Fellow Columnists

Cross Talk
My friend and fellow columnist Bud Dealy has generated a fair amount of heat recently by opining that the Havemeyer area in Old Greenwich is a “$600,000 neighborhood.” Bud is an excellent Realtor whose own listings are, invariably, intelligently priced; a term, by the way, that is not interchangeable with “cheap” or “below market”. Bud holds the record for Valley Road, a $3,000,000 listing he brought on last fall and sold the first day. That said, and with all due deference, I disagree with his general valuation of Havemeyer as an area that won’t support prices higher than the sixes. I sold a home there in January for $762,500 and the seller received several higher offers after we had gone to contract. 32 Nimitz sold last fall for $640,000 and, having been renovated, went to contract this week somewhere in the $900’s. 17 North Ridge, new construction, sold in November for $990, a great ranch at 12 Cross Ridge; 1/2 acre and a pool, went in a bidding war for $809 and 12 Pleasant View Place sold two years ago for $895. I have not been inside the home being constructed at 14 Pleasant View but if the quality I see on the outside is carried through to its interior, then, given its great views and location on such a nice, dead end street, I wouldn’t be surprised if it sold at $1.5.
It is true that Havemeyer lagged behind other areas of town for years, with houses selling in the $4s when comparable houses were selling for $600K. My brother Gideon and I used to speculate (idly, alas, and not financially) on when Havemeyer would awaken and catch up with other parts of town. It has now done so, with a vengeance. I wouldn’t toss darts blindfolded at a street map and buy just anything the missile landed on, but there are some excellent streets in the neighborhood and, I think, some very good investment opportunities.
Moving On Up
For those readers with the ability to add a few zeros to the prices described above, David Ogilvy has a absolutely unique $8,000,000 home for sale in Belle Haven. Built in 1895, “The Boulders” could be described as a “shingle style” if it weren’t made of brick and faced with huge granite boulders (I know, if we had ham we could have ham and eggs, if we had eggs—humor me). This place is great, in every sense of the word. Beautifully restored, in immaculate condition, magnificent public rooms, a secluded library and bedrooms galore. There is a secret circular stair behind a closet door in the library (there went that secret) that winds through all three floors. Brass speaking tubes connect the master bedroom with the kitchen and other servants’ hiding places and the grand stairway in the hall has perfectly placed risers which will enable the most clumsy daughter to float gracefully down on her wedding day. The Boulders is serious money, but is a truly fun house. If you envied the Galbraith children when reading Cheaper by the Dozen, this is the house for you (and your millions).
What’s Selling?
Houses going to contract in the past couple of weeks include: 49 Round Hill Road, $9,995,000 (these are the last asking prices); 81 Butternut Hollow, $9,500,000 22 Perkins Road, $5,600,000; 50 Bush Avenue, $3,650,000;18 Chieftans Road, $3,450,000; 60 Shore Road, $2,925,000; 40 Pecksland, $2,495,000; 54 Doubling, $1,595,000; my old boss and mentor, Charlie Mosher’s home at 17 Norton Lane, $1,445,000 (nice house, good buy), and so on. All areas of town, all price ranges. The one common theme, especially for those selling within 60 days of being put on the market, is price: they represent good value compared to other homes in their respective price ranges. The market recognizes and rewards this.
Bwaaaa!
A newly constructed house that I had hoped to list was recently brought to market by another agent. Nothing unusual about that, but the listing broker is someone who has never to my knowledge been spotted at an open house. Not once. Her knowledge of current market conditions is about as extensive as that of my dog’s, and my dog died last year. Most of us hard working types don’t mind freely giving you our time and opinions, but if you choose to use another agent, at least salve our pride a little bit by hiring a professional instead of a hobbyist, won’t you? PS: she’s over-priced your house.

