Pending in Old Greenwich

Quite a hike upstairs into the house proper, to meet new FEMA standards, but youngsters are certainly up to the task

28 Heusted Drive, asking $2,8990. This house was discussed here back when it came on. Some readers agreed with my assessment (I like it), others did not. Regardless of personal taste, however, it does reflect some of the preferences of the millennials who are moving out from the City with new families: new construction, low maintenance yards, proximity to schools and shopping. This one also comes with a water view, which is a plus.

While there are still a few who prefer, or are at least willing to settle for older homes, most of the younger couples I work with are looking for homes that have the features listed above, and other agents I know would probably agree. This observation is more than anecdotal: check the sales records of the past years. That doesn't mean an older home won't sell, but it price has to be discounted by a considerable sum from what the owner might have expected a decade or so ago, because the buyers willing to settle for them are generally young couples who can't afford newer ones. That's a gross generalization, of course, and some buyers specifically want older homes, but a 1960-1975 builder-special pseudo-colonial lacks the charm of a pre-war home, and is pretty much a "settlement house": a term I just invented, for something a buyer is settling for. And those don't command a premium.

At least the owners here on Sumner Road adjusted quickly to market realities

70 Sumner Road

70 Sumner Road has sold for $2,962,500, a nice sum, but not the $4.295 million it original asked when it hit the market back in April of last year. Still, the owner didn't hang on to it forever, as the owners of some overpriced homes do: she dumped one agent and took three price cuts in less than a year, and presto! She's rid of the place.

Back when this was new,  I predicted (with tongue in cheek) that this house would overcome its location on the Bedford border and its "aggressive" pricing and see a bidding war break out because of its exuberant deployment of the Orange, the Zebra, and even a modified version of the Chair. That didn't happen, but I notice that its last iteration shows the stager doubled down on the Orange, so perhaps that's what did the trick, rather than its million-dollar price cut.

New coverlet and pillows

and this was a subtle addition

I'm so old, I remember when the Junior League promised to contribute $2.5 million of its own money to help pay for Coney Island in Byram

No Junior League debutants here!

It never made good on that promise: last I checked, the ladies had coughed up $200,000, but instead, they, or more likely, the town, is sending out a mass mailing to residents, asking for contributions. Appealing to the general public for funding is hardly the "private fund-raising" promised by the JL back in 2015,  but heck, for a project that was initially priced at $7.5 million and has already surpassed $14 million before it's even opened,* what's a little reneging on a pledge  from the Ladies of the Back Country? Furthermore, the continued operational costs of this seasonal attraction will surely dwarf its actual cost over the years: the new larger pool will require 5 lifeguards, instead of the two employed at the former pool, and there are now huge new buildings to maintain. 

This seemed like a bad, costly idea in the first place, but the Lady's failure to live up to their pledge and turn instead to the same taxpayers who are already shouldering the costs of building and running the place is salt in the wound.

* Capacity, originally set for 300 people, beach and pool, is now 500, 310 pool, 190 beach, though how the town intends to keep those hypothetical 190 beach goers from wandering over and using the pool is ... problematic. Of course, maybe no-one will use the pool: 

All the pools described above would be fully ADA compliant and each would have separate filtering equipment for sanitary purposes. If a personal accident [sic][ should occur in the pool, State Health regulations require the pool to be vacated for a minimum of 12 hours. 

Why I don't necessarily rely on MLS statistics

The Nunes Memo has been released, but I'll leave it to others to discus its contents. I will note that it's disheartening to see the utter indifference of the Left to charges that top FBI officials interfered with our election. Of course, we already knew that they have no objection to using the IRS to target enemies of the state, so their response now is hardly surprising, but we are ever closer to a dictatorship with each passing year. (Note to reader "Masterhedge": your comment was supposed to be approved, but when I clicked that button, the comment vanished into thin air. Don't know what happened, because it doesn't even show up in the "deleted" folder. resubmit, if you wish, and I'll try again.)

23 Frontier Road

But what the hell, let's talk about less significant matters, like real estate and the Greenwich Association of Realtors' methodology used to calculate things like days on market and prices. Take, for instance, the price reduction today of 23 Frontier Road, marked down from $1.895 to $1.760. That's shown as a 7% reduction, and certainly the math's right, but it doesn't reflect the actual 22% drop from its 2016 initial asking price of $2.250 million. You can't really fault the GAR for its 7% number, because there was a short-term rental in 2017 that kept the house off the market for six months, until February, 2018, and there's no easy, automatic way to track back to that 2016-2017 listing, but if I want an accurate view of how the market's performing, I'll do the calculation myself, thank you very much.

Back again, for one more try

26 Twin Lakes Drive (an extension of Gilliam Lane, in Riverside) is "new" today, at a price of $2.950 million. It failed to sell last year at $2.750, and I'm unaware of any significant changes that would cause buyers who rejected it then to leap at it now, but heck, nothing wrong with giving it that old college try.

