September 24, 2004

32 Chapel Lane

Sue McCalley has brought this fine old house onto the market at what I think is the very intelligent price of $1,890,000. The house was built in 1899 and is a beautiful example of a vintage Victorian: finely detailed moldings and paneling, huge windows, eight (!) bedrooms and so on. The third floor offers the best playroom opportunity I’ve seen and the entire house has obviously been carefully cared for and maintained over the past century. Chapel Lane (so named because St. Paul’s Church was there until moving to its Riverside Avenue location in the 1950s) has seen a huge surge in prices the past two years and I think it’s deserved. Some of the houses, now selling for well-over a million dollars, are old prefabricated Sears Robuck buildings designed in the Arts and Crafts style and shipped via rail to their sites. They’re unique, very, very nice and give the street some real pizazz. A brand new house at 23 Chapel, also a prefab and also nice albeit not as stylish, sold this summer in a bidding war for $2,395,000, $100,000 over its asking price. Sue’s listing could use central air, I suppose, but the micro-system I wrote about earlier this year (Unique Indoor Comfort 323-9400) would solve that nicely. Great house.

And Another One
Sharon Kinney of this office (again, that’s by way of disclosure and not the reason for mention in this column) has listed 6 Mill Pond Court in Cos Cob for $879,000.00. It’s a nice, four bedroom cottage right on Mill Pond, with minimal traffic noise from I-95. Very good condition and good location on a quiet, dead end street. If the town would only let Starbucks get up and running around the corner, this house would be absolutely perfect.

What’s Up With Those Sales Transactions?
I receive a fair amount of email complaining about missing and erroneous sales transactions reported in the column below mine. That’s very much not my department but by way of explanation, readers should know how the land recording system works in Greenwich: like so much of our town government, it’s “quaint”. ALL documents affecting title to real property are recorded in the town clerk’s office. That means, in addition to deeds transferring ownership, mortgages, quit-claim deeds, tax and mechanic’s liens, easements, etc. all go in for recording in an unsorted jumble. The clerk hand-writes the information in the “Day Book” and, eventually, it all gets alphabetized and compiled in the Grantor and Grantee indexes. But that’s eventually. The poor reporter whose job it is to glean the sales information for this paper must rely on the Day Book, where a combination of varying handwriting skills, deadline pressures and sheer volume end up causing (some) misspellings of names, erroneous prices and missed sales. Hey — use it as a rough guide to what’s going on in your neighborhood. If you want to know for certain what the house down the street sold for, call a Realtor (toss a stone in any direction—you’ll hit one). We’ve got our data on a computer.

Crooks!
Greenwich Time reports that a contractor has been arrested for walking away from a job after he pocketed a homeowner’s money, pulled the roof off the house and fled. It’s never fun to lack a roof—ask any Floridian—and I sympathize with the homeowner. But, just like the victims of crooked stockbrokers, those fleeced by builders could often have prevented their loss by exercising a little common sense and employing a modicum of caution. Before hiring anyone to work on your house, make certain that he or she is registered with the State of Connecticut. That in itself isn’t much of a protection but it’s at least a sign that the contractor is somewhat serious about his business, has an address and might even be found after he disappears from the job. The strictures governing home improvement contracts are, by law, heavily weighted in favor of the homeowner, so that, too provides a layer of protection (and, should the contract not comply with the law, it is unenforceable against you). The best advice is to ask for references from recent customers and then call a few. And never, ever, pay for the whole job before every item listed on the final punch list is completed to your satisfaction. If a contractor has received his last dollar from you, he’s not likely to be interested in spending a day or two installing missing doorknobs and correcting his mistakes. This last comment is not meant to disparage contractors—I like many of them—but is just a reflection on human nature.

