Hey there, sailor!
Years ago, sixty-five foot MacGregor yachts sold for less than half the price of, say, a Hinkley. They were flimsily built and I wouldn’t have dared sail one more than a few feet from the dock but that wasn’t the point. The MacGregor owner could park his behemoth safely in its slip and party on it all day, looking exactly like a genuine wealthy yachter. Cool; they sold a lot of them in California. A land-based equivalent of a MacGregor showed up for sale last week. Nine thousand feet of cheap construction with expensive bits of trim tacked on, fogged windows, doorways tilting every which way and a big gate at the head of the driveway so that there could be no doubt that someone very important lived beyond. Every agent at the open house seemed to have just the right customer for this one—insecure, desperate for status and unable to afford a real mansion—(no Sean, not you) and the cellphones were humming. It was gone in two days, flooded with offers. The winning bid, I hear, “astoundingly high.” So what does this tell us about our town and the people coming to live here? “Nothing,” he muttered, “nothing at all.”
New Listings
There’s been quite a bit of activity the past two weeks. Forty-one new single family homes came on the market, ranging in price from $589,000 (Nicholas Avenue) to $23,900,000 (109 Byram Shore Road, back for another try). Twenty-four houses went to contract during that same period, from $729,000 to $14,950,000. One that I particularly liked was 38 Quaker Lane, way in the Back Country, set on four acres (six additional acres are available) and asking $2,875,000. It’s a very comfortable, unpretentious house with beautiful grounds. My brother Gideon brought on 8 Dialstone Lane for $849,000 and received multiple offers over $900,000, I believe (he’s tight lipped, but I’ve been reading the kid for a long time). It was basically a tear-down on two tenths of an acre. Just four years ago he and I worked very hard to find a buyer for our late Aunt’s house; same street, dated but much better built and on a half acre. The best we could get was $580,000. Today, that same house would probably generate a bidding war at $1,299,000.
A Dearth of Inventory
There are officially thirty-five homes currently listed for sale between $1,100,000 and $1,750,000. Of those, many already have accepted, if unreported offers and the rest are wildly overpriced. Demand for good houses in this range is so strong that when a plain vanilla home in Cos Cob came on the market Thursday and priced at $1,650,000, it attracted seven bids by Monday morning.
Wagons Ho!
Do you remember the old tax rules regarding capital gains on your home? Sit in it as long as you like then sell and roll the gains over into your next home, and the next, all without the tax man dipping his beak. The protection from taxation ended only when you made your final exchange for a smaller (six-by-three, traditionally) plot. That’s no longer the case and, to my surprise, many people don’t know it. The rules have changed. Inspired no doubt by the real estate and moving van industries, our lawmakers now permit a married couple to pocket $500,000 in capital gains every two years. Stay in your house forever, if you wish, but once it has appreciated$500,000 (not at all an uncommon occurrence in this town) if you don’t move, you’re wasting a tax break. Don’t want to leave your neighborhood? Perhaps you and your neighbor should buy each other’s house. Not as entertaining as swapping wives, but then, tax matters rarely are.
Beach CaféReal estate attorney Tom Ward’s new restaurant in Old Greenwich is a smashing success and rapidly driving out the bad memories some of us had of the food served by the previous tenant (yes, I know that you LOVED the Colonial Diner; no need to write me about it. We disagree.) Good food, great prices, big crowds. Success in any field other than law, Tom, may be God’s way of hinting that we have too many lawyers. Just a thought.
Lights! Camera! Action?
My first screenplay has been accepted for representation by ICM. “Greenwich Mean Time” tells the story of a band of faux-Siwanoy Indians who invade Greenwich, claim Tod’s Point and attempt to build a casino. The mastermind behind the plot is a certain Stamford lawyer still smarting at our refusal to give him a beach card. ICM’s flogging it on the west coast but why doesn’t one of the movie types here in town have his people call my people (that would be Richard Abate or Kris Dahl in New York)? We’ll do lunch.
