July 9, 2004
Dog Days
School ended and the town emptied, leaving those of us with nowhere better to go feeling distinctly underutilized. Thirty-three new residences were listed for sale during all of last week (a single busy day in April might see that number and more). Seventeen houses went to contract and eighteen lowered their prices, an interesting balance. And that was it. Ho hum. But this is a good time to be a buyer. There are some good houses still out there (insert plug for my six bedroom colonial on Weaver Street here) and less frenzied competition from fellow buyers. If you’re in town, have your agent take you out looking. She won’t have anything better to do, and, if you find something you like, you can probably get away with a lower bid than will be accepted next fall. Houses worth looking at? At random, 97 Shore Road in Old Greenwich, 8 Meadow Road in Riverside and 43 Hunting Ridge Road in Greenwich. Each is different from the other, all are interesting. Go see, and treat your agent to lunch while you’re at it.
Rentals
There are two hundred eight-three active rentals available in town (and five hundred thirty-seven residences for sale, but this is about rentals) and almost three-quarters of them (one hundred ninety-three) are asking less than $4,500 per month. Fifty-eight below $2,000, one hundred thirty-five between $2,000 and $4,500. As any landlord will tell you, rents are down significantly from, say, 1999. And yet, there doesn’t seem to be any panic selling by landlords; land values keep rising and even if they’re losing money on rents, the appreciation of their properties makes up for it. Of course, sooner or later these owners might grow tired of making money only on paper and will cash out but, for now, they seem to be hanging on. The rising interest rates, we Realtors speculate, will slowly make renting look more attractive to some people and if that happens, look for rents to go up. That hasn’t happened yet and I’ll repeat the advice I mentioned a few months ago: if you’re considering a major renovation of your house, this would be a good time to find a low-cost rental to live in while the demolition dust is clogging your old kitchen.
Who Buys these Things?
Just toured one of those houses that are blighting our town. You know the type: stark, forbidding stone exterior, huge, cold rooms and bedrooms so large that the happy couple will never find each other to say goodnight, let alone throw things at each other. The rooms go on and on with no discernable purpose except perhaps to stroke the ego of the purchaser (“wow, Huntley, I didn’t realize you were this important! Three billiard rooms! Sixteen home entertainment centers! And not a single book—good on you!”). Completely lacking in grace, charm and proportion, these houses sell almost as quickly as they pop off the assembly line. I just can’t figure out why. The other question I toy with is what will happen to these monsters when fuel prices soar, Wall Street stops generating multi-million dollar bonuses for each junior Vice President and no one wants them (the houses and the junior vps). Will we have condominiums in the Back Country? Rows of plywooded empty mansions on Round Hill Road? I am not predicting imminent doom but I do remember that Wall Street does not rise in a straight line forever; I wonder whether some of Greenwich’s younger citizens do. And I don’t begrudge the kids their toys, I just wish they had better taste and weren’t littering the landscape with huge, awful examples of the worst that architects and builders can produce. Of course, it’s an uncooperative attitude like this that prevents me from selling the damn things, all to my creditors’ dismay.
Oh, that Guy
A reader has pointed out that I conflated the name of the former owner of the Old Greenwich Book Store, Van Messner, with the long-time assistant there, Pyke Johnson, and came up with “Van Johnson”. That’s a good theory. More likely I was thinking of the actor. Who could forget “Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo”? The bookstore is gone now and Pyke passed away recently, I was sad to learn. On a brighter note for the eastern end of town, Just Books Too is flourishing in its location next to Arcadia Coffee House. Go buy a book.
School ended and the town emptied, leaving those of us with nowhere better to go feeling distinctly underutilized. Thirty-three new residences were listed for sale during all of last week (a single busy day in April might see that number and more). Seventeen houses went to contract and eighteen lowered their prices, an interesting balance. And that was it. Ho hum. But this is a good time to be a buyer. There are some good houses still out there (insert plug for my six bedroom colonial on Weaver Street here) and less frenzied competition from fellow buyers. If you’re in town, have your agent take you out looking. She won’t have anything better to do, and, if you find something you like, you can probably get away with a lower bid than will be accepted next fall. Houses worth looking at? At random, 97 Shore Road in Old Greenwich, 8 Meadow Road in Riverside and 43 Hunting Ridge Road in Greenwich. Each is different from the other, all are interesting. Go see, and treat your agent to lunch while you’re at it.
Rentals
There are two hundred eight-three active rentals available in town (and five hundred thirty-seven residences for sale, but this is about rentals) and almost three-quarters of them (one hundred ninety-three) are asking less than $4,500 per month. Fifty-eight below $2,000, one hundred thirty-five between $2,000 and $4,500. As any landlord will tell you, rents are down significantly from, say, 1999. And yet, there doesn’t seem to be any panic selling by landlords; land values keep rising and even if they’re losing money on rents, the appreciation of their properties makes up for it. Of course, sooner or later these owners might grow tired of making money only on paper and will cash out but, for now, they seem to be hanging on. The rising interest rates, we Realtors speculate, will slowly make renting look more attractive to some people and if that happens, look for rents to go up. That hasn’t happened yet and I’ll repeat the advice I mentioned a few months ago: if you’re considering a major renovation of your house, this would be a good time to find a low-cost rental to live in while the demolition dust is clogging your old kitchen.
Who Buys these Things?
Just toured one of those houses that are blighting our town. You know the type: stark, forbidding stone exterior, huge, cold rooms and bedrooms so large that the happy couple will never find each other to say goodnight, let alone throw things at each other. The rooms go on and on with no discernable purpose except perhaps to stroke the ego of the purchaser (“wow, Huntley, I didn’t realize you were this important! Three billiard rooms! Sixteen home entertainment centers! And not a single book—good on you!”). Completely lacking in grace, charm and proportion, these houses sell almost as quickly as they pop off the assembly line. I just can’t figure out why. The other question I toy with is what will happen to these monsters when fuel prices soar, Wall Street stops generating multi-million dollar bonuses for each junior Vice President and no one wants them (the houses and the junior vps). Will we have condominiums in the Back Country? Rows of plywooded empty mansions on Round Hill Road? I am not predicting imminent doom but I do remember that Wall Street does not rise in a straight line forever; I wonder whether some of Greenwich’s younger citizens do. And I don’t begrudge the kids their toys, I just wish they had better taste and weren’t littering the landscape with huge, awful examples of the worst that architects and builders can produce. Of course, it’s an uncooperative attitude like this that prevents me from selling the damn things, all to my creditors’ dismay.
Oh, that Guy
A reader has pointed out that I conflated the name of the former owner of the Old Greenwich Book Store, Van Messner, with the long-time assistant there, Pyke Johnson, and came up with “Van Johnson”. That’s a good theory. More likely I was thinking of the actor. Who could forget “Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo”? The bookstore is gone now and Pyke passed away recently, I was sad to learn. On a brighter note for the eastern end of town, Just Books Too is flourishing in its location next to Arcadia Coffee House. Go buy a book.
posted by Chris Fountain at 10:20 AM
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