the dank dreary day I visited, it’s in move-in condition. I am not a huge fan of contemporaries; this one, however, was thoughtfully sited and designed and I wouldn’t change a single line.
Unfinished Business
Just saw a house today that was obviously undergoing a complete renovation before the owners’ circumstances changed. The work that’s been done: beautiful kitchen, massive new furnaces and water heaters and new wiring is all of the highest quality. It is located on one of the great streets of Greenwich with beautiful formal gardens and a sweeping back yard. The trouble is, the house isn’t done. It lacks a dining room, master bedroom and even, as far as I could tell, a garage. None of which would be daunting if it weren’t priced as though all those items had been completed. I learned the hard way, when I moved from my own half-finished renovation of an 1830’s farmhouse in Maine back to Greenwich, a partially-renovated home doesn’t command a price anything close to the money that’s been poured into it. My advice on these situations is to either finish the job or acknowledge that the work is not completed and write off most of what you put into the improvements. Pretending otherwise will only guarantee that your now-unwanted project sits unsold for a long time.

Friday, March 14, 2003

On Vacation

I am away this week, so it seems a perfect time to write about my fellow real estate agents. But first, a disclaimer:
Uh Oh
The President of the Greenwich Association of Realtors, who usually spends his free time placing prank calls to my brother Gideon’s radio show (Wilcox&Fountain, WGCH, Fridays 1-3 p.m.) has put down his phone long enough to pen the following warning: “A number of members write articles about real estate for various publications. These articles are not endorsed in any way by the Association or the Greenwich MLS.” Those readers who thought they’ve been perusing the official house organ of the Association are encouraged to contact the board for a nice note of apology and a full refund of the subscription price of this paper. That out of the way, . . .
King of Hearts
Recently a deranged woman dressed in what appeared to be her pajamas overheard me speaking to a shopkeeper. “You’re a real estate agent?” she squawked. “So am I! In fact, I just sold a house last week without even leaving my bedroom!” I didn’t doubt her for an instant. Real estate is one of the few high paying professions (bond trading is another) that sets no barrier to entry. Anyone can get a license, no one has to show proof of even a nursery school diploma.
As a Jeffersonian, limited government kind of guy, I like this. We lawyers long ago got rid of apprenticeships and forced everyone to attend three years of law school. That kept the likes of another Abraham Lincoln from competing with us but I doubt it improved the profession. In real estate, however, one need merely attend a watered-down introductory course, pass a test even a blind ape could navigate and presto!—we’re unleashed on the world ready, like my colleague in her pajamas, to provide advice and counsel to anyone who asks. The question is, should you ask?
Well yes, you should. Not necessarily your next door neighbor (by law, every other Greenwich household must contain at least one licensed agent) but someone, and preferably someone who knows something about what they’re talking about. David Ogilvy once gave career advice to my brother when Gideon was just starting out in this profession: “learn everything there is to know about Greenwich real estate” he counseled, “and keep learning.” The best agents do exactly that.
A competent agent should know what is on the market. He should ideally have already seen every house that you are interested in. This is not always possible, but it’s interesting that one generally sees the same hundred agents or so travelling the bi-weekly open house circuit. That means 750 agents are sitting at home in their pajamas, wondering what’s for sale. While it can be a heart warming experience for you and your agent to share in a moment of mutual discovery, this is not the best possible use of your time.
An agent should know the past selling prices of houses on the street she’s showing, zoning codes, set back requirements (although it’s anyone’s guess what the current FAR regulations permit), construction methods, septic field design, the name of a good chimney sweep, etc. A large number of agents in this town do have this knowledge, and give good value for the commissions they earn. They return phone calls, they follow up, they attend to details. As for the rest? Like the one who years ago, after I’d rushed to complete a contract on a delicate deal, told me she was going shopping that afternoon and was too busy to deliver it to the buyer’s lawyer? (That woman is still in business, frighteningly enough). If, politically, you must select her or one of your next door neighbors as your agent, winnow the choice a bit by heeding the wisdom of General Baron Von Hammersteiner-Equord:
"I divide my officers into four classes; the clever, the lazy, the industrious, and the stupid. Each officer possesses at least two of these qualities. Those who are clever and industrious are fitted for the highest staff appointments. Use can be made of those who are stupid and lazy. The man who is clever and lazy however is for the very highest command; he has the temperament and nerves to deal with all situations. But whoever is stupid and industrious is a menace and must be removed immediately!"

