December 31, 2004

Best Houses
Conversations with my fellow Realtors reveal a genuine optimism for next year’s market. Wall Street bonuses have been generous, demand is still strong and, all in all, those of you waiting for a dip in prices this spring are probably going to be disappointed; many of us expect to see at least a ten percent rise. But there are still some houses left over from the past year that have been serially reduced in price and which now represent, in my opinion, good buys. Here, in descending price, are my favorites:
432 Field Point Road. “The Boulders”. This is an absolutely beautiful house, built in 1895 and renovated as recently as 1996. Originally priced at $8,500,000, it’s dropped to $4,900,000. What are you waiting for?
40 Sumner Road. An almost new (2001) contemporary on over five acres. Bright, sunny and beautifully constructed. $4,495,000.
160 Bedford Road. A 1937 Colonial on eight acres, reduced from $5,300,000 to $4,450,000. If contemporaries aren’t your cup of tea, this classic house should suit you. It doesn’t have the ten foot ceilings that are all the rage these days but I like it, a lot. And for you vandals out there, eight acres of rolling lawn for four and a half million dollars is a pretty good land buy.
29 Pine Ridge. Another classic, a 1928 house renovated in 1999. It’s set on over an acre of land and is just a great house in every way. $3,200,000.
39 Lockwood Lane. Very much not my favorite house but it’s brand new, has tons of space and keeps dropping in price. It is now at $2,350,000 and, if you can overlook its non-traditional exterior, it is quite a lot of house for the money. Also, and somewhat surprisingly, it is very nice inside.
27 Grove Street. Not exactly a classic, but a terrific re-do project overlooking the playing fields of Bible Street. I am astonished that this house hasn’t sold. $650,000.
3 West End Court. Alright, this is my own listing, but at $599,000, I defy you to find anything in its price range within walking distance of Old Greenwich’s stores and train station. Perfect bachelor pad – buy it for your kid.

We Get Results
After complaining that the New York Time’s food column, “The Minimalist” had disappeared, it showed up again. Gentlemen, start your Garlands.

Deer Me!
The RTM’s decision to hire sharpshooters armed with silenced rifles to pick off the deer infesting town property has stirred up a bit of discussion. I find it pleasing to see deer and wild turkeys roaming Riverside but I understand the deer haters’ complaint: there are too many of them. This carnivore won’t join PETA’s shocked outrage that cuddly creatures are being slain but I do wonder whether the town’s culling efforts will have any useful effect. According to the study that was used to justify this “hunt”, there are 125 deer per square mile in town when a more desirable figure would be ten. If we really have 6,250 deer in town (50 square miles X 125) are we proposing to knock off 5,750 deer? The streets will run with blood. And if we do accomplish such slaughter, won’t more deer filter in from Bedford and Stamford to enjoy the now empty browsing room? Do we intend keeping the shooters in town until every deer in New England has been lured in and disposed of? Finally, will killing deer in the Babcock Property prevent other deer from munching rhoderdendrums on private land? The death penalty doesn’t seem to have much deterrent effect on our society’s most deranged criminals, and I’m not convinced that it will work on these hoofed rats either. Then again, snuffing a handful of deer might be like one hundred lawyers on the bottom of the East River: a good start. I guess we’ll see. If deadly force turns out to do the trick, then perhaps we can start banging away at the real nuisance in town, Canadian Geese. Did you know that a half inch of rain flushes these park poopers’ waste straight into Tod’s Point and forces the closing of our clamming beds? If a bunch of feathered hippies were camped at Binney Park making the same kind of mess even the Friends of Animals would be howling for their removal. What’s sauce for the hippies ….

Entitlement
I noticed one of those new Bentley coupes ($149,000 before you add floor mats) parked near Whole Foods in an area marked “no parking”. Why doesn’t this surprise me?

December 24, 2004

Meet Me at the Wrecker’s Ball

My recent comments about Jupiter Development Partnership’s intention to raze the 1854 house at 350 Riversville Road elicited a strong reaction from several agents who know and like Jupiter’s principal, Steve Hatch. Mr. Hatch, it turns out, is a Greenwich native and, according to these agents tried for over a year to work out a way to save the structure and still make a profit before reluctantly concluding that he could not. I am glad to hear that the decision to destroy this house was not made without thought, but the sad result remains unchanged: the house will soon be gone and Greenwich will lose yet another bit of its rapidly diminishing history.

