Property taxes hit home in Westchester

From Blumberg's Oshrat Carmiel: Home prices falling

“This has become a summer of discontent for those trying to sell their homes in New York City’s leafy suburbs — in no small part because of the Trump administration.

In affluent enclaves in Westchester County, New Jersey and Connecticut, a federal cap on state and local property tax deductions has begun to bite hard. Longtime homeowners who dreamed of offloading their empty nests are finding their plans complicated by the tax bill, as would-be buyers hold back, expecting sellers to cut their prices.

The issue is especially acute in areas of Westchester, the county with the nation’s highest-property taxes, where annual bills of $35,000, $50,000 and more are not uncommon.”

Read the whole article. Basically, sales are down, prices being cut, as potential buyers balk.

(I'll be traveling today, so no more blogging. Back tomorrow)

I'm not being (particularly) lazy, there's just little to report during the dog days of summer

Mostly rentals, but here are three significant sales:

17 Midwood Drive (off Glenville Road), $4.125 million, asking price $4.2, contract in 19 days. Different experience for the previous owners, who listed it in December, 2015 for $4.195 and sold it in June, 2016 for $3.650. Other than finishing the basements fairly inexpensive improvement, not much was done here.

25 Grove Lane

On the other hand, 25 Grove Lane is a 1979 house that was pretty much completely redone in 2014. Listed at $2.2 million, it found a buyer i just 19 days, for full price. I'm not wild about the house itself, but it sits on 2.5 acres (one-acre one), on a great street close to town, and that should certainly command a premium.

7 Wynn

7 Wynn Lane, asked $4.995 million, sold today (60 days on market) for $4.8. This sold for $4.145 in 2012, after a long period (years) on the market, but it needed significant work, both mechanical and interior renovation, to bring it up to speed. These owners did that, and got their price. Good for them.

Trump Derangement Syndrome approaches its apex

People are literally signing up to donate their organs to Justice Ruth Ginsburg.

I'm not a huge fan of the Justice, but I certainly don't wish her ill, and if she can stay healthy and active for another five years and retire at 90, as is her stated wish, well good for her. 

But as Amelia Hamilton suggests in her linked-to post, "If the Supreme Court is so important you are willing to die for one of the justices, the government is officially too intrusive. It’s time to vote for smaller government, not give up your literal organs."

I was wrong, you readers were right

When 2 Dewart Road hit the market last February, I wrote that its $4.750 price "didn't seem unreasonable". Readers vehemently disagreed.

Toady it's been marked down to $3.795 million. 2000 price: $3.195

A good deal on a foreclosure? Well maybe, but I'm guessing it sold for true market value.

179 N. Maple Avenue, a back lot but one that's 0.87 acres, sold for $1.325 million.

The house, now bank-owned, is occupied by a tenant, and there were no showings permitted. My guess is that didn't matter, because this 60-year-old house is almost certainly slated for either replacement or renovation as a rental.

The owner, who died in 2009, paid $1.8 million for it in 2005 and, courtesy of Countrywide (of course) took out a $2,008,000 mortgage on the place in October, 2008 and died a year later. From the foreclosure records, it would appear that he never paid a dime on the loan, but the confusion of the 2008 collapse of Countrywide indicates that no one noticed until 2017 (!).

In any event, foreclosure proceedings were initiated in 2017, with the lender claiming an amount due of the aforesaid $2,008,000, unpaid interest of $993,000, property taxes, insurance, etc., all adding up to $3,234,945.62. I'm assuming that the successor to Countrywide took on this bad debt for pennies on the dollar and made out just fine on this sale; otherwise, someone, besides us taxpayers, took a bath. 

The foreclosing party had it appraised in 2017 at $1.6 million, but that figure estimated land value as $1.2 million, and the existing structure at $400,000. Allowing for a bit of upward adjustment on that land valuation and discounting the house down to, probably, zero, $1.325 was probably a fair price.

Gosh

17 Welwyn Road, Riverside, hit the market in March at $4.1 million, went via bidding war for $4.210. 

Well at least this former Folsom Housemaster's only moving up the street. I drove one of his predecessors to Idaho

Jim Mertz, second from right, looking happy. If i only accomplished one good deed in my life, this was it

News of GHS Headmaster Chris Winters resignation from that post and his acceptance of a job as head of Country Day should come as sad news for GHS parents, and welcome news to the CD community: he's been a good man, doing a very difficult job. 

I hadn't known until reading the linked-to article that Winters once served as Housemaster for Folsom House, which made me laugh. The Folsom Housemaster in my time at the school (Class of '71) was a great guy named Jim Mertz, who I drove to distraction by being fairly bright while resolutely refusing to be a good student. "Rebellious" might best describe my attitude.

Just before my graduation, a miracle brought about by Mertz's intervention, rule-bending, and ear-pulling (mine), he called me into his office and told me, "Fountain, you've accomplished what I never thought anyone could do: I'm quitting education and moving to Idaho to grow cherries on my father-in-law's ranch". 

And so he did. I always thought I'd done him a huge favor, and as you can see from the below, he prospered, retired, and his children are now running the operation. Maybe he should send me a box of cherries.

Symms Fruit Ranch

Another quick Riverside sale, and with a bidding war at that

134 Lockwood Road, one of the many homes built on that road in the post-war '40s, was listed May 15th for $1.575 million, but sold for $1.638. I'm watching my entire generation of friends leave Riverside, which is understandable, but sort of sad.

Milbrook Contract

52 W. Brother Drive, asking $3.895 million. Nice old (1929) house, but its start price back in February, 2017 of $5.495 turned off buyers. Leaving it at that price for almost a year was misguided.

I'm not getting this

113 Stanwich Road

113 Stanwich Road is newly listed today, for $1.750 million. A 1966 house on a busy road, with not a whole lot to recommend it. I'm currently working with buyers looking in this general price range, in the North Street/Central school district, but even if they weren't already receiving an instant MLS feed, I wouldn't bother sending along this one.

I'm only saying that because I know my clients' taste, of course, and other buyers' opinions may vary drastically. Still and all, I predict a few price corrections on this property as time moves on.

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