Greenwich, Connecticut real estate, politics, and more.
Greenwich, Connecticut real estate, politics, and more
Mallard drive
54 Mallard Drive, new construction originally priced at $3.995 million, sold for $3.3 million.
meadow road
One Meadow Road, Riverside, a renovated 1900 farmhouse, came on in April at $3.095 million, and went via bidding war for $3.125.
I understand the appeal of new construction but, long term, I think the buyers in Riverside will find that they made the better buy
50 Sumner Road, which failed to sell for $3.6 million from November through May of this year, has now been relisted at a new. improved price of $3.849 million. The ad copy is mostly devoted to the attractions of nearby Armonk and the proximity of the Westchester airport, but also claims that the home's only 12 minutes from downtown Greenwich, just in case potential Westchester buyers might want to travel to foreign climes. The former owner of the property, which was partially torn down and replaced by this iteration, almost made it back here from there in approximately that time span, but he crashed his Mercedes and lost his license; I'd advise a slower pace, especially after dining.
So-so land, obscure location, I think that the previous owner did well to sell the place for a loss at $1.575 in 2015, after paying $1.650 for it in 2010. This builder may not be so fortunate.
The Curse of the Vestigial Dining Room
For a recent study, UCLA-affiliated researchers in fields ranging from anthropology to sociology used cameras to record in great detail how 32 dual-income families living in the Los Angeles area used their homes. Their findings link real data to something about which I have been yelling into the void for years: Nobody is actually using their formal living and dining rooms. Families actually spend most of their time in the kitchen and the informal living room or den.
Yet we continue to build these wastes of space because many Americans still want that extra square footage, and for a long time, that want has been miscategorized as a need.The ironic inefficiency of hyper-exaggerated high-end entertaining spaces belies a truth: These spaces aren’t really designed for entertaining. They’re designed for impressing others.
I live in a ’70s-era house, one that doesn’t have a lot of room, but does have one of these formal dining rooms. It’s a stupid waste of space — but you know, the last house I owned, a 1990s-era house, had the same thing (we used it as a home office). I really hate these rooms. What a waste! If I were able to design my own house, I would combine the dining room with the kitchen, and make it a larger than usual space. In our current house, we have what is called a “breakfast nook” attached to our kitchen. It’s not big enough for all of us to gather there to eat, but we spend way, way more time as a family in the kitchen and breakfast nook than we do in the formal dining room, which functions pretty much as a storage facility for books (on bookshelves) and a dining table.
Most people I know have formal dining rooms in their houses. I’m trying to think if any of them actually use it more than a few times a year. In our house, you have to leave the kitchen and take a few steps down the hall to the dining room. It’s such poor design, but it’s common.
(Via The Browser, which you should be reading daily.)
Just as a parlor reserved for visits from the minister and the occasional afternoon tea became obsolete, the stand-alone dining room is pretty much a luxury today. A fine place for formal dinner parties, and if you have 10,000 sq. ft. to play with, then why not indulge, but otherwise, there are probably better ways to spend that space.
851 Lake Avenue, $3.775 million. It's been on the market since February, 2015, when it was initially pegged at $5.5, and I imagine the owner was delighted to be rid of it, even at this discounted price. I'll confess that I always hated the property itself: it's a narrow, stretched sliver of land, which, to me, defeats the whole purpose of living in the back country — why live in an alley? — but this sale just shows, once again, that at the right price, there's LWAYS A BUYER.
200 Old Mill Road, which sold new in 2004 for $6.3 million (it had asked $7.250) has been on the market since 2016, when it tried for for $6.730. Reduced today to $5 million and — my guess — it's still falling.
It's a Jordan Saper creation, which means an oversized bulk, with rooms totally disproportionate to humans and cold, hostile living spaces. That's just my opinion, of course, and Saper did very well selling these things back in the 2000-2010 era, but resales aren't looking so good. Part of that can be attributed to Saper's choosing to build in the back country, and that market has collapsed, but I think the design isn't helping.
Typical Jordan Saper master bedroom/airplane hangar — who's want to sleep here?
5 Stanwich Lane
5 Stanwich Lane, listed at $1.850 million, immediately found a buyer an has sold at full price. That's no surprise, because the price is well within what houses have sold for here, and the house, built in 1929, may need some updating, but is a real charmer.
Stanwich Lane is that loop just at the bottom of Stanwich Road, which gives it great convenience to town, while also offering privacy and freedom from traffic. Good spot.
7 Dewart Road
7 Dewart Road took longer, and required quite a price cut before it sold, but sell it did, fo $6.260 million. It started at $7.950 last November, but knocked that price down quickly once the market's indifference was noted.
53 Edgewater
53 Edgewater Drive,Old Greenwich, closed at $1.1 million. Great street, but the one mater bedroom top, two small bedrooms below is an awkward arrangement. Then again, not every buyer is a parent of two, and as a singles for couple's house, I can understand the appeal.
As reported by my Bloomberg pal, Oshrat Carmiel
The nation’s new tax law is scaring would-be homebuyers from Westchester, a longtime refuge for families escaping New York City’s high costs.
Purchases in the northern suburban county -- which shoulders the biggest property-tax burden in the U.S. -- plunged 18 percent in the second quarter from a year earlier, the most since 2011, according to a report Thursday by appraiser Miller Samuel Inc. and brokerage Douglas Elliman Real Estate. It was the fourth consecutive quarter of sales declines.
“We’re seeing buyers take a second to understand the math,” Scott Elwell, Douglas Elliman’s regional manager in charge of Westchester and Connecticut, said in an interview. “They’re spending more time with their accountants and really understanding how this plays out.”
Article here about a new wine store on Bruce Park Avenue. No, that is not in Old Greenwich.
“The closest specialty wine store to Bruce Park Avenue is Putnam & Vine at the corner of East Elm and Mason streets. Petz believes the new shop will carve out its own name in Old Greenwich — when that name is decided.”
In fact, the names "Old Greenwich" and "Greenwich" were decided upon long ago, and input from an out-of-town editor is both unnecessary and unwelcome.
Sunken asset
7 Little Cove Road, which sold for $6.250 million in 2012, has closed at $4,649,400. A previous owner also paid $6.5 for this house in 2004, and put it back up for sale in 2010 at $7.695 before finally accepting that same $6.5 million from this seller.
The home's failure to appreciate should have, perhaps, served as a warning, but he certainly learned his lesson today.
15 Terrace Avenue, priced at $3.795 million while under construction in 2015, failed to sell and was rented out, before reappearing last September asking $3.5 and eventually dropping to $2.995, has found a buyer. Good location, at least.
Sunday morning, after a truly bad Saturday night?
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