Greenwich, Connecticut real estate, politics, and more.
Greenwich, Connecticut real estate, politics, and more
188 Bedford Road, four acres and a tear-down and asking $1.2 million reports a contract.
The late owner paid $1.5 for it in 1999, put some renovations into it in 2012, and put it up for sale in 2014 at $2.996 million. That was an ill-advised price for this location and house, obviously, but $1.2 (or less, depending on how negotiations went with the bank) isn't bad, assuming you want to live in this location.
it's a LOVE fest — really!
Rumors have been swirling around town that Marzullo's party leaked the story of his arrest because they wanted to ensure that Sandy Litvack would gain a seat as a selectman, and if Drew garnered his usual overwhelming vote total he'd out-poll Livtack which, since there're only three selectman slots available, would result in their Democrat candidate being sent shuffling off back to the Nathaniel Witherell.
So I checked with a couple of local Democrats I know and, sadly, the story's not true. Sadly, because it would have been such a fun story. Here's the real one, however:
No, it seems he was uncovered by old fashioned reporting. A reporter scanned the Clinton arrest records and put together the Marzullo from Greenwich and the guy running for Liutenant Governor. If he never made that foolish run, this would never had happened. And furthermore, Litvack would rather drink poison than be Tesei's #3
I'm guessing that it's going to a builder, both because of what it is, and because 9 days usually isn't enough time between accepted offer to accommodate a building inspection, negotiation of a contract, and obtaining a mortgage. On the other hand, given the scarcity of inventory in this price range these days, you never know. Land prices on Mimosa are right about here, so someone might have taken advantage of what's essentially a free house.
Possible 5 lots at 42 Dublin Hill Road, 23 acres, $7.750 million
No interior shots of the interior of the existing house yet (they're coming, according to the agent), but gee, 23 acres this close to town? That's enticing. There's a survey available showing a possible 5-lot subdivision, with each lot at least 3.5 acres, but I'm not sure there's a market for such a huge, expensive development. The acreage and house are being sold as one parcel, which is understandable, but unless one buyer can afford to, and risk, building four new houses and spend millions to renovate the original house or, possibly, sell some of the lots to other builders, this will probably prove a tough sell as a subdivisble property.
A very wealthy single user could make this into a showcase — are there any of those left in Greenwich, or willing to move here? Check in a couple of years from now to find out.
If the pool's condition is any indication of the state of repair of the house itself (and the window a/cs in that house are a discouraging sign), there's some work to be done here
Photo credit Michael Palin
Oops! Drew Marzullo arrested for trying to steal $486 of sneakers and $184 in underwear.
Democrats usually prefer the less-direct method of taxation, but I suppose exigencies rule.
GREENWICH — Greenwich Selectman Drew Marzullo is facing a misdemeanor charge of larceny in connection with an alleged theft from a shopping mall in Clinton.
Clinton town police Sgt. Jeremiah Dunn said Marzullo, 46, of East Putnam Avenue, was arrested following an alleged shoplifting incident at the Clinton Crossing Premium Outlet stores on Aug. 26.
“I can confirm that Andrew Joseph Marzullo was arrested for larceny in the fifth-degree,” the sergeant said Thursday evening.
Dunn said the theft involved $486 in merchandise from a Skechers store, and $184 in merchandise from J. Crew. The police sergeant, reviewing the arrest report, said town police were called by mall security.
Probably won't help his chances if he continues to run for the legislature, but then again, his fellow Dems may just consider this proof of his qualification for higher office.*
Reached for comment, Democrat candidate for First Selectman Sandy Litvack was ambivalent: "Certainly there's a larcenous streak in all of us," he told FWIW, "so what Democrat can't understand Drew's giving in to an impulse, but really, Sketchers? J. Crew? This is Greenwich, for Christ's sake: at least he could have tried Betteridge's, or Richards, or even Fjord Fisheries, for that matter, although that's on a lower scale. I'm a little embarrassed, to tell the truth."
Update. This just in: prominent Democrat calls for Marzullo to drop out of race for Selectman, and Chris von Keyserling to step forward instead. "There's the party difference, of course", Sarah Darra Darra Littman said to FWIW when reached for comment, "and under town charter rules, he'd have to switch parties, but over a bit of pillow talk last night, he seemed open to the idea."
"Well gosh, Politics does make strange bedfellows!"
* Marzullo was arrested August 26 — on September 10th, U.S. Senators Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy, as well as U.S. Rep. Jim Himes, voiced their support for our petty thief.
