Greenwich, Connecticut real estate, politics, and more.
Greenwich, Connecticut real estate, politics, and more
361 North Street, $3.150 million. Started in April, 2016 at $3.495. Nice house (I'll try to find an earlier Zillow listing to provide pictures of the interior), though "setback from the road" means "back lot". In the case of North Street, that's not really a bad thing.
Nothing particularly interesting about the sale or its sale price, but for readers interested in keeping up with mid country sales, here it is.
And of course, the zebra
New on market today, 70 Old Mill Road, at $5.45 million. It sold in 2006, newly built, for $6.4 million.
Just sayin'.
46 Dawn Harbor, Riverside, has closed at $3.7 million. The sellers (over) paid $4.155 for it in 2015 via an intra-office, non-MLS sale (which is why buyers should always be wary of such transactions) and spent huge sums transforming it into a beautiful, modern home. As is so often the case in executive-occupied Greenwich, the new owner was offered and accepted a better job out of state, and put it back on the market last year at $4.875 million.
As buyers' reps, the Mickster and I mentioned that employment situation to certain clients (and that's why you want a buyer's agent: they can tell you these things, while the listing agent can't), and encouraged them to toss a bid at it: there was clearly a relocation package involved, so what would the seller care?
In the event, our buyers chose to return to Darien, but someone else — not my client, alas — saw his opportunity and took it.
Nice deal.
80 cat rock: resale price ten-years on? Less.
Yesterday's sale of 80 Cat Rock Road for $3.480 million affords a nice distinction between good value and bad, and the delusional madness caused by new construction. Horrible design, mediocre construction, inferior location, especially given its back-lot siting, but it sold nonetheless.
The two houses are different, of course, and 46 Dawn Harbor's appeal was limited by its having three, or at best four, bedrooms, but buyers would do well if they looked past the date of a home's 2 X 4s and concentrated on location and quality of build instead.
9 Woodside Road, asking $6.475 million. It tried, briefly, for $8.90 in 2014-215, but was broght back on this year at its new price and found a buyer within a month. It's going to take a lot of effort to bring this home back to its 1930s magnificence, but that will be money well spent.
Quintessential Greenwich, of that era.
Your renovation can begin here
"Longvue Point". ain't that cute? THOSE SOTHEBY'S FOLKS ARE SO VERY CREATIVE
Sotheby's is offering a 45-acre, 2-lot parcel up in Conyers Farm, 0000 Lake Avenue, for $9.750, right on the pond (or, as a realtor would describe it, a "lake", and broadcast a reminder of that listing to all agents this morning (in fact, it's been on the market since 2016, when it started at $12.9 million). It all looks very pretty, but if you click on the link to property's own website, you get this, which, I'm pretty sure isn't its exact location. I wonder whether anyone at Sotheby's has checked thIs link since they first posted it two years ago?
Parents are now tattooing their children's artwork on themselves.
Some parents are getting their children's drawings and paintings permanently tattooed on their bodies. And their kids aren't necessarily little Rembrandts...
In fact, some of the stories here are poignant, but still ... As I told my boy John when he wanted to join a hockey team that started in the wee hours, "it ain't happening".
While I wait for my freshly-fed sourdough leaven to rejuvenate, and have nothing better to do on a quiet Saturday afternoon, I thought I'd post on my experience yesterday at a local mall.
I went there to visit an Apple store and, wandering its long corridor to reach it, I looked at the various stores, and realized that there was nothing they offered that I couldn't buy from Amazon, without the bother of driving to a mall, parking, and then taking a long hike down hallways and up stairs, and waiting for an item to be rung up.
Not that there was much there that I desired or would buy, but if I, a 60-something shopper, have deserted these kind of establishments (although admittedly, I've never been a mall shopper), it's easy to understand the woes of traditional brick and mortar stores.
Nothing new here: the demise of malls and retail stores has been well documented, but it was still a revelation to personally experience and understand why malls are obsolete.
Many years ago, one of my assignments as a young associate was to help draw up leases and such for mall developers. Those developers were making a killing back then, and I assume they continued to make still more in the following decades. Not that I found those clients particularly attractive human beings, but I hope for their sake that they bailed out early.
Yes, that's a Coca-Cola sign — it gets worse
108 John Street was custom built in 1995 Dinyar Wadia, one of Greenwich's finest builders, but was unfortunately desecrated by the (former?) NYC interior design team of Diamond Baratta. We had great fun here some years back with one of their other assaults on a house on Lake Avenue: that was foreclosed on, "neutralized" by the lender's agent, and finally sold for a pittance. [1038 Lake Avenue, in fact, once owned by a gentleman named Steven Braverman .Listing has disappeared, but a sample photo is shown below]
New York City residents creating an Adirondack vacation home in "the country"? Bad acid? It's been on since November, when it was priced at $6.3 million, and reduced today to $5.995. I'm not certain how much it will cost to neutralize this one — it will surely cost less than the $1,000,000 plus that Diamond Baratta charged to ruin it — but subtract that cost from the new asking price and perhaps you'll reach market price.
Perhaps.
The general rule in selling a house is to depersonalize it. These owners are flamboyantly defying that advice, bless their hearts
The steven braverman residence, also decorated by diamond/baratta
28 Dairy Road is reported as pending, last asking price $4.250 million. A pre-fab on a so-so street, it sold new in 2004 for $5.125 million (proving my point), and was put back up for sale in 2014 at $5.995. That didn't work, so it was pulled in 2015, dolled up and returned to the market in 2016 at the more sober price of $4.825.
I suppose $4.250 seemed like some kind of bargain to this buyer, but I didn't like the house in 2004 and see nothing to recommend it now.
242 Riverside Avenue, $3.150 million. Sold in 2011 for $3,297,500. No real yard: it was carved out of a narrow lot-split, and detached garages are never popular, but nice enough inside.
I'm not even going to say it. Okay, I will: ZEBRA!
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