Rental Blues
For landlords, it’s been a rough couple of years. Rents have fallen and then fallen some more so that units—apartments as well as single family homes—are now commanding perhaps seventy percent of what they did in 2000. Houses that routinely and easily rented for, say, $7,500 back then can now be found sitting vacant, begging for $5,000. I myself have a listing for a neat, clean, two bedroom house in Byram built in 1985. Great place, asking $2,000. No takers. I am not alone. The reason? Who knows, but the consensus among agents is that the big corporations aren’t moving executives around the country as they did a few years ago, thus drying up the high end of the market, and, at the lower end, low interest rates now permit almost anyone with a decent credit rating to go out and buy a condominium (which is exactly what happened in the case of my aforesaid listing). For renters, of course, all this is happy news, so if you’ve been contemplating renovating your house but have hesitated at living in the construction mess, perhaps you should take advantage of the low prices and (temporarily) move out.
Bad Construction
Toured a newly-completed home the other day and was struck by the poor attention to detail displayed by the builder. There is execrable stone work around the fireplaces, including patchy mortar and stone mantles that were apparently ordered too long, because they are rough finished on the front and one side and sawn smooth on the third, as though they were cut to size on site (measure twice, cut once, is the suggested approach here). Two different wiring systems, one on each floor, made me wonder whether the builder tired of the expense after installing state-of-the-art wiring on the first floor. And so forth. Topping off the builder’s short cuts is the architect’s inexplicable design for the master bedroom. Although the house site could provide an incredible view (if I told you what that view was, the builder or his agent would identify his house and then I’d have to deal with another spate of cranky letters) that view is blocked by a closet—the bedroom itself looks over a neighbor’s house. You could always stick windows in the closet and perch on a stool to enjoy the view but at this multi (multi) million dollar price range, do you really want to?
Market Conditions
Slow, in a word, mostly because of so little new inventory. Realtor open house days (Tuesdays and Thursdays, depending on which side of town the house is located) are brutal and short—instead of having too many new listings to see in one day, we’re presented with perhaps five or six new houses and a handful of retreads. Boring. But the buyers are still there, as is evidenced by a recent listing on North Ridge in Havemeyer. $639,000 and destined for the dumpster, it had attracted ten bids by the close of day. Nine Richmond Drive, in Old Greenwich, asked for $825,000 and got it, also on the first day. If you’re thinking of putting your house on the market in the spring, you might want to think about going ahead and doing it now: it will stand out like a beacon on a dark night.
The Return to Town
One area that has seen no let up is our downtown. New condos are showing up, and selling, at prices ranging from one to over two million dollars. Our firm’s single family home listing on 85 Sherwood Avenue, asking $1.290, went the day it appeared and the two adjacent buildings should be gone by the time this article is published. While I have some doubts about the long range duration of the market for ten thousand square foot monsters in the Back Country, I think the future for our in-town market is hugely promising. It is hot, and getting hotter, fueled by down sizing and new couples moving into town who want to be close to the train, shopping and restaurants. Buy it.
Ground Down
The Dunkin Donuts in Cos Cob has disappeared, temporarily. The original building crawled into a dumpster a few days back but I’m told that the enterprise will reappear as a Dunkin Donuts- Baskin Robbins Ice Cream store in the near future. Coffee and ice cream is not a culinary or business combination that makes much sense to this writer, but what do I know? Anyway, I’d still prefer to see a Starbucks in Cos Cob.
For landlords, it’s been a rough couple of years. Rents have fallen and then fallen some more so that units—apartments as well as single family homes—are now commanding perhaps seventy percent of what they did in 2000. Houses that routinely and easily rented for, say, $7,500 back then can now be found sitting vacant, begging for $5,000. I myself have a listing for a neat, clean, two bedroom house in Byram built in 1985. Great place, asking $2,000. No takers. I am not alone. The reason? Who knows, but the consensus among agents is that the big corporations aren’t moving executives around the country as they did a few years ago, thus drying up the high end of the market, and, at the lower end, low interest rates now permit almost anyone with a decent credit rating to go out and buy a condominium (which is exactly what happened in the case of my aforesaid listing). For renters, of course, all this is happy news, so if you’ve been contemplating renovating your house but have hesitated at living in the construction mess, perhaps you should take advantage of the low prices and (temporarily) move out.
Bad Construction
Toured a newly-completed home the other day and was struck by the poor attention to detail displayed by the builder. There is execrable stone work around the fireplaces, including patchy mortar and stone mantles that were apparently ordered too long, because they are rough finished on the front and one side and sawn smooth on the third, as though they were cut to size on site (measure twice, cut once, is the suggested approach here). Two different wiring systems, one on each floor, made me wonder whether the builder tired of the expense after installing state-of-the-art wiring on the first floor. And so forth. Topping off the builder’s short cuts is the architect’s inexplicable design for the master bedroom. Although the house site could provide an incredible view (if I told you what that view was, the builder or his agent would identify his house and then I’d have to deal with another spate of cranky letters) that view is blocked by a closet—the bedroom itself looks over a neighbor’s house. You could always stick windows in the closet and perch on a stool to enjoy the view but at this multi (multi) million dollar price range, do you really want to?
Market Conditions
Slow, in a word, mostly because of so little new inventory. Realtor open house days (Tuesdays and Thursdays, depending on which side of town the house is located) are brutal and short—instead of having too many new listings to see in one day, we’re presented with perhaps five or six new houses and a handful of retreads. Boring. But the buyers are still there, as is evidenced by a recent listing on North Ridge in Havemeyer. $639,000 and destined for the dumpster, it had attracted ten bids by the close of day. Nine Richmond Drive, in Old Greenwich, asked for $825,000 and got it, also on the first day. If you’re thinking of putting your house on the market in the spring, you might want to think about going ahead and doing it now: it will stand out like a beacon on a dark night.
The Return to Town
One area that has seen no let up is our downtown. New condos are showing up, and selling, at prices ranging from one to over two million dollars. Our firm’s single family home listing on 85 Sherwood Avenue, asking $1.290, went the day it appeared and the two adjacent buildings should be gone by the time this article is published. While I have some doubts about the long range duration of the market for ten thousand square foot monsters in the Back Country, I think the future for our in-town market is hugely promising. It is hot, and getting hotter, fueled by down sizing and new couples moving into town who want to be close to the train, shopping and restaurants. Buy it.
Ground Down
The Dunkin Donuts in Cos Cob has disappeared, temporarily. The original building crawled into a dumpster a few days back but I’m told that the enterprise will reappear as a Dunkin Donuts- Baskin Robbins Ice Cream store in the near future. Coffee and ice cream is not a culinary or business combination that makes much sense to this writer, but what do I know? Anyway, I’d still prefer to see a Starbucks in Cos Cob.
posted by Chris Fountain at 9:55 AM
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