Pet Realtorese peeve of the week: "custom built"

10 Windy Knolls, over on the Port Chester border, hit the market today at $1.399. Not a bad house at all, for that price and location, but it's a spec house, so the listing agent's flowery description of the place as "custom built" is ludicrous. Something that's been custom built; in the case, a house, has been "built for a particular individual", "made to the customer's specifications". The is a friggin spec house, built for no one in particular, and the specifications were those of its builder, period. So cut it out.

No savvy buyer is going to be deceived by this nonsense, so no harm done, but damn it, stop using that term when it's not true! The listing agent is hardly the only agent in town to misuse the term, and I've meant to write on the topic before, but today just happens to be her lucky day.

10 Windy Knolls offers 4 finished levels of living space, with 5 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms, and 3 gas fireplaces. This custom built, energy efficient home has an open first floor plan ideal for entertaining, with a gourmet Kitchen*, Breakfast Room with sliding doors to a custom stone patio and backyard, Great Room, and Formal Dining Room. The second floor has a spacious Master Suite, with two additional bedrooms, and the third floor and finished lower level are perfect as a home office, au paire suite, or long term guests. Custom stone work, stained decorative beams, 9' statement ceilings, custom wood columns and trim, double crown moldings, central vacuum, Nest thermostats

* Just as an aside, in Greenwich real estate listings, all kitchens are "gourmet"

As I was saying ...

93 Clapboard Ridge Road, which started off five years ago in 2013 at $9.750 million, has just sold for $5.2 million.

We've discussed this house many times over the years, and you can use the search feature to see some of them Here's just one, from last March.

(Our Greenwich Association of Realtos' Multiple Listing Service, by the way, shows this property as having been on the market for just 228 days, and its asking price as $7.495, instead of 1,313 and $9.750, respectively. This is why I say that my association's statistics showing days on market, and asking vs. selling price ratios are absolute bullshit, and should be ignored. Just saying.)

Greenwich luxury home prices take a licking, barely ticking

To win a deal, luxury-home owners gave the biggest discounts since the end of 2008

My pal Oshrat Carmeil has an article in Bloomberg today: Highest end Greenwich properties are taking the largest discounts since 2008.

The fourth quarter was the best time for luxury-home sales in Greenwich last year. It also had the biggest discounts in almost a decade for the tony Connecticut town. 

High-end homes that changed hands in the quarter had their prices cut by an average of 13.5 percent, the most since the last three months of 2008, when the housing market all but froze in the months after Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. filed the largest bankruptcy in U.S. history, according to a report Thursday by Miller Samuel Inc. and brokerage Douglas Elliman Real Estate.

The discounts, in a market that’s still bloated with lavish homes, helped clear some of the backlog. There were three sales for more than $20 million in the fourth quarter. There was only one earlier last year, and none for all of 2016, the firms said.

Owners of Greenwich’s priciest estates are tiring of waiting years to find takers for their properties in a market where buyers are favoring cheaper homes closer to the town’s commercial center. The 19 luxury houses -- those priced at $4.65 million or more -- that sold in the quarter spent an average of 310 days on the market, about double the time for similar properties a year earlier. Many sellers waited even longer: The marketing time doesn’t account for previous unsuccessful attempts at a sale. [emphasis aded — As I pointed out to Oshrat a year or so ago, the "time on market" data supplied by our GMLS is second only to "percentage of sale-to-asking price" in phoney statistical reporting. ]

The most expensive sale of the quarter was an eight-bedroom mansion that belonged to billionaire investor Stanley Druckenmiller. It traded in November for $25 million, 21 percent less than the $31.5 million Druckenmiller sought in March, according to the listing.

It took an even larger discount -- almost 68 percent -- to find a buyer for billionaire Thomas Peterffy’s 80-acre (8.9-hectare) estate in the gated Conyers Farm community. The property -- with a seven-bedroom house, a pool and a 22-stall stable close to polo fields -- sold for $21 million, down from the $65 million asking price in 2015, listings records show.

A long time ago, I was accused of personally ruining the back country market by my frequent remarks on this phenomenon, despite the agents knowing perfectly well that I was simply reporting on observable facts. They seem to have finally admitted this.

With so many properties getting deep price cuts, “the smartest agents are encouraging their buyers to make their offer and see if the seller is willing to counter,” [Scott Durkin, President of Douglas Elliman] said. “They’ll never know until they make that offer.”

I've been giving that advice for ten years now. That either makes me one of the "smartest agents", or there are a lot of slow learners in my profession; I will, modestly, go with the latter.

Sometimes, quirky houses take a while to find a buyer

But not always. 11 Pleasant View Place, in Havemeyer, found a buyer back in 2013 in just 18 days. It sold then for $2.375 million. This time it took 329 days, and a price cut to $2.249 before a buyer appeared. A December contract, it's now reported as pending.

This house was discussed here back in February, 2017, when it hit the market. I said then that I liked it very much, despite its odd appearance, and 5 out of 6 commenters did too. It was also favorably received by many realtors during its 2013 open house, but even then, discussing it with friends after we'd been through it, there was sharp disagreement. But as noted, it went to contract in 18 days.

So you just never know.

Oh for heaven's sake, if you can't drive in snow, don't drive in snow.