Mr. Hatch is not the first builder faced with this dilemma nor will he be the last, and his decision to raze the house shouldn’t place him among the outlaw fringe. Neither he nor the owners who sold to him should be expected to ignore economic reality (although I could have told him from the start that the Riversville Road property held no commercial promise as a restoration project). While I am a romantic Greenwich real estate is a business, and there is little room here for a spiritual attitude toward the bottom line. The house was offered for sale. When no one appeared who wanted to save it, it was doomed. The Constitution prohibits confiscating property without compensation, of course, and requiring the owner of this or any other historic structure to sell only to renovators would constitute exactly such a taking. If we as a town are unwilling or unable to purchase these properties we shouldn’t expect home owners to foot the bill.

All that aside, I did find disquieting the comments from a number of my fellow Realtors who saw nothing wrong with the loss of this house. Their arguments ranged from “Greenwich was ruined long ago, what’s one less old house?” to “it’s progress”. I disagree, but their reaction makes clear that Greenwich cannot rely on (some of) its Realtors to steer builders away from historic houses; that’s disappointing. One or two stalwart home owners have tackled this problem themselves. Frank and Jessie Snyder, for instance, recently requested an historic designation for their 1742 Colonial on Round Hill Road. If granted, no one will be able to raze the place or alter it significantly. This is a noble gesture, but I wonder how many other citizens will be willing (or who can afford) to demonstrate such civic responsibility. The Snyders are planning to donate 5.4 acres of the exiting lot to the Greenwich Land Trust and leaving their historic house on exactly four acres, thereby ensuring that a buyer won’t be able to a Whopper-mansion next to it. That’s a wonderfully generous contribution to the preservation of Greenwich, which I fear won’t be repeated by many others.

Most homeowners, I expect, will continue to seek the maximum value for their property and all too often that value will come from builders who will pay based on what they can build, rather than what is already on the land. Acts of capitalism between consenting adults has never been considered immoral in this country, but the results are often disheartening.

Relative Values
The New York Times reports that Rupert Murdoch is buying the late Laurance S. Rockefeller’s 5th Avenue penthouse for $44,000,000, a record for residential real estate in the City. Apples aren’t oranges, but Greenwich set its own record this past August with the sale of an eighty-acre horse farm in Conyer’s Farm for $45,000,000. That sale keeps Mr. Rockefeller’s other home town just slightly ahead of its concretized neighbor.

Culinary DisasterSpeaking of the New York Times, it seems to have discontinued its cooking column, “The Minimalist”. This was a nifty column that appeared on Wednesdays and offered simple, delicious recipes that could be cooked in under thirty minutes. Despite all the $25,000 professional stoves and $5,000 refrigerators that adorn every Greenwich kitchen, it has been my observation that almost no one in town cooks anymore—and probably can’t. The Minimalist provided encouragement to begin using all that fancy gear and I’m sorry that it’s gone.

Hey – It’s an Opinion Column
Some readers apparently neglect to read the disclaimer at the end of this column so here’s the same message in a more prominent position: although I park my real estate agent’s license with the wonderful, capable people at Round Hill Partners this is not a column sanctioned, endorsed or edited by them. Much as she’d like to, my boss Renee Gallagher doesn’t get to see what I’ve written until the column comes out. So if I make fun of fat people, for heaven’s sake, or say mean things about an over-priced house, take it up with me and not the poor folks who share our office. And have a merry Christmas.

December 17, 2004

What’s Happening?
Realtor Peter Joyce has taken the time to analyze the data from our multi-list service and has kindly shared the results with me. In short, we’ve had a good year in Greenwich, the best since 1999. As of the end of November, seven hundred ninety-one single family houses have gone to contract, a significant increase from the seven hundred nine houses going to contract during the same eleven months in 2003 and the six hundred ninety-nine in 2002. March (one hundred eight contracts) saw the most activity of any single month, while the second quarter, April through June, was the busiest period (two hundred forty-five). Comparing Peter’s figures for the past seven years, the same pattern of activity seems to prevail in the comparable periods of those years. A good argument, I think, for putting your house on the market earlier, rather than later in the year.

Peter’s data also show that the days of single family homes under $499,000 have gone—there was just one house available in that price range this year, and it’s sold. Total inventory (all single family houses offered for sale) had dropped from four hundred-fifty in July to three hundred forty-three (three hundred twenty-four, as of this writing) by November 30th. The number of high-end houses ($3,500,000 and up) has barely budged in that period: one hundred sixty-seven in July, one hundred fifty-one on November 30th, while everything else has moved smartly. Which is not to say that owners of the most expensive houses should despair: one hundred thirty-two homes in that price range sold this year and twenty more are under contract (this last bit of comfort is derived from my own research in the MLS files and any inaccuracies should not be blamed on Peter Joyce). I will wait for the year’s end before supplying the average and mean prices for all these houses but, for now, it looks as though the town as a whole is moving towards an average price of over $2,000,000. That’s a lot of money.

