Real Estate Advertising
Having tried my hand at it myself, I’ll vouch for the difficulty of writing ad copy for houses. One of the best in our business recently ran an ad boasting that “A River Runs Through It”. I think I get the point but it just doesn’t seem like a selling point, unless you want to go trout fishing in your basement.
Mainstream Media
I don’t watch much television but I’m told one of the nightly news shows has been running a week-long set of stories depicting the horrors of our current real estate market. Young couples facing ruinous mortgage payments and foreclosure, sellers unable to sell their houses, give-backs by builders and on and on. I realize that it’s an election year and the traditional media wants very badly for the electorate to believe that the economy has gone to Hell but mortgage rates are low, unemployment is just about non-existent and Wall Street continues to roll in profits. Even Greenwich’s real estate market has succumbed to this media pressure so our inventory has increased 16% - I don’t think that’s the end of the world. Well priced houses still sell quickly: Ginnie Ridenour’s listing at 48 Carrigleah Drive,a waterfront acre in Riverside, came on at $4,995,000 and went to contract (via John Cooke) almost immediately. In the past two weeks, thirty-five houses went to contract, at (asking) prices ranging from $10,000,000 on down. Some of these were dogs that had lingered on the market for years and finally moved only after their owners dropped their prices by huge fractions but, if you couldn’t sell an over-priced house in 2004, your finally selling it for less money in 2006 is evidence that it wasn’t priced properly to begin with. That’s not evidence of a collapsing market: it’s market forces at work.
10 Audubon Lane
Another agent told me that I had to be certain to view this house because it was so awful. As you might imagine it’s much more fun to write about bad houses than it is good so I scurried over to Bedford Road with gleeful malice in my heart. Imagine my disappointment when I pulled up the driveway and found myself admitting, “not bad”. Things only got worse for me when I entered the house: it’s well built, well laid out and bright and airy. All in all, a very nice house indeed. The only thing that could be held against it, I suppose, is that it’s not a traditional “Colonial” (gasp!) but it’s close enough to that design to be confused for one. Set back off Bedford on a private four acres, asking $4,795,000. Claudia Hirsch of Preferred Properties has the listing.
Real Estate Signs
The Greenwich Board of Realtors is about to crack down on open house signs. It’s early days but the plan may include Realtors paying for the services of a sign confiscator who’d travel around town confiscating signs that violate the law. It’s a start and, with the election about to fade away and with it all the political signs, some improvement is coming. By the way, Bernie Yudain recently posed the same question that’s been plaguing me: has anyone in the history of the world ever switched candidates because of a road sign? I think it’s just a harmless way for parties to put their dumbest, most enthusiastic supporters to work while keeping them from underfoot. It’d be more useful if they prowled Probate Court, looking for dead residents to solicit votes from.
Cookie Cutters
I don’t have many customers in the $10,000,000 range (okay, I don’t have any customers in that range) so I asked a friend who does why every new house on Round Hill and its environs looks identical. Simple: it seems that no trophy wife with a trophy home wants to be shown up, so each must have exactly what her peers have. The builders of these monstrosities know that and build accordingly. Mystery solved. And, just so you’ll know what’s coming, a New Canaan mommy recently told me that the new house I was showing her was inadequate (at 5,400 sq.ft.) because it lacked a second floor playroom for her (only) child. “All the new houses in New Canaan have them”, she informed me and I’m sure she’s right. Look for them in your neighborhood soon.
Having tried my hand at it myself, I’ll vouch for the difficulty of writing ad copy for houses. One of the best in our business recently ran an ad boasting that “A River Runs Through It”. I think I get the point but it just doesn’t seem like a selling point, unless you want to go trout fishing in your basement.
Mainstream Media
I don’t watch much television but I’m told one of the nightly news shows has been running a week-long set of stories depicting the horrors of our current real estate market. Young couples facing ruinous mortgage payments and foreclosure, sellers unable to sell their houses, give-backs by builders and on and on. I realize that it’s an election year and the traditional media wants very badly for the electorate to believe that the economy has gone to Hell but mortgage rates are low, unemployment is just about non-existent and Wall Street continues to roll in profits. Even Greenwich’s real estate market has succumbed to this media pressure so our inventory has increased 16% - I don’t think that’s the end of the world. Well priced houses still sell quickly: Ginnie Ridenour’s listing at 48 Carrigleah Drive,a waterfront acre in Riverside, came on at $4,995,000 and went to contract (via John Cooke) almost immediately. In the past two weeks, thirty-five houses went to contract, at (asking) prices ranging from $10,000,000 on down. Some of these were dogs that had lingered on the market for years and finally moved only after their owners dropped their prices by huge fractions but, if you couldn’t sell an over-priced house in 2004, your finally selling it for less money in 2006 is evidence that it wasn’t priced properly to begin with. That’s not evidence of a collapsing market: it’s market forces at work.
10 Audubon Lane
Another agent told me that I had to be certain to view this house because it was so awful. As you might imagine it’s much more fun to write about bad houses than it is good so I scurried over to Bedford Road with gleeful malice in my heart. Imagine my disappointment when I pulled up the driveway and found myself admitting, “not bad”. Things only got worse for me when I entered the house: it’s well built, well laid out and bright and airy. All in all, a very nice house indeed. The only thing that could be held against it, I suppose, is that it’s not a traditional “Colonial” (gasp!) but it’s close enough to that design to be confused for one. Set back off Bedford on a private four acres, asking $4,795,000. Claudia Hirsch of Preferred Properties has the listing.
Real Estate Signs
The Greenwich Board of Realtors is about to crack down on open house signs. It’s early days but the plan may include Realtors paying for the services of a sign confiscator who’d travel around town confiscating signs that violate the law. It’s a start and, with the election about to fade away and with it all the political signs, some improvement is coming. By the way, Bernie Yudain recently posed the same question that’s been plaguing me: has anyone in the history of the world ever switched candidates because of a road sign? I think it’s just a harmless way for parties to put their dumbest, most enthusiastic supporters to work while keeping them from underfoot. It’d be more useful if they prowled Probate Court, looking for dead residents to solicit votes from.
Cookie Cutters
I don’t have many customers in the $10,000,000 range (okay, I don’t have any customers in that range) so I asked a friend who does why every new house on Round Hill and its environs looks identical. Simple: it seems that no trophy wife with a trophy home wants to be shown up, so each must have exactly what her peers have. The builders of these monstrosities know that and build accordingly. Mystery solved. And, just so you’ll know what’s coming, a New Canaan mommy recently told me that the new house I was showing her was inadequate (at 5,400 sq.ft.) because it lacked a second floor playroom for her (only) child. “All the new houses in New Canaan have them”, she informed me and I’m sure she’s right. Look for them in your neighborhood soon.
posted by Chris Fountain at 9:10 AM
1 Comments:
Dear Sir:
The word "hell" is not capitalized. Neither is the word "heaven,” by the way. What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, if you will permit me.
Yours sincerely,
Taurus
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