How To Sell Your Home
The owners of 24 Frost Lane have a terrific house, a beautiful 1929 Normandy renovated to turn-key condition. It’s light , airy and includes great lawns and gardens, a skating pond and a pool. When you have location and the right house on your side, all that you need to sell your home quickly is to price it correctly. Wilson Alling of New England Land Company combined his extensive experience with that of a few other agents and came up with the spot-on price of $4.1 million. In a burst of brilliance, the owners took his advice. The house just came on the market; spotless, tidy (not un-lived in, just clean and neat) and looking fabulous.
So here’s what happens when someone does all that: the house appears on the open house circuit and every knowledgeable agent recognizes its value. This creates a sense of enthusiasm and urgency. Enthusiasm, because we all love discovering houses we’d be proud to show our own clients and urgency because we know that it won’t last. Every agent I spoke with on the Tuesday open house circuit agreed that the star of the day (year?) was this house. Multiple showings have been scheduled and I predict it will have an accepted offer by the time this article sees print.
Contrast this result to that of the typical over-priced listing. Agents see it, yawn, and earmark it for a later date when the owner comes to his senses. No enthusiasm, no urgency, no sale.
The owners of Frost Lane will be through the process of selling their home quickly, suffering the minimum of inconvenience while receiving a far better price than if they’d marked it up, let it linger on the market for months and months and finally accepted a desperation price. It’s your choice which of these routes you prefer; judging from the number of over-priced homes on the market, it seems that the majority of Greenwich home sellers prefer the latter. I find that odd.
We’re From the Government . . .
If the seller is paying the commission on the house you seek to buy, who does your agent represent: you or the seller? Not so long ago, the answer was the seller, and I used to froth indignantly at agents who I felt had confused their loyalties at the expense of my clients. My outrage was misplaced. While a correct enunciation of agency law, that law did not reflect reality (what? A legal principle askew from reality?). In fact, buyers’ agents work with their clients to find them the right house at the best price and have no feeling of loyalty toward the owners of the 20-30 houses they may walk through. After some mid-western lawyers got upset about this (and won a law suit or two), state legislatures took it upon themselves to amend the old law of agency and create the position of “buyer’s agent”.
So far, so good. In many states, such as Maine, potential buyers are handed a piece of paper that discloses that their agent will be representing them, not the seller. Everyone’s happy and off they go house hunting. Our own legislature, typically, was more ambitious. We are now required to present new clients with a three page, single-spaced legal contract binding them and us to a buyer’s representative agreement. We must get this signed at our first face-to-face meeting before our new clients know us or trust us and, just as I would, they whine about having their lawyer review the damn thing before they’ll sign it. That’s when we have to place a pistol to their head and a pen in their hand, a bit of brutality that accomplishes the job, but also imparts a chill into the subsequent motor tour about town that doesn’t come from the Mercedes’ air conditioner.
We agents could, of course, simply ignore the document, but as President Nixon famously (claimed to have) said, “that would be wrong.” The Smith & Wesson approach occasions the atmospheric difficulties referred to above. So generally, we mark down “zero” as the commission due from the buyer, emphasize that we will look only to the seller for our payment, drop the effective period of the agreement to six seconds and end up with a meaningless contract. This satisfies the legislative intent but brings in a load of unnecessary sturm und drang that starts the house search off on very awkward footing indeed. Thanks, Hartford.

Dot Com Hangover?
A number of houses that sold at the height of the market a few years ago are for sale again. While the low to middle range doesn’t seem to have suffered recently, the very high end has, and it will be interesting to watch what happens to some of these. It’s rare to lose money investing in Greenwich real estate, but some of these homes were bought, in my opinion, at above-market prices and might not bring what they fetched in 2000. On the other hand, unlike the companies whose stock was sold to finance these purchases, the homes are still there, proving shelter and comfort. So we’ll see.
Fixer Uppers In the Dingletown Area
100 Sawmill Lane borders a very nice pond and affords a great view of same. I’d call it “move in condition”, which it is, but the neighborhood would certainly support a major renovation. $1.675. Similarly, and just on the other side of that same pond, 20 Dingletown was until recently on the market for about $1.495. It seems to have disappeared from the listings but I liked it and thought that it, too, offered real potential. If it comes back on, buy it.
Finally, there is Katherine Post’s listing at 25 Perkins Road, 2.54 acres, asking price $1.995. This one needs far more work than 100 Sawmill, but it has a beautiful back yard (once someone Bobcats the arbor vitae blocking the view) and good structure. Again, the neighborhood will financially support just about anything one wants to do here.

12 Carrington Drive
WGCH radio personality and noted agent Gideon Fountain (no relation that I’ll admit to) has a new listing off of Stanwich. 4+ acres of beautiful lawns, 5,800 square feet of totally renovated space, 5 bedrooms. No pool, but Gideon will mow the lawn for free, forever.
And on the Lower End
102 Riverside Lane just came on the market for $630,000, a good price, I think. I’ve watched this neighborhood gradually go upscale with ever larger, more expensive homes replacing the original veterans’ housing. 76 Riverside Lane sold last fall (new construction) for about $1.5, and the same builder is erecting another home next door. 102 was nicely updated and renovated just a year ago but it’s probably destined for replacement. Nice starter home or investment as is—the neighborhood is going up.

