November 4, 2004
What Gives with these Prices?
A number of us Realtors wandered around the open house circuit last week with the same sense of sticker shock usually experienced by Greenwich newcomers. Has the market really advanced so dramatically in the past few months or have homeowners gone out of their friggin’ gourds? Time will tell, but I am reasonably confidant that, come January, we’re going to see some substantial price reductions on a number of houses. In fact, we probably won’t have to wait that long: I see that a new construction project in Old Greenwich clipped $50,000 from its asking price the other day. It’s still no bargain, but I like the trend.
Two Well Priced Houses
Not everyone’s nuts. Brooke Widen (Shore & Country) brought 4 Lockwood Avenue in Old Greenwich on at $1,395,000. The house was rented out for the past years, and shows it, but a young family could move into this house tomorrow, live quite well in it as is and renovate or expand it as their schedule and financial situation dictates. They could – the more likely scenario, because this house sits on an over-sized lot, is that it will disappear under a builder’s bulldozer. As an aside, both Brooke and my brother Gideon have commented on a delightful (for Realtors) change in circumstances. In the bad old days, a homeowner would despair at selling his house and decide to rent it instead. That’s bad for commissions, naturally, so we did our best to discourage it. Now, the rental market is so bad that homeowners who can’t rent are deciding to sell rather than have their houses sit empty. Good on you!
Jane Basham (David Ogilvy & Associates) just listed 26 Lake Drive South, in Riverside, for $2,195,000. That’s a great location, across from the station pond. The four-bedroom house has been completely renovated, and the money you’ll save on station parking will pay your mortgage. Well, maybe not, but this is a very nice house.
Fix It!
Another house in the $2,000,000 range was also on the open house circuit last week. It was okay, I suppose, although I thought the upstairs a bit claustrophobic, but a rotting doorframe I saw in the garage put me off. Even if there’s nothing else wrong with a house, a sight like that raises the specter of deferred maintenance and you wonder what else has been neglected. Once the wondering starts, bad things happen. So my advice is, if you want to ask $2,000,000 for your house, reach for your wallet have someone repair the most glaring deficiencies. Or, heck, at least paint over the rot.
And Speaking of Prices
The Greenwich Library’s café used to have a very reasonably priced menu where you could get a bowl of soup and a sandwich for less than five dollars. Between the quiet solitude provided by Jewel Room and the cheap eats at the café, the library was an impoverished writer’s paradise (other than the fact that the Jewel Room’s unheated in winter and you need fingerless gloves to type in it). Not so now. Everything in the café seems to have been marked up substantially so that the old three-fifty sandwich now commands six bucks. I’d like to think that they’re using a better quality tuna fish and hand crafting those soups but, more likely, the operators have decided they want to buy a house in Greenwich. Darn.
Buyers Are Still Here
All the above grousing about astronomical prices notwithstanding, well-priced houses are still selling, often almost as soon as they’re listed. 59 Club Road, in Riverside, asked $3,150,000 and had a contract in ten days (this had to have been an intra-Riverside move, as the house commanded a premium, I think, because of its walk-to-the-Club location. I suspect that an out-of-towner wouldn’t pay for that advantage). 36 Dawn Harbor a nice, older house asking $2,395,000 went in sixteen days and the great old house I mentioned in a previous column at 251 Palmer Hill is also gone. Higher up in the food chain, 435 Round Hill Road, $4,495,000 went to contract in nineteen days. There is a moral here: if your house isn’t selling at one price, try a different price. A lower one, that is – I continue to be amused at angry homeowners who punish the market by raising their price when their house doesn’t sell. It’s not an effective sales tactic, but it does provide everyone with some good yucks.
Final Question
Why is it that, the smaller and blonder the woman, the larger her SUV? Just wondering.
A number of us Realtors wandered around the open house circuit last week with the same sense of sticker shock usually experienced by Greenwich newcomers. Has the market really advanced so dramatically in the past few months or have homeowners gone out of their friggin’ gourds? Time will tell, but I am reasonably confidant that, come January, we’re going to see some substantial price reductions on a number of houses. In fact, we probably won’t have to wait that long: I see that a new construction project in Old Greenwich clipped $50,000 from its asking price the other day. It’s still no bargain, but I like the trend.
Two Well Priced Houses
Not everyone’s nuts. Brooke Widen (Shore & Country) brought 4 Lockwood Avenue in Old Greenwich on at $1,395,000. The house was rented out for the past years, and shows it, but a young family could move into this house tomorrow, live quite well in it as is and renovate or expand it as their schedule and financial situation dictates. They could – the more likely scenario, because this house sits on an over-sized lot, is that it will disappear under a builder’s bulldozer. As an aside, both Brooke and my brother Gideon have commented on a delightful (for Realtors) change in circumstances. In the bad old days, a homeowner would despair at selling his house and decide to rent it instead. That’s bad for commissions, naturally, so we did our best to discourage it. Now, the rental market is so bad that homeowners who can’t rent are deciding to sell rather than have their houses sit empty. Good on you!
Jane Basham (David Ogilvy & Associates) just listed 26 Lake Drive South, in Riverside, for $2,195,000. That’s a great location, across from the station pond. The four-bedroom house has been completely renovated, and the money you’ll save on station parking will pay your mortgage. Well, maybe not, but this is a very nice house.
Fix It!
Another house in the $2,000,000 range was also on the open house circuit last week. It was okay, I suppose, although I thought the upstairs a bit claustrophobic, but a rotting doorframe I saw in the garage put me off. Even if there’s nothing else wrong with a house, a sight like that raises the specter of deferred maintenance and you wonder what else has been neglected. Once the wondering starts, bad things happen. So my advice is, if you want to ask $2,000,000 for your house, reach for your wallet have someone repair the most glaring deficiencies. Or, heck, at least paint over the rot.
And Speaking of Prices
The Greenwich Library’s café used to have a very reasonably priced menu where you could get a bowl of soup and a sandwich for less than five dollars. Between the quiet solitude provided by Jewel Room and the cheap eats at the café, the library was an impoverished writer’s paradise (other than the fact that the Jewel Room’s unheated in winter and you need fingerless gloves to type in it). Not so now. Everything in the café seems to have been marked up substantially so that the old three-fifty sandwich now commands six bucks. I’d like to think that they’re using a better quality tuna fish and hand crafting those soups but, more likely, the operators have decided they want to buy a house in Greenwich. Darn.
Buyers Are Still Here
All the above grousing about astronomical prices notwithstanding, well-priced houses are still selling, often almost as soon as they’re listed. 59 Club Road, in Riverside, asked $3,150,000 and had a contract in ten days (this had to have been an intra-Riverside move, as the house commanded a premium, I think, because of its walk-to-the-Club location. I suspect that an out-of-towner wouldn’t pay for that advantage). 36 Dawn Harbor a nice, older house asking $2,395,000 went in sixteen days and the great old house I mentioned in a previous column at 251 Palmer Hill is also gone. Higher up in the food chain, 435 Round Hill Road, $4,495,000 went to contract in nineteen days. There is a moral here: if your house isn’t selling at one price, try a different price. A lower one, that is – I continue to be amused at angry homeowners who punish the market by raising their price when their house doesn’t sell. It’s not an effective sales tactic, but it does provide everyone with some good yucks.
Final Question
Why is it that, the smaller and blonder the woman, the larger her SUV? Just wondering.
posted by Chris Fountain at 8:04 AM
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