The changing fortunes of Greenwich real estate

This was then

After 825 days on the market, 17 Windabout Drive, a 2.8 acre (2-acre zone) building lot in mid country, sold yesterday for $2.6 million. Back in 2002 its sold, with a house on it, for $3.250. The house was a 1962 Coggins, who in that time was a very popular architect specializing in duplicating Colonial, and slightly more recent designs, but the market was turning away from that taste even by 2002, just twenty years later. When I saw it that year, I thought it was an obsolete house with an unfortunate, ill-thought addition, but nonetheless, someone liked it enough to buy it and live there happily until their deaths. When it came back up for sale in 2014 it was pretty clear that it was a land sale. It sold for $2.350, the house was razed and now it's sold for this $2.6. 

I'm not convinced that $2.6 is going to allow for a profit on this lot, but the buyer is an experience (and very good) builder in town, so good luck to him.

And this is now

You can't (easily) change the design, but you can always adjust the price

8 Cathlow Drive, Riverside, (off Indian Head Road) currently asking $4.950 million, reports a pending sale. When it hit market back in 2016 at $6.775 we had some fun here scoffing at the price and the rented sports cars parked in its driveway, but the real problem with this house, in my opinion, has always been its design: two separate houses, smashed together. At the right price, someone would be willing to live with the poor decision of the owners and their architect, but only at the right price. As is clear from today's news, that price has finally been achieved.

Well okay, then, sign me up!

If you haven't already shorted Tesla, this might be a good time to do so

Not even close to being ready for prime time

The new, "affordable" Tesla is reviewed by Car and Driver, and it doesn't sound encouraging. $50,000 (and up) instead of the promised $30,000, shoddy fit and finish, and a range of 200 miles, instead of the claimed 340. That will get you a round to trip to Hartford, but no further. One-way to Boston? Maybe: better have a charger awaiting you up there, if you want to go home, and that will no longer be a  round trip you can make in a day.

The info screen is buttonless and I promise you, from my own experience with my new Honda Ridgeline, you will absolutely hate, hate, hate it.

The mileage range is perhaps the most distressing feature (though the company's failure to come anywhere close to the production volume it predicted should alarm investors). Milage, as in all electric cars, drops 25% in 28-degree temperatures, from a 54-degree day. That probably won't bother the California trendies who are expected to buy these toys, so long as they don't want to go skiing, but anyone in New England or the midwest is going to be disappointed. The Chevy Leaf, by the way, has a tiny range of 140 miles in cold weather and, I believe, even that mileage requires you to forego using the heater. We're heading back to the days of sleds and (synthetic, of course) wolf skin lap robes.

This is the technology set to be mandated for all vehicles by 2030. Someone better hurry up in figuring out how to do it.

Another tough sell in the back country, it seems

47 Lismore Lane — maybe at least pave the driveway? Or it that meant to suggest this is now priced as a tear down.

47 Lismore Lane, another Rogues Hill offshoot, sold in 2004 after just 27 days in a bidding war: asking price $2.995, the buyers paid $3.010. It was put back up for sale at $2.950 million in January, 2017, and today has been dropped again and now asks $2.3.

To be fair, some or all of this failure to sell may be attributable to the home's condition and style, and not necessarily the location itself, which is a really good one, in terms of view and grounds (no usable yard, however).

1972 contemporaries haven't been best sellers in decades, and the condition of this one is tad suspect: when David Ogilvy fears to post pictures of a home's kitchen and baths, you should probably plan on a complete renovation.

$2.3 might not be a bad price, however, if you're not afraid into pouring money into a 70s contemporary. I'd be hesitant, but that's just me; me, and all the buyers who've looked at and rejected this house over the past year.

Declutter project no. 1

and no. 2

Price cut in the back country

17 Forth Hills Lane

17 Fort Hills Lane (off off Rogues Hill, appropriately enough) sold for $9 million in 2014 and was returned to the market in 2016 at $6.8. Today it took its first price cut, to $5.5 million. It may take more than that: it's been showing its age badly lately. 

Frederich Bourke, the Greenwich resident who was (unfairly, I thought) convicted of violation of the Corrupt Foreign Practices Act in 2009 and sentenced to a year and a day, put it up for sale in 2012 for $15 million, but after his appeals ran out and he reported to prison in May, 2013 he managed to sell it from his jail cell in 2014 for the aforesaid $9 million. That probably seemed like a bargain to this owner, but as always, don't calculate a home's actual worth using its original asking price. What may look like a great discount price is often just as illusory as the first one.

This may have been a tough sale

53 Edgewater Drive

53 Edgewater Drive, asking $1.190 reports a contract. Nice enough house, I suppose, but it's perched, I think, just four feet above mean water, in an AE zone that requires a 15' elevation. And, its lot, 7000 sq.ft. in the R-12 zone means only an additional 400 sq. ft.can be added.

On the other hand, Edgewater's a really nice street, right around the corner from Old Greenwich School and the Village itself, and this is a very inexpensive price to get into a house south of the Village.

Just bring your rubber boots.

Time to shut down the witch hunt

This man was elected the president of the united states, like it or not

Mueller's crony raids the office of Trump's personal attorney. Mueller was appointed to investigate possible collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government. Now he's expanded that investigation into Trump's relationship with a porn star.

The deep state will stop at nothing to destroy Trump; we need to destroy the deep state.

(UPDATE: If you're up to reading a lengthy article on how this entire investigation has gone off the rails, try this one, written by an (almost) Never Trumper. The author is hardly a Trump fan, but he does admire the United States of America, and fears the lawlessness into which we're descending.)

Pending sale in Riverside

I'm not trying to emphasize Riverside sales: it's just what's eellimg

15 Indian Head Road is reported as pending, asking price $3.695 million. It started at $3.995 all the way back in January, 2017, and I'm a little bit surprised that it's taken this long to find a buyer. It's a back lot, admittedly, but that's not necessarily a deal killer. Built by my pal (but not my client here, alas), Riverside's Lou, "Louigee" Van Leeuwen, who does a nice house. 

I won't vouch for his taste in sinks here, though.

Come on, Lou, give the buyers a friggin' sink that's practical

The stager has shifted to the replacement for what was the standard "The Chair", and gone plastic

But she did stick with "The Zebra. In fact, I'll bet she added this feature just recently, and that's when a buyer appeared

The ups and downs of Riverside real estate

20 Hidden Brook just sold for $2.850 million, after just 35 days on the market. It sold for $2.5 in 2011, $2.180 in 2008 (a distress sale, really) and, back when it was new in 2006, $3 million, on an asking price of $2.995.

Perfectly decent house, but a severely compromised back yard. 

And it's back

113 Patterson Avenue

Brother Gideon sold his house at 113 Patterson Avenue for $1.850 million back in 2015. The buyers put in a new kitchen and baths, and returned it to the market in 2016 priced at $2.795. That didn't work out, so they pulled it until today, when it's reappeared at $2.5. That could be the right price: it's a great house, right in town, but the kitchen remains on the lower floor, beneath what was once quaintly referred to as the "dining room" back in the days when servants cooked and owners ate above them, and the Brunswick playing field Gid overlooked is now being developed, as is the once-vacant lot to the right.

And of course, without Gideon, Susie and Perkins the Wonder Dog to add life and sparkle to the package, where's the bonus value? 

Still and all, a nice house, and a good location.