Exclusive Listings
A number of Realtors regularly advertise “exclusive listings”, from which the uninitiated may infer that only those agents can show a particular house. This ain’t necessarily the case. Usually, these listings are about as exclusive as Wal-Mart’s Sam’s Club. Unlike New York City, almost every home advertised by local agencies is listed on the Greenwich Multiple Listing Service (MLS) which means that any licensed agent can show the house. This system works very well for sellers, because one never knows from where a buyer will materialize. Everybody in this business knows someone: an aunt, a former business associate or an arresting officer who knows someone else who is buying a home. A referral is made, a house is shown, a sale is accomplished. It works.
Realtors do occasionally try to obtain an exclusive listing for a limited period of time during which they will attempt to sell your home to one of their existing clients and keep the entire sales commission in house. This is a good deal for them, but I have never understood the advantage to the seller. Place your home on the MLS and 850 agents will scurry about trying to come up with a buyer. Why delay that active matching process? My advice: if the broker will knock a point off the commission (typically 5% these days), you might consider letting him try to sell it in house for a month. Otherwise, take advantage of the MLS. You’ll notice that brokers do so when they’re selling their own homes, and that should tell you something.
Name that House?
Another Realtor suggests adding a name to your house before selling it, claiming that the cachet it adds will bring in more money. Maybe. It is true that her listing for “The Rabbit Hutch” just went for $1.2 million (on that most excellent street, Cary Road!), but I doubt that Muck Stall Acres, Pigeon Coop and Heartbreak Hill will go as quickly. On the other hand, the agent in question is known for her sagacity so maybe you should give it a try. “La Maison du la Carteplanche” perhaps?

Whoa, Nelly!

Price Reduction of the Week
109 Byram Shore Road has been reduced from $44,900,000 to $22,900,000. Those of you who’ve been holding out . . . .
Assessment is to Market Value as Gruyere is to Parcheesi.
Our tax system is based on an appraisal process that attempts to establish the current market value for every piece of real estate. Usually, and especially for residential properties, these appraisals bear a reasonable resemblance to actual market value at the time they are made but they are soon outdated and then they’re good only for confusing buyers and sellers alike. For example, here are some recent property sales, assessed value (70% of estimated market value) first, then actual selling price: 465 Round Hill Road, $2.344 assessed, $4,500 million sold; 54 Butternut Hollow Road, $1.455/$1.745; 13 Chapel Lane, $472k/$1.035; 2 Coventry Lane, $366K/$1,400. And finally, there’s 14 Stag Lane: $1.358 assessed/$1.275 asked (someone should be filing a tax appeal right about now). This varying discrepancy between the town’s opinion of value and the market drives some buyers, particularly Wall Street financial analysts, nuts. They seek patterns, they want definite ratios and are disappointed when they can’t find them. Speaking strictly personally and not on behalf of anyone else in the real estate industry, I pay little attention to assessed values except to calculate the annual tax bill. Other than that, the location of the house, its condition and, most important, its value compared to other houses on the market in its price range right now are what, to me, determine value.
I Declare the War is Over
With apologies to Phil Ochs fans, the war’s quick ending seems to have freed up some of the heavy money in town. My firm is receiving substantial, multiple bids on some of our most expensive listings and I’m sure that is happening at other offices too. I use Round Hill’s experience not to tout the firm (which I’d be delighted to do in another forum) but only because offers aren’t publicly reported and if I’m to report on up-to-the-minute market conditions I have to use what I’ve got.
Western Greenwich
Bonnie Caie’s (Soetheby’s) listing at 20 Sherwood Place is a 1940’s brick Georgian on four acres of beautifully landscaped lawns. It has a pond, a pool, nicely proportioned rooms and even a putting green. Placed on the market right after September 11th it has lagged unnoticed since. It has had a couple of price reductions and seems like a relative bargain now, for $3.85 million. Some assembly required, but it would be money well invested.
Further Up the Road
Sandy Shaw has a listing at 338 Round Hill Road for about the same price and it, too, is pretty special. Built as the Episcopal Bishop’s house back when they ruled the east (that would be 1910) it was once part of the church’s Seabury estate now, alas, subdivided. The house has been completely renovated, has great living spaces and a huge lawn that stretches alongside Round Hill for a long, long way. At the end of the yard a path provides deeded access to a pond where, if memory serves, I used to poach very large bass late at night. I imagine the descendants of those fish are still there. Buy the place and find out; Sandy will probably throw a fishing pole in with the deal if you ask nicely.
The Nicest House I’ve Seen, Ever
Is Dancy Casell’s new listing at 200 Stanwich Road. Designed and built in 1928 by a French-German architect (when Iraq was still Mesopotamia, so we won’t hold anything against the fellow), it’s just a fabulous house in every way. The 3.4 acres include lawns, gardens, a pond and complete privacy. Three floors, 8,000 square feet, everything has been beautifully renovated without losing any of the original grace. Despite its size and unlike many modern houses this one is scaled for humans. Even the most formal, high ceilinged rooms feel warm and welcoming and the music room with its view over the lawns and gardens below is a place to settle into forever. $7.8 million. Too high? Well I don’t have that kind of loose change in my pocket, but what’s the value of perfection?
[up date, 2 years later - the house is still for sale. I still love it, but obviously, not everyone (not anyone?) else does.]
British Ex-Pats Mourn
The “House of Weltz” has removed from its Cos Cob location to parts unknown (to this writer). They apparently sold antiques at the establishment, but I thought theirs was one of the more intriguing signs along the Post Road.