Water HeatersFew new houses have come on the market this month so, casting about for something real estate-related to write about, I came across a New York Times article on tankless water heaters and I thought, “ why not?” According to the Times, higher energy prices are bringing them back after an initial surge of popularity in the Seventies. The theory of a tankless, or “on-demand” heater, of course, is that you save money by not holding one hundred fifty gallons of water at 110 degrees for the hours you’re out of the house (those readers who have their nannies doing laundry and washing the Hummer all day can skip the rest of this article). A tankless heater cranks up when you turn on the hot water and shuts down when you do. The original models were considered to have inadequate capacity (I disagree—I had one that worked just fine) but nowadays they’re bigger than ever and large enough to feed hot water to all the showers, washing machines and dishwashers you care to run simultaneously. Down side? These are more expensive than tank heaters, (perhaps $1,500 vs. $1,000) both in initial cost and in installation, as they may require over-sized flues to accommodate their gas usage or a new circuit for electricity. On the other hand, they’re generally warranted to last for twenty years, instead of a conventional heater’s ten, and because they have no tanks to replace they can be repaired after that instead of replaced. Other bonuses: you will never run out of hot water if you select the right-sized unit (calculate the flow rates of all the faucets and appliances that you’re likely to run at one time) and, of course, you’ll save money by not heating all that hot water when you don’t need it. If you’re planning a short stay in your present house, you probably won’t recoup the extra expense of such a heater but otherwise, I think they’re worth considering. There are any number of sources of information on tankless heaters, including a governmental fact sheet, all available via Google on the internet. As Casey Stengel said, “you can look it up.”

Flood Alert!
Global warming alarmists would have us believe that our ice caps are melting and that we’re in for wet feet sometime in the next century. Judging from the houses I see every week I think we’re in more immediate danger of sinking from the endless tons of marble and granite being imported for our bathrooms, kitchens and walls. Perhaps the next fad will be balsa wood and we’ll balance out just in time. Until then, keep those boots handy.

December 10, 2004

Vandals at the Gates
According to a recent article in Greenwich Time, the 1854 Italianate house at 350 Riversville Road is about to be demolished by Jupiter LLC, a “developer” headed by one Steven Hatch who, if a search of the local phone directory is any indication, has come from out of town to wreak mischief. I inspected this house when it was on the market a year ago and at that time it certainly seemed to be well worth preserving. Almost all of the original details: exterior trim, interior mouldings, windows, floors, even ornamental cast iron fireplace shields are intact. The house has suffered from a lack of maintenance over the years but careful restoration could yield a beautiful result and return this house to its original graceful beauty. But that won’t happen, alas. Hatch, again according to Greenwich Time, has refused all entreaties from local preservationists and Greenwich’s town planner to save the house and fully intends to raze the structure and replace it with a new one.

It is possible, although unlikely, that Hatch’s new house will be as beautiful as what he is destroying. I don’t believe that for an instant, of course; it is far more likely that he’ll be erecting a training mansion for a young egomaniac but either way, so what? One doesn’t scrape the paint off a Degas in order to reuse the canvas. There are plenty of building lots in Greenwich, even of they’re presently occupied with woeful examples of bad architecture. Hatch and his partners could easily have bought one of those and bulldozed away to their merry content. To buy this particular lot with the specific intention of tearing down one of the town’s oldest, prettiest buildings, betrays a complete lack of cultural appreciation and historical ignorance. When the Vandals sacked Rome, they destroyed what they found because they had no idea of the value of hot water baths and interior plumbing. I’m not suggesting that the Jupiter LLC partners still employ outhouses in their own residences, nor that they are members of the great unwashed, but their decision to demolish this house speaks volumes about their values. Welcome to the new Greenwich, courtesy of Steve Hatch and Jupiter LLC.

On a Brighter Note
Not everything is being torn down in town. For instance, a house at the end of Shoal Point Lane in Riverside had been scheduled to be razed and replaced by a six thousand square foot (plus!) shingle style somethingorother was instead purchased by an “end user” who seems content with replacing the roof shingles and re-doing the interior. I’m a bit biased about this — the new structure would have ruined my own view up Ole’s Creek — but it’s still nice to see that older houses can be brought up to date without calling in the wrecker’s ball.