Years ago, sixty-five foot MacGregor yachts sold for less than half the price of, say, a Hinkley. They were flimsily built and I wouldn’t have dared sail one more than a few feet from the dock but that wasn’t the point. The MacGregor owner could park his behemoth safely in its slip and party on it all day, looking exactly like a genuine wealthy yachter. Cool; they sold a lot of them in California. A land-based equivalent of a MacGregor showed up for sale last week. Nine thousand feet of cheap construction with expensive bits of trim tacked on, fogged windows, doorways tilting every which way and a big gate at the head of the driveway so that there could be no doubt that someone very important lived beyond. Every agent at the open house seemed to have just the right customer for this one—insecure, desperate for status and unable to afford a real mansion—(no Sean, not you) and the cellphones were humming. It was gone in two days, flooded with offers. The winning bid, I hear, “astoundingly high.” So what does this tell us about our town and the people coming to live here? “Nothing,” he muttered, “nothing at all.”
New Listings
There’s been quite a bit of activity the past two weeks. Forty-one new single family homes came on the market, ranging in price from $589,000 (Nicholas Avenue) to $23,900,000 (109 Byram Shore Road, back for another try). Twenty-four houses went to contract during that same period, from $729,000 to $14,950,000. One that I particularly liked was 38 Quaker Lane, way in the Back Country, set on four acres (six additional acres are available) and asking $2,875,000. It’s a very comfortable, unpretentious house with beautiful grounds. My brother Gideon brought on 8 Dialstone Lane for $849,000 and received multiple offers over $900,000, I believe (he’s tight lipped, but I’ve been reading the kid for a long time). It was basically a tear-down on two tenths of an acre. Just four years ago he and I worked very hard to find a buyer for our late Aunt’s house; same street, dated but much better built and on a half acre. The best we could get was $580,000. Today, that same house would probably generate a bidding war at $1,299,000.
A Dearth of Inventory
There are officially thirty-five homes currently listed for sale between $1,100,000 and $1,750,000. Of those, many already have accepted, if unreported offers and the rest are wildly overpriced. Demand for good houses in this range is so strong that when a plain vanilla home in Cos Cob came on the market Thursday and priced at $1,650,000, it attracted seven bids by Monday morning.
Wagons Ho!
Do you remember the old tax rules regarding capital gains on your home? Sit in it as long as you like then sell and roll the gains over into your next home, and the next, all without the tax man dipping his beak. The protection from taxation ended only when you made your final exchange for a smaller (six-by-three, traditionally) plot. That’s no longer the case and, to my surprise, many people don’t know it. The rules have changed. Inspired no doubt by the real estate and moving van industries, our lawmakers now permit a married couple to pocket $500,000 in capital gains every two years. Stay in your house forever, if you wish, but once it has appreciated$500,000 (not at all an uncommon occurrence in this town) if you don’t move, you’re wasting a tax break. Don’t want to leave your neighborhood? Perhaps you and your neighbor should buy each other’s house. Not as entertaining as swapping wives, but then, tax matters rarely are.
Beach CaféReal estate attorney Tom Ward’s new restaurant in Old Greenwich is a smashing success and rapidly driving out the bad memories some of us had of the food served by the previous tenant (yes, I know that you LOVED the Colonial Diner; no need to write me about it. We disagree.) Good food, great prices, big crowds. Success in any field other than law, Tom, may be God’s way of hinting that we have too many lawyers. Just a thought.
Lights! Camera! Action?
My first screenplay has been accepted for representation by ICM. “Greenwich Mean Time” tells the story of a band of faux-Siwanoy Indians who invade Greenwich, claim Tod’s Point and attempt to build a casino. The mastermind behind the plot is a certain Stamford lawyer still smarting at our refusal to give him a beach card. ICM’s flogging it on the west coast but why doesn’t one of the movie types here in town have his people call my people (that would be Richard Abate or Kris Dahl in New York)? We’ll do lunch.
posted by Chris Fountain at 10:39 AM
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