Oh come on, really?

Georgia, Virginia "paralyzed" by an inch of snow. appreciate that southerns lack experience with driving in snow, and many of their cars aren't equipped to deal with it, but look at the picture above of an overturned, 4-wheel-drive Jeep wearing, it appears, four snow tires. Sheesh (in fairness, it's possible that the Jeep driver was forced into his predicament by another, less cautious driver. I'm betting against that, but it's possible).

Even up here, I see idiots zooming along icy roads, presumably confident that their all-wheel-drive cars will stop them on ice as quickly as they do on dry pavement. Wrong: cars have always had four-wheel brakes, and it takes 9X longer to stop on ice than it does on dry roads.

I wouldn't mind if Darwinism took these people off the road, but when they go, they often take others with them, like, maybe, that Jeep driver.

Usually, renovation costs don't get recovered upon resale. Like here.

102 Hunting Ridge Road

102 Hunting Ridge Road is reported pending. Last asking price was $2.095 million, and it can be anticipated that the selling price will be less than that. Deduct taxes and commissions, and that's still going to hurt.

Purchased in 2004 for $1.9 million, the owners performed the following renovations, at least according to their agent:

Completely renovated modern farmhouse. Bright 4 bedroom on 4.86 acres set amidst significant properties offering privacy yet close to town. Gourmet kitchen with quartzite countertop, new high end appliances and copper farmhouse sinks opens to large family room with fireplace and outdoor wrap around deck overlooking velvety lawn. Luxurious first floor master bedroom suite with fireplace and french doors open to deck. All bthrms updated -new fixtures, vanities, countertops and Grohe water systems. All new Anderson energy efficient windows. Fabulous upstairs bonus room with skylights. Walk-out basement with gym. Complete turn-key with all new modern day systems: UV air filtration and water well system, Whole yard Sprinkler, Sonos Sound, Security system, Kohler Whole House Generator.

I won't say all that was putting lipstick on a pig: it's a decent house, especially at this price, but it sits way down off the road, and that's never been a popular feature.

Innovative staging, though: the Zebra was replaced by a cow, and, the probable cause for the Zebra's disappearance, its nemesis, the leopard. Had she remembered the Chair and the Orange, this house might have sold far more quickly, and at a better price. 

Live and learn.

What was I just saying about buying at the peak of the market?

15 Boulder Brook Road, a rather tired 1955 house* that was purchased for $2.725 million in 2007, just sold for $1.750. It was a direct sale, so at least the poor sap didn't lose another 5% paying a commission, but surely a million-dollar loss is punishment enough for using an agent with a poor sense of market values..

Admittedly, no one was predicting a collapse of Greenwich prices in 2007, but even then, $2.725 for this house was preposterous.

* How tired? The listing agent, while touting the supposed merits of the house, also emphasized that it would make a nice building lot. I disagree on both points, but I suppose you could start anew here and at least improve the situation.

Moral of the story here is don't buy at the peak of the market and expect to get more on resale

65 Clapboard Ridge was purchased for $10 million in 2007 and returned to the market in March, 2015 at $12.495. It has yet to sell, and todayr it took another price cut, to $8.975.

Probably has more to go.

On the NYT's, and other media outlets, claim to provide "objective truth" (hint: they don't, duh)

But you can rely on our posted movie times, ususally

PJ Media's D.C.  Mcallister has penned an essay on the topic.

Excerpt:

Isn’t it past time for the media to stop pretending they’re objective, particularly in this modern era when the notion of “objective truth” is roundly rejected?

In the early days of America, the press didn’t make such a presumption. Newspapers were openly biased, and debates between the various entities were made in the public square. It was up to individual American citizens to use their own reason and religious presuppositions to weed through the words to determine what and whom they believed.

This didn’t go without frustration, as politicians had to deal with hostile newspapers attacking them. Thomas Jefferson wrote at one point “that the man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them, inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors.”

Jefferson commented at one point that readers would be better served if every newspaper had four sections headed “Truths,” “Probabilities,” “Possibilities,” and “Lies.”

"The first chapter would be very short, as it would contain little more than authentic papers and information from such sources, as the editor would be willing to risk his own reputation for their truth. The second would contain what, from a mature consideration of all circumstances, his judgment should conclude to be probably true. This however should rather contain too little than too much. The third and fourth should be professedly for those readers who would rather have lies for their money than the blank paper they would occupy."

Nothing has changed since Jefferson's time except that the press has foisted upon the public a claim that it provides factual, objective reporting, and a majority of readers and viewers still believe it. Add in the latest efforts of Google, Facebook et als to block any post or website that asserts a conservative view, and the situation grows even more dire.

Sad.

I have a better idea: let the Californicators secede, and the remaining population assume the role of our 50th state

Group proposes leaving the coastal elite and forming a new state comprised of everyone else.

The existing California, entirely ruled by Democrats, has effectively already seceded, denying the federal government's authority over immigration, air quality, water rights, energy, drugs, food processing, "fair" housing, and countless other matters. They'd be much happier on their own, and God knows the country would be far better off without them. Let's wave them a fond adieu.

We can sweeten the deal by giving them eastern Oregon and Seattle, too. We'd want a great big, beautiful wall between the two countries, of course.