Dressing Up

It’s Not Entirely About Price
While the wrong price will kill all interest in a home, I visited David Ogilvy’s listing on Oakley Lane the other day and was reminded of how important a home’s appearance can be when presenting it for sale. This one, like most (all?) Ogilvy listings, was neat, well–decorated and inviting. Buyers like to imagine themselves in the home they’re looking at. If what they imagine is a cluttered, cramped life in a dirty home, they’ll probably imagine themselves right out of the picture. You needn’t spend thousands of dollars on fru-fru “window treatments” and designer throw pillows, but hire a cleaning crew, rent a dumpster and give your house an appealing air. Then price it right so you don’t have to spend the next year and a half keeping it looking like that.
What’s Going On?
Life in this ongoing construction zone called Greenwich is always interesting, if noisy and there are a number of building projects that have caught my eye. I thought it might be informative to inquire about them and report what I learned in this column. Readers with their own “what the heck is that?” questions are invited to contact me and I’ll try to find out what’s planned for their neighborhood. In the meantime, here is my own effort:
40 Lincoln Avenue (corner of Milbank), sold in August of last year for $760,000 (from an original asking price of $895,000-selling agent Nance Minchin did a nice job of negotiating for her client) and is being completely renovated with the siding stripped off, an addition added and a new garage. It will remain a single family residence and that, I believe, reflects a developing trend in town: people are returning to the downtown area for its easy access to shops, theatres and restaurants. There are a number of houses currently for sale in the area that would be ideal candidates for this type of renovation, including 58 Washington Avenue and 219 Milbank. The latter, at $1.780 million, is probably destined for condominiums but it would make a fabulous in-town mansion for someone with deep pockets and the patience to restore it to its original 1900’s glory.
Architect Jay Haverson is erecting a new home on the shores of Frye Lake at 314 Stanwich. I’ve seen the plans and while “Adirondack” style possibly implies a bit more rusticity than the actual design, the house has great, soaring ceilings and nifty architectural flourishes. The bad winter has slowed construction but completion is tentatively set for early this fall. Probable asking price in the mid $5s, it looks like a very nice house on a fantastic setting.
Just Say No
I see that the Starbucks proposed for central Cos Cob has been shot down for the usual reason: “traffic”. This catch-all objection is used to prevent just about anything new being constructed anywhere on Route One where, presumably, commercial activity might sensibly be concentrated. In Cos Cob alone, it was the excuse given to forbid a video store, a diner, a drive-in dry cleaners and a car dealership, if memory serves, and my own section of town, Riverside, forbade the A&P from expanding on the same grounds. I never understood why, say, a couple from Hartford would drive all the way to Riverside to clog our streets and buy a banana but the P&Z does, and they won’t stand for it! Personally, I’d prefer a thriving coffee shop in downtown Cos Cob to another derelict, abandoned gas station but judging from the vociferous opposition to any new businesses opening up in that section of town, the people there seem to like things just the way they are. Fine by me.
I Have a Dream
A house in the mid-country just came on at a price that seems to be $2 million more than the market will support. If you are ever tempted to stick a pie –in-the -sky price on your home to “see what happens”, I’ll tell you now: nothing. Your house won’t sell, agents won’t bother showing it and it will languish, forgotten. We would love to sell your big, over-priced house and collect the commission, but our customers aren’t stupid. In fact, they’re quite sophisticated, and if we waste their time showing them $4 million dollar homes masquerading as $6 million showpieces we’re the ones who look dumb. Our buyers, God forbid, may then decide to try someone else with a bit more savvy, and we hate when that happens.