This property's been for sale, off and on, between rentals and at successively-lower prices (until today) since 2011, when it tried for $3.950. The problem has always been, besides price, that while its pictures show a nicely-renovated and expanded home, inside, it still feels like the 1960 house that it is. But in a good location, overlooking one of the small, brackish ponds that the man who developed this stretch of Gilliam called a "lake". Small, yes, but it does provide privacy and a sense of space from its neighbors.

For those with an appreciation of minor sports history, the house was originally purchased by "Muzz" Patrick, former NY Rangers coach and player, and grandson of Lester Patrick, for whom hockey's "Patrick Divison" is named. And little Dorothy Hamill used to set blade to ice on that pond back when she was first learning to skate in 1964 - 65 or so.

I doubt any of that will inspire a buyer to pay anything above its market price and so far, $2.950 hasn't been that price. I anticipate further reductions.

We're still working off the irrational exuberance of Greenwich's housing market from 2006-2007

21 Knollwood Drive (off Husted) on the market since last June, has cut its price from an original $3.495 million to $3.150. That's still a hefty sum, for a perfectly nice, plain-vanilla structure, but the owners paid $3.900 for it back in March, 2007 (on an initial 2006 asking price, of $4.500). I can't claim credit for using that sale to predict the imminent collapse of the market, but I did quote Herbert Stein when houses like this were selling for seemingly-impossible prices: "What can't continue, won't".

I don't know what the proper price of this house will eventually prove to be, but I'm not expecting to see a bidding war break out that will boost its value back to that 2007 level; not in the near future, anyway.

Gays claim the entire alphabet for their own

Well, some of us don't, but what the hell, welcome to the club

Now they want to add "K for Kink" to the hodgepodge. 

Some members of the gay-rights community are adding the letter ‘K,’ for “kink,” to the ever-expanding acronym of identities.

The official acronym is now LGBTQQICAPF2K+ according to the magazine The Gay UK. That stands for “Lesbian,” “Gay,” “Bisexual,” “Transgender,” “Queer,” “Questioning,” “Intersex,” “Curious,” “Asexual,” “Agender,” “Ally,” “Pansexual,” “Polysexual,” “Friends and family,” “Two-spirit” and “Kink.”

The Gay UK said the acronym has been growing since the 90s “out of a need to move away from the limiting ‘gay community’” and to “encompass any community that defines itself as anything but heterosexual or cisgender.”

Far be it from me to tell these kooks how to run their victimhood business, but by diluting their claims of injustice by including every sexual deviation, from pederasty to bestiality to incest, they will lose (I hope — who knows what our schools will produce in the next decade?) the sympathy and support of the only group they do exclude, heterosexuals. We're still the vast majority of people in this world — since we're the only humans among all these groups who can procreate, nature presumably intended it that way — and the rainbow crowd is dependent upon the tolerance of that majority to protect their perceived right to be different. But what started as a perfectly reasonable demand by gays to be left alone has steadily expanded: first, the demand that bakers with religious scruples against it bake them wedding cakes, then a demand that male adults be permitted into female bathrooms and showers, and now, that goat fuckers be tolerated, even celebrated by society. 

Just as the #Me Too movement has quickly devolved from a protest against employers raping employees and masturbating in front of them to silly, stupid claims that someone offended them 20 years ago by telling a bawdy joke, these latest claimants to the victimhood ensemble trivialize the legitimate complaints of real victims. 

If I were one of those real victims, I'd be pissed, but if they can't control their borders, that's their problem. 

Wait long enough (and cut that price deep enough) and a buyer will appear

64 Butternut Hollow Road reports a contract. It started at $3.250 in 2014, dropped its price, slowly, to $1.750, and lo, someone wants it. Not to my taste, but at this price, I can understand its appeal.

Finally, something good has come out of the #Me Too fallout: For the first (?) time, Morning Joe panelists insist that even conservative women deserve to be treated with respect

Lying Michael Wolff tossed off the set of Morning Joe for his refusal to apologize for claiming that Nikki Haley was screwing Donald Trump.

We'll have to forgive the host for confusing "infer" for "imply", but otherwise, a fine send-up of a truly odious man.

Pre-SOTU speech, Pelosi urges her fellows to stay on the high road, "even if he's burping and slobbering"

The open hand of friendship

Bi-partisanship? It's impossible. Trump knows this; his Republican troops should recognize that fact too and move forward to jam their (Trump's actually) agenda through. 

“Let the attention be on his slobbering self,” Pelosi told members, according to two sources in the room. ... She added that expectations are so low for the unconventional Trump, he’s likely to get good reviews from pundits for doing the bare minimum.

“If his nose isn’t running and he isn’t burping, he did a great speech,” Pelosi predicted during the caucus meeting.

Long past time to end the charade that Democrats have any interest in working with the other side of the chamber, so crush them.