Friday, March 07, 2003

A Mel Brooks Moment
Here’s a test of your real estate acumen: your house has sat on the market, unsold, since August. You want to sell it. Do you (a) drop its price; or (b) raise its price by $500,000? If you answered, “b”, congratulations—you have company in town. A homeowner recently did just that, thereby reducing the number of potential buyers by half and convincing me at least that he’s a fruitcake. It reminds me of Cleavon Little pointing a gun to his head and holding himself hostage in Blazing Saddles: “Oh Lordy-lord, he's desperate. Do what he say, do what he say!” What’s the owner going to do when no one buys his house at its present price, threaten to raise it another million?
Let’s (Not) Kill All the Lawyers
Ask almost any agent about the role lawyers play in real estate transactions and they’ll insist that they’re nothing but deal killers. William Raveis, founder of the firm that bears his name, has long campaigned to eliminate lawyers from the process of buying and selling homes, claiming that they do nothing but slow down the deal and, often, derail it. I disagree.
Lawyers and real estate agents play different roles. An agent wants to sell a home, a lawyer wants to protect her client. That means, sometimes, that the lawyer is the one to ask embarrassing, “deal-killing” questions like, “how come there are five bedrooms when the septic field is only sized for three?” Or, “did you know that your neighbor has an easement that allows him to operate a used-car lot in your backyard?” As agents, we hate when that happens.
If I were investing a few million casual dollars in real estate, I’d want some legal advice. I would not be content with a standard form contract, I would not be comfortable with a person untrained in law explaining the provisions of that contract to me. It is true that some lawyers can be overly protective, some can let their egos ruin a deal and some take so long to draw up a contract that the prospect suffers buyer’s remorse and flees to another property. It is also true that most attorneys who work in real estate in this town are not like that. In the dark days when I practiced law, I could usually guess whether a pending deal would go through just by checking the name of the lawyer on the other side. One of the Kaye brothers? We were (almost) certain to close. If it was Humbolt Pinkytwee (and if you think I’d actually name a real, practicing lawyer, you’re nuts), the deal was in trouble before it started. Lawyers draw up contracts, negotiate terms, inspect title, discover open building permits, hold your hand, deal with mortgage contingency extensions and attend to a thousand details you never dreamed of. The good ones hold deals together, rather than cause them to fail. And for all of this work, they are paid very little. Which is just one reason I am now an agent, not a lawyer.
One Midwood Road
Sally Maloney (Sotheby’s) new listing in the Deer Park area off Lake Avenue is a very nice home indeed. Extensively and carefully upgraded (the windows, for instance, were restored rather than replaced, the owners have added a new roof, new wiring, had the chimneys rebuilt, and so forth), it still looks as nice as it must have when it was built in 1920. $5.275 million, if you’re searching for the perfect wedding present.
This One Thing I Know
Grossly over-pricing a house snuffs out bids more effectively than anything else an owner can do. And there are a lot of such houses suddenly coming on the market. We’re on the brink of war, the Dow is busy diving to new lows and yet some people think that they’ll look like chumps six months from now if they let their house go at today’s prices. So they’ve jacked them up to an in-their-dreams level and there, I predict, the houses will sit. The owners will look like chumps, alright, but only because they’ll still be owners. There is nothing wrong with the Greenwich market; houses are selling quickly, when the price is right. But there is no sense of urgency among the buyers I represent, no fear that the market is going to take off and leave them behind. So they aren’t interested in your over-priced house—sorry.