September 17, 2004

The Market Returns
Twenty-nine houses sold last week, eighteen went to contract and eight-five new listings came on. This week should be even busier. As I’ve noted before, sales provide a snapshot of what the market was doing thirty to sixty days ago, when the contracts were signed, so it’s more informative to look at current contracts. There are some interesting deals. 4 Idar Court, another new luxury condominium project on Field Point Road has just reported its first, still-under-constructionvunit to contract at $2,750,000. There has been some speculation that the market for super-high end condominiums must be getting flooded but so far, that speculation seems unfounded. We’ll see what happens when another fifty units come on. Luxury waterfront single family houses, however, will probably never go out of style, and 12 Indian Drive, direct waterfront in Old Greenwich, went to contract in just eight days. Asking price was $7,200,000. Lower down in price but still impressive to me was 22 Linwood Avenue in Riverside. A nice house, recently renovated, it was asking $1,765,000 and went to contract at an unspecified price in seventy days. Whoever owned the place in 1932 would be surprised.
Price that House!
I just saw a house that had a number of drawbacks: it was small, cramped, low-ceilinged (a real detriment in today’s market) dated, in poor repair and backed up to the railroad tracks. I’d consider it either a starter home or a builder’s scraper but you wouldn’t know that from its asking price. I assume it was the owners, not the listing agent, who were so optimistic, although agents can err in that way also. The usual source though, for a house being over-priced can be traced to its owner who has been keeping careful track of what other houses on his street sold for and decides that his house is worth the same amount. Before you, as a potential seller, insist on a certain price, make certain that you know what you’re comparing your house to. In the house that I am writing about, the properties that were apparently used as its comparables were all much larger, much, much newer, and were in genuine move-in condition (which I know because, like any diligent agent, I inspected them during open houses and showed several of them to my own customers). Here’s some advice: when a public open house is held in your neighborhood, attend it and look around with as objective a view as you can manage. Don’t dismiss the new kitchen as “no better than mine” if your kitchen was installed in 1960. Sellers tend to disregard things like dated bathrooms flooded basements and kitchens with coal burning stoves—buyers don’t.
Details

Another new listing that appeared on the market the other day seemed pretty nice. Very large, quite recently built, a good yard on a quiet street. I imagine that the house will go for close to its asking price of $3,000,000 plus, even though that price will far exceed anything sold on the street up to now. But, while I liked the house, I couldn’t help noticing that its builder had selected the cheapest trim moldings and those pre-hung, plastic hollow doors. For perhaps, what—$20,000?—the builder could have installed top quality trim and 2 1/2” wooden doors. It’s not so much a matter of wood being better than plastic (although my personal preferences lean that way) but when a builder goes cheap on obvious things like doors and woodwork, some of us wonder what other short cuts he might have taken when building the more invisible parts of the house. The common wisdom among most builders in town is that there is no premium paid for quality; I suppose that’s so, but I suspect that top-quality finishes will attract more buyers and sell more quickly. We’ll see.

Astro Turf?T
oyota of Greenwich has replaced the artificial-turf on its sidewalk. Other than bringing it into symmetrical balance with the new Greenwich High School field, I’m no more impressed with this idea than when they first tried it twenty years ago. Do you remember when Los Angeles installed plastic palms along its highways? They were set on fire by nature-loving vandals. I’m not suggesting arson or any other attack, but it seems to me that concrete should look like concrete and grass should look like grass. Then again, perhaps this store’s owner prefers plastic hollow doors.

September 10, 2004

37 Mahr Avenue
Betsy Galindo brought this great old house on the market last week and, notwithstanding that almost everyone in town seems to be out of town, I’ll be surprised if it’s still around when people return. A 1910 house that was renovated just a few years ago, it still has enough of its original yard—almost an acre—to sit very nicely up from the street. Six bedrooms, three floors, great yards front and back, it seemed well priced at $2,750,000.00. It last sold in 2001 for $2,100,000; if it goes for its current asking price now, that would yield a 31% gain in three years or, for the math challenged, a little over 10% per year. That’s not up to dot.com money but then, neither are dot.coms, these days.
Do Your Homework
Wilson Alling, of New England Land Company, contacted me recently with a pet peeve: agents who accept a listing and then leave it to the selling agent to dig up plot and septic plans, surveys and the like. Most of this information is available at Town hall (building permits, in particular, are filed under one of the most arcane filing systems imaginable) and Wilson’s point is that it the listing, not the selling agent, who can do that research in advance. By the time a buyer is interested, time has usually become a factor and everyone’s rushing around like madmen. So if you’ve listed your house, ask your agent to do a bit of legwork now, rather than later. It might save a deal and it will certainly spare your agent from Wilson’s wrath.

