Rent, buy, or run away?

Most of the real estate activity these days involves rentals and sales of residences which have taken huge price cuts. The doesn’t surprise me, because I’m reading the same tea leaves many would-be buyers are mulling, and I see nothing good in the future. Personally, I’m tempted to run away.

Connecticut voters have turned control of the legislative branches over to the tender care and mercies of Democrats (and it should concern ordinary property owners here that Democrat Ladies Indivisible helped toss out Greenwich’s Scott Frantz, one of the last fiscal conservatives in our legislature) and the looming $4 billion deficit (plus the $80 billion public pension disaster) will surely put the crosshairs of the taxers on Greenwich. Greenwich first, that is: despite the fondest hopes of our enemies, there simply isn’t enough money to squeeze from our 60,000 residents to spend our way out of this catastrophe, and the taxes will have to spread out. Brace yourself, Naugatuck.

Here in town, the Ladies Indivisible have grabbed control of our Town Meeting, and they will be duplicating the efforts of their Hartford allies to raise taxes and spending. The buildings housing high performing schools like Riverside, North Street and Eastern and Central schools will be allowed to deteriorate, while tens of millions of dollars will be devoted to our failed western schools. That won’t matter all that much: bright students from successful parents will do just fine, despite sub-par teachers and dilapidated structures, just as they always have (see, e.g., lower East Side Jewish ghetto, circa 1910), but the never-ending passion for spending other people’s money will eventually have its effect.

I see a Westchesterization of our town in our future, a town, and county, indistinguishable from New Rochelle, Scarsdale and Bronxville, say — nice houses and neighborhoods, decent schools, and massive taxes. People will still want to live here, because it will offer a nice alternative to Manhattan apartments for families, but any price advantage we used to enjoy over Westchester will be gone, and we should expect to see a drop in home values until they match those across the border.

Oh well, we’ll always have Tod’s Point (until Ladies Indivisible opens it to migrants from out of town), and nice parks.