"I wish he'd told us he had money problems", Democrat Howard Richman, said in an early morning call to FWIW today, "because we could have run him for tax collector, instead of me. I don't really need the cash, and if I do run short, well, as Sandy pointed out, there's always Richards."
It's an Ogilvy listing, so to me, though certainly not to his clients, that's sort of a suspect price. Nevertheless, to my taste, it's a wonderful contemporary house, and I'd like to live here, especially because my children are grown; it doesn't seem suitable for family living.
I've had a blast playing the role, but the kids are wising up, so i'm out of here: so long, suckers
Another $3+ billion deficit looms on the horizon. More cuts, or more taxes?
Despite their many disagreements over how the next state budget should look, Republican and Democratic legislators have one key element in common.
Neither of their respective plans would spare Connecticut from grappling with another massive budget deficit two years from now.
The legislature’s nonpartisan Office of Fiscal Analysis says the two-year budget crafted by Republican legislators and passed in the House and Senate late last week would balance the state’s books this fiscal year and next — wiping out a $3.5 billion deficit in the process.
But that same plan, unless adjusted, would run $3.31 billion in the red between 2019 and 2021.
And the alternative budget developed by Gov. Dannel P. Malloy and Democratic legislative leadership would fare even worse, with a potential shortfall of $3.58 billion.
In other words, when Connecticut’s next governor arrives at the Capitol in January 2019, that person and the General Assembly effectively would face the same challenge that has confounded Malloy and legislators for the past eight months. And that’s after taking into account the wide array of spending cuts and tax hikes both sides have built into their latest budget plans.
That’s in part because Connecticut still must deal with surging debt and retirement benefit costs — much of which stems from more than seven decades of insufficient savings. This problem is projected to plague state finances through the mid-2030s.
“I know this has been a tough year,” House Minority Leader Themis Klarides, R-Derby, said early Saturday morning during a debate that ended when five Democrats joined all 72 Republicans to send the GOP’s two-year budget to Malloy’s desk. “And guess what? Next year is going to be a tough year. And the year after that is going to be a tough year. We don’t really see an end in sight. But what we know is we have some tough choices to make.”
Rep. Jason Rojas, D-East Hartford, House chairman of the Finance, Revenue and Bonding Committee, noted that the Republican budget carries no more promise that Connecticut’s fiscal crisis is over in two years than the Democratic plan does.
But Klarides said the Republican proposal is accompanied by key structural changes, including more stringent caps on spending and borrowing, that will begin to whittle down deficits over time.
Rep. Chris Davis of Ellington, ranking GOP representative on the finance panel, questioned the reliability of nonpartisan analysts’ assessment of the Republican budget.
The Office of Fiscal Analysis “cannot accurately estimate economic growth that potentially could come from a budget that does not feature massive tax increases,” Davis said.
Uh huh. And this is fun:
The largest hike in both plans would increase hospital taxes by $688 million over the biennium. All of those funds would be returned to the industry, along with some additional state payments, to leverage hundreds of millions of dollars in additional federal Medicaid payments to Connecticut.
I read just last week that the taxes extracted from hospitals (patients) under the current plan were also supposed to be returned, but they aren: at least half the money is being kept in the general fund for distribution to more politically favored groups, and that percentage is falling. Remember the gasoline fund, which is ostensibly devoted to road maintenance? Same thing.
Dingletown Road
79 Dingletown Road is back on the market today, asking $5.795 million, a significant hike from the $5.1 million the owners paid for it in 2012. The house is unchanged, so it's hard to fathom why they think it has appreciated during their ownership, when no other houses in this price range have.
But as the headline suggests, this isn't the first time this has happened. It was a BSF spec house back in 2007, the crest of the market, was listed by Ogilvy and sold to an Ogilvy client for $6,787,500. That price, just about exactly the asking price, surprised me because, as noted, it's a BSF home, which means absolute top quality, but also absolutely undistinguishable from any other BSF construction: once you've been in one, you can go in blindfolded to another and walk the floor plan from memory.
But back to price history. Two years after buying it at the height of the market, the owners in 2009 put it back up for sale and Ogilvy, no doubt trying to be funny, listed it at $7.195, when the market was in a tailspin. He kept the listing for years before finally losing it, and Ellen Mosher sold it for the aforementioned $5.1 million in 2012.
So again, we have an owner who thinks this particular house appreciates over the years, despite the market's demonstrating exactly the opposite.
I put my faith in the marketplace.
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