Yes, this is still a real estate blog, but when real estate activity is minimal, whacha gonna do?

Almost nothing to report. Lots of doings in the rental world, between price drops (once you’ve passed the opening of the school year, you’ve lost most of your market for homes) and actual rentals, but the single-family home market is practically dormant. I think that’s unusual for this time of year, but I haven’t run the stats to see whether my memory of past years is correct; I’ll post here after I do so.

I do note that 5 Sylvan Lane, Old Greenwich, reported as under contract just two weeks ago, is back on the active list. There are many, many reasons for deals to fall out of contract, ranging from sudden job transfers to the surprise delivery of divorce papers, to, the most dreaded by all commission-craving agents, buyer’s remorse. So you can never tell.

Sylvan’s price had been driven down over the past two years from $6.8 million to $5.195, and I considered it a pretty good deal: no flood problems, new construction that would certainly pass any house inspection, so what went wrong? Who knows, but that pesky buyer’s remorse is always lurking in the background of any purchase agreement.

Earlier this year, we managed to get a bid of $4 million accepted by an owner who’d paid $4.3 for the house, spent a couple of million restoring and improving it, and originally priced it at $6.750. $4 million was an incredible bargain (still is — call me), but when we notified the buyer with the happy news that his bid had been accepted he developed cold feet, and balked. That happens all too often (from an agent’s perspective), but that’s part of selling real estate here. In Greenwich, accepted offers are unenforceable by either party, seller or buyer, until an actual contract, prepared by the parties’ lawyers is executed by both sides — until then, either party can walk, with no cost; in fact, I have often encouraged buyers to toss a low-ball offer at a house, because they really have nothing to lose.

In other parts of the state this problem has been “solved’ by permitting real estate agents to draw up binding agreements (and thereby engaging in the unauthorized practice of law, in my opinion), but what could be dumber than committing millions of dollars to a transaction based on a contract drafted by a person who has no legal training and in fact, has no requirement to have even graduated from nursery school?

So I think the Greenwich Realtors’ approach is the proper one, but it does lead to disappointment for both sellers and buyers (when their “accepted” offer is dumped in favor of a higher bid) alike. In the case of 5 Sylvan, it appears that it was the seller who suffered the bitterness of lost expectation.

Were I advising a client in this price range, I’d suggest they submit an offer in the mid-to-high fours, just to see whether they couldn’t capitalize on the builder’s dashed expectations. Once a seller has started spending money in his mind, as this one probably has, a slightly-smaller sum is often still attractive.

Shocker: Twitter's anti-hate speech policy applies only to conservatives

Twitter, which has been blocking and banning writers who express conservative views the past couple of months, has no problem with true hate speech, so long as that speech arises from the left.

After a group of Antifa and socialist protesters drove Sen. Cruz out of the high-end restaurant Fiola on Monday night, the account “Smash Racism D.C.” promised future harassment from their members. (RELATED: Antifa Sends Threatening Message To Cruz After Disrupting His Dinner: ‘You Are Not Safe.’)

“You are not safe,” they wrote. “We will find you. We will expose you. We will take from you the peace you have taken from so many others.”

p6. This is a message to Ted Cruz, Bret Kavanaugh, Donald Trump and the rest of the racist, sexist, transphobic, and homophobic right-wing scum: You are not safe. We will find you. We will expose you. We will take from you the peace you have taken from so many others.

— Smash Racism DC (@SmashRacismDC) September 25, 2018

Twitter’s rules prohibit “behavior that crosses the line into abuse, including behavior that harasses, intimidates, or uses fear to silence another user’s voice.”

In fact, Twitter and Facebook have been silencing conservative writers at least since 2016, according to this report from the semi-neutral/lioberal “The Hill”. That effort has intensified since July. Interesting that the left claims that Trump threatens free speech while they’re the ones doing that, on campuses and in the two (plus Google), currently the most powerful social media sites. Coincidence or duplicity — you decide.

On the other hand, this Pecksland home didn't do as well as 11 Mayfair

1919 houses are even less popular than those built in the ‘30s

54 Pecksland Road, just a bit down the road from Mayfair and priced at $3.495 million, is also pending. Nice sum, but its owners paid $3.5 for it — $5.372 in current dollars — and after renovating it, have been trying to unload it since 2012, when they offered it at $6.495. I thought it overpriced back them, and haven’t changed my opinion since.

13 acres with, maybe, a house, pending off Pecksland Road

11 Mayfair Lane, now asking $14.9 million, has a buyer. A Joe Barbieri listing, as is 28 Windrose, discussed below, but this time Joe was the second agent, and that’s a good thing: the first agent set its value at $22 million, which proved grossly inaccurate. Joe was closer to the market, pricing it at $14.9 and finding a buyer in just five months.

Great house, but these days, 1930 houses are out of style; I hope it survives.

If i had to, i’d tear down the rest of the house and live in this library

On the other hand, Mead Point waterfront HAS appreciated

28 Windrose Way, last asking $8.250 million, is reported as pending. Owners paid just $6.5 for this place in 2011 (down from an initial 2009 asking price of $17.5,but never mind), tore down the existing building and remarketed it as a waterfront building lot, and seem to have done just fine.

Waterfront in our best gated-communities has always been a pretty safe bet.

If they get anything close to its asking price they'll have almost kept up with inflation, which isn't bad

A bit dated, concedely, but still a nice house

20 Hope Farm, [bad link — fixed now] purchased for $2.350 million in 1994, hit the market today at $3.695. According to this inflation calculator, $2.350 is worth $4.053 in 2018. That’s not too shabby: other neighborhoods have fared worse.

I'm so old. I remember when Yale Law school had the reputation of producing intelligent graduates

Kavanugh nomination and sexual assault allegations spark protest ad Yale Law School.

Of course, it is true that Hillary and Bill Clinton were spawned by that institution, but they were merely scheming hypocrites; this Miss Catherine McCarthy, former “sexual assault and crisis counselor” on the other hand, is a drooling idiot if she can’t see the irony in her words. Sadly, she’s bound to find employment in some governmental agency, where she can continue her