Nothing going on in the market but rentals

Going down?

Lots of those: new, closed, pending, but nothing exceptional or worth noting. There's a single family price reduction, 16 Boulder Brook Road, down today to $4.7 million, which might merit attention — it sold new for $5,832,000 in 2007 — but that was a crazy price back then, so it's hardly a surprise to see it drop so far today.

That 2007 sale, right at the crest of the market, lured a number of developers to rush onto Boulder Brook to build spec houses priced in the high $6's, even low $7's, to their sorrow. I don't know who, if anyone, was advising these builders, but any number of realtors could have warned them against their great expectations, had they asked.

Sale on Richmond Hill

51 Richmond Hill Road, $3,091,000. Previous records show that it sold to these owners for just $750,000. That may be accurate. It was a non-MLS sale. seller's agent sold to his own customer. Zillow shows it as having been built in 2017, so perhaps the $750,000 purchase price reflected a tear-down price? 

Beats me. 

July sales statistics, per MLS

““July 2018 is up 40% in sales from last year! There were seventy-six sales July 2018, from fifty-four last year. The median sale price had a 12% increase from $1,633,250 in July 2017 to $1,837,500 this year. The number of new listings that came on the market in July 2018 increased by 40% to seventy-seven from fifty-five last year. Greenwich remains the strongest sector from the beginning of the year, with thirty-nine sales. Riverside was runner-up, closing in on fifteen sales. Condo/Co-Op sales had eighteen closings, with a median sale price of $590,000. Current pending sales for Single Family homes are fifty-one and nine for Condo/Co-Op. July was a very active month and did not show signs of slowing down for the summer. With only a few weeks left of August, it is hopeful that we can finish this month off as strong as we did in July”, stated BK Bates, 2018 President of the Greenwich Association of REALTORS®.”

Get out those coat hangers, ladies, and serve your country.

Chelsea Clinton: "Roe v. Wade added $3.5 trillion to our economy"

In a speech given at "Rise Up for Roe," an event aimed at expressing feminist displeasure with the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the United States Supreme Court, the younger Clinton opined:

Whether you fundamentally care about reproductive rights and access right, because these are not the same thing, if you care about social justice or economic justice, agency – you have to care about this.

It is not a disconnected fact – to address this t-shirt of 1973 – that American women entering the labor force from 1973 to 2009 added three and a half trillion dollars to our economy. Right?

The net, new entrance of women – that is not disconnected from the fact that Roe became the law of the land in January of 1973.

So, I think, whatever it is that people say they care about, I think that you can connect to this issue.

Of course, I would hope that they would care about our equal rights and dignity to make our own choices – but, if that is not sufficiently persuasive, hopefully, come some of these other arguments that you’ve expressed so beautifully, will be.

Setting aside the fact that she didn't cite a source for that figure, Chelsea Clinton believes that if people can't be convinced that it's okay to murder babies by appealing to, you know, "dignity" and "choice," an appeal to economics should do the trick.

Fine. Stepping into the crassness of reducing life to economics, allow me to appeal to economics then, too.

I wonder how much more stable our tottering Social Security system would be if the millions of babies murdered since 1973 (around 50 million) had been allowed to reach adulthood and enter the workforce. Not to mention the amount of value 50 million+ workers would've added to the economy. The taxes paid by that large of a group would add more than a few pennies to the Social Security coffers.

Amazing election results: Ned Lamont only won the Democrat primary by 85%

Joe Ganim received 15% of the votes.

After serving seven years in prison for corruption and stealing from his constituents, Ganim was reelected Mayor of Bridgeport by an overwhelming margin, which, given his city's electorate, should have come as no surprise, but couldn't retrieve his law license. But he did have chutzpah to seek his party's nomination for Governor — give him that.

“In July 2010, Ganim was released after serving seven years in prison.[34] After his release, Ganim worked as a legal assistant at his family’s law firm in Bridgeport.[35] Ganim and his brother George Ganim Jr. also opened a consulting service, Federal Prison Consultant LLC, which offered other white-collar convicts advice on surviving federal prison terms.[36]

Ganim also sought restoration of his license to practice law. In 2012, a five-member panel of the State of Connecticut Grievance Committee recommended that Ganim’s license be restored.[37] In September 2012, a three-judge panel of Connecticut Superior Court judges rejected the recommendation, writing that: “Allowing an applicant to be readmitted to the practice of law following a conviction on 16 counts of racketeering, conspiracy, extortion, mail fraud, bribery and filing false income tax returns without any apology, expression of remorse, or explanation, and with only a vague acceptance of an unspecified event, simply would set the bar for readmission too low in the state, and we are unwilling to do that.”[38] Ganim appealed to the Connecticut Supreme Court in 2014, which unanimously ruled against his effort to have his law license restored.[26][35] In 2017, Ganim applied to the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut for permission to practice in that federal court without being readmitted to the Connecticut bar; these efforts were rebuffed by the court.[39]”

With a record of service like that, I'm astonished that only 15% of his fellow Democrats supported his candidacy. Should have been a shoo-in. 

Separated at birth, or just an uncanny resemblance? Just sayin'

Well this didn't turn out so well

167 Zaccheus Mead Lane closed today at $5.835 million. A substantial sum, certainly, but the sellers paid $6.2 for it in 1999, poured a ton of money into it, and have had it on the market since January, 2016, when they launched it on the waters at $10.500. A beautiful home as built in 1904, but not so nice today, and its sale price reflects that.

some things are best left alone

Not much (okay, nothing) going on in the residential market these days except rentals

As evidenced in this morning's activity report 

Muslim "youths" in Sweden: PM asks "what the "F***s going on?" I could tell him

Muslims burn "over 100 cars" in coordinated attacks, police arrest no one, refuse to label the perpetrators as anything but "youths". 

This has been going on for years, as evidenced by this article dating to 2014, but the Swedish government refuses to admit who is responsible (just as it refuses to adit tat here are n "no-go" zones in its cities. Those with long memories 2017) will remember when Trump was excoriated by our own press when he pointed this out.

For once, a bidding war that might have produced a winner

28 Sawmill Lane, originally listed in April at $2.875 million, dropped to $1.975 in June, and found several bidders; just closed at $2.1. I'm usually skeptical of bidding wars — the "winners" almost always turn out to be losers — but in this case, the house is in great shape, with some major renovations/upgrades done during the sellers' ownership, and the price seems right.

But as to my point about bidding wars, these sellers bought the place in 2003. The house was listed at $2.450 million, and after just 7 days they "won" it at $2.650. Given what they sunk into it over the next fifteen years, well ....

Some charts are self-explanatory

School spending rises, academic performance stays put

First published in 2012 (and all dollars are constant circa 2012), but other than the spending increasing in the the past six years, nothing has changed.