Speaking of Wrath
I heard a rumor recently that a local builder, after working with an agent for many, many months to unload a certain house, finally found a buyer for it and, rather than pay the commission he owed, “sold” the property to a limited partnership with the intention of having that entity sell to the would-be buyer. The agent, our rumor continues, has now filed a lien against the property which, if true, should certainly make for an interesting closing. The point being, I suppose, that like tax strategies that appear too cute to be true, creating dummy entities to avoid contractual obligations usually isn’t a brilliant idea. Greenwich’s own Long Term Capital gurus just got whacked with a $53,000,000 tax bill, Noble prizes or not; this builder won’t be paying that much but it was still a dumb move. As a lawyer, I was often puzzled by a client’s stratagems to avoid paying commissions: it made more sense to stiff someone like his lawyer than the person who put money in his pocket (actually, they usually tried to do both). In any event, it sounds as though this particular builder will be paying up after all, however reluctantly.
The Market Returns
This is the week that the market finally begins to stir back to life or at least I hope so. While a lot of houses were sold over the summer, not much new inventory came on, especially in the past few weeks, so those of us with buyers who had already seen everything in their price range and rejected it have been left in a rather boring holding pattern. “Wanna look at that house again?” “No!”. Next year I intend to leave town from August 1st until the second week of September. But with schools finally back in session (and the Post Road returned to its usual morning and mid-afternoon mess) a great many open houses are being scheduled for new and re-priced listings and buyers are again calling. Next week, traditionally, will see the number of new listings at their peak and the buyers will be out there. Your house should sell between now and Thanksgiving; if it doesn’t, either lower the price (by, say Halloween, to give the market time to respond) or prepare for a long cold winter.
Patriotism
I noticed one of those “ACK” stickers pasted on a Lincoln Navigator the other day but this one had a red, white and blue flag motif as a background. I guess that’s so, while our soldiers are fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq, this vehicle owner can loll on Nantucket and show his support. I’m sure the troops will be pleased.

September 3, 2004

Who’s Killing the Great Trees of Perryridge?
Driving down Perryridge Road the other day I noticed it was littered with dead leaves, unusual for this time of year. Looking up at the (mulberry?) trees that line the street, I saw that they all seem to be dying, every one of them. I am told that our town’s tree department is looking into the matter but, so far, hasn’t a clue (or none that they cared to share with me, as they didn’t return my call). It would be a real shame to lose these trees, as they give the street quite a bit of its charm. It’s probably not true that the hospital is to blame, but given the sour relationship between that institution and its neighbors on Perryridge, it would be fun if it were.
27 Rockwood Spur
Not many houses came on the market last week but this was a notable exception. Jean Crocco (Putnam Associates)’s listing is an old 1905 carriage house that has been totally renovated and added on to, tastefully. Its beauty remains, but the house is completely modernized, offering a rebuke to those who feel compelled to tear down anything built before 1995. Asking price is $3,895,000.00, which brings you one and a half acres, six bedrooms including a guest bedroom suite a root cellar dug into a hillside, one corn crib and a horse stall for an unspecified number of horses. You want more, too late: as noted below, the Conyer’s Farm property, which had room for fifty horses or so, has been sold.

On the Other Hand
The New York Times reports that the president of the Royal Institute of British Architects has proposed an “X” designation for those buildings that are simply too ugly to tolerate. He’d use taxpayers’ money to encourage the razing of the most egregious offenders and, while I deplore Socialism, I think that’s a good use of funds for the Brits. Here in the land of free enterprise, where there are many, many candidates for an X rating (including a number of monstrosities still under construction), I’d think we could make this a private undertaking. Something like the Land Trust in reverse, where town benefactors can contribute toward buying up and tearing down architectural follies and builders’ excesses. I’ll ante up the first five dollars.
Market Conditions
Although it seems as though everyone in town with somewhere better to go has done so, the market is not completely dormant. Fifty or so new listings showed up last week and, more important, twenty houses went to contract at prices ranging from $15,500,000 (97 Clapboard Ridge) on down. Sales were even more impressive, including the eighty-acre sale in Conyer’s Farm for $45,000,000, 93 Doubling Road for $9,450,000 and 29 Round Hill Club Road for $5,550,000. The Conyer’s Farm property went on the market on June first and went to contract August twelfth, closing just thirteen days later. Nice to have that kind of pocket change hanging around.
Road Rage
The proposal to close part of Tod’s Point to through traffic on Saturdays has generated the usual letters of protest from those claiming to represent the “frail and the elderly”. I disagree. Five days a week, drivers are free to cruise all around the point while they take in the scenery and bounce bicyclists from their way. It seems reasonable to turn those same roads over for a few hours on weekends to everyone else. Just as they are on Sundays, the beaches would remain accessible under this expanded program; it is only the loop drive that would be off limits. Boat owners who need to reach their craft and handicapped drivers would be permitted entry while everyone else could drive only as far as the beach parking lots. The park is far more crowded, even in winter, than it was in the 1960s and some accommodation of competing uses makes sense. Besides, judging from the silver hair I see on many of the walkers, joggers and bicyclists at Tod’s, this town’s population may be elderly but it’s not particularly frail. The senior citizen “advocates” who claim that old folks need Buick Roadmasters to see the Point are probably insulting many of their would-be constituents. For those who insist on the right to sit in their car and do nothing, I suggest they head out to I-95 on any afternoon and take in the view of the car in front of them.