Market Activity Continues
Well, sort of. Twenty-three houses went to contract in the past two weeks (top prices, 605 North Street for $12,000,000 and new construction at 75 Sterling Road, $5,450,000) while thirty-nine were withdrawn, forty-seven dropped their price and sixty-eight new listings came to market. Of the new listings, perhaps the most notable is Sally Maloney’s at 68 Round Hill Road: Eleven acres in the two acre zone, with a nice, old, castle-like home. At present the property shares a driveway with another residence and that, of course, can sometimes prove problematic but I assume that there’s enough land here to try a different approach. Or not; it’s a great piece of land, and one of the largest this close to town. $14, 670,000. Downstream a bit from that price, Barbie Jackson (Cleveland, Duble & Arnold) has listed 15 Miltiades Avenue in Riverside for $1,595,000. This is a 1928 Tudor, updated over the years, on a dead end street within walking distance of the train and Riverside School. In fact, you could walk to the back of the very nice yard, hop the fence and be on top of a train, but that’s a quibble. I have a number of friends who have lived on Miltiades and Summit Road, another street backing up to the tracks, who have stayed put happily for many years and invested large sums in improving their homes. Although they could all move elsewhere, they’re staying put. The few trains running on the New Haven line are relatively quiet and soon unnoticeable, not, I suspect, like the constant noise of I-95. If this house were on another street it might sell for $2,000,000. My advice would be to buy this one and pocket the difference.

December 3, 2004

Thin Inventory
We’re heading into the slack season of the real estate market, as homeowners wait for the Holiday season to end before listing their houses. The current inventory is, as of this writing, three hundred eighty-six single family houses, ranging in price from $540,000 (Riverdale Avenue, in Pemberwick) to $37,500,000 (21 Topping Road, twenty-seven acres). I would be remiss not to mention that I hold the least expensive listing in Old Greenwich, a two bedroom, 712 sq.ft. cottage at 3 West End Court, asking $599,000. The inventory has been thin for the past few years, hovering between five hundred and seven hundred homes, in contrast to the last down market a decade ago when there were often a thousand houses available to purchase. It was a frustrating time for sellers, back then, with buyers presenting non-negotiable deals and then walking even after their terms were accepted. The shoe’s on the other foot now, and the sellers are having their revenge. We agents would prefer a happy middle ground, naturally, where neither buyers nor sellers are thwarted by bidding wars or reneging parties. Maybe in the next life. Until then, buyers should keep an eye out for over-priced listings (anything more than three months old is a good starting point) and hope that January will see a new crop of houses. So far, it always has, even if each new season seems to bring a new round of price increases.

Should You be a Real Estate Agent?
I have often joked that, by law, every Greenwich divorcee and laid-off executive is required to become a real estate agent. That’s not quite true, but something must account for there being something like one thousand members of the Greenwich Association of Realtors. It seems like easy money, no doubt: sit around, grab a listing, have someone else sell it for you and pocket 1% of the selling price. There are some factors missing in that calculation, however, among them the huge time commitment required if one is to be a competent agent. You have to know the market; what’s out there, what’s selling, what’s languishing if you are to serve your clients well. That means going out every Tuesday and Thursday, from 10:00 until 2:00, viewing every house listed. This isn’t so bad when you have an active client in a particular price range but when nothing on a given day suits your particular needs, it makes for a long, tedious tour. Which is probably why, out of those thousand agents, only (by my estimate) one hundred fifty of them are regulars. For those agents who haven’t seen, and remembered, every house listed, their relationship with a client can only be a voyage of mutual discovery, which is a complete waste of everyone’s time.

Another thing to consider, unless you have a wealthy spouse willing to underwrite you, is the expense of working for yourself. Your car, its upkeep, medical insurance, retirement savings, social security taxes of 14%, two to three years with little income, all come out of your pocket. This is a long haul business, and few succeed. But if you do, there are benefits. You are your own boss, setting your own hours (but forget taking weekends off). You will meet some great people, some of whom will actually be your clients. And, eventually, you will make a decent income. Nothing to compare to the annual bonus of the twenty-two year old investment banker you’re selling a straining mansion to but hey – Wall Street’s been just thirty-five miles away from here for a long time – if you wanted to descend into those canyons you’d have done so by now, right? Unless, of course, you did do so and were laid off in which case, welcome to the wonderful world of real estate.

Uncharitable Thoughts
At this time of thanksgiving it’s probably not nice to recount the following conversation overheard by a friend at a health club. But who said I was nice? Any way, one of our younger town residents was working out with her own personal trainer and announced that she’d like to extend her workout another thirty minutes. “Don’t you have an appointment to meet someone now? You’ll be late” the trainer points out. “Oh,” says our young Greenwichite, shrugging, “it’s only my real estate agent – she works for me.” Maybe she does, lady, but I sure don’t. I’m not that hungry, and never will be.
Onward to the season of peace, reconciliation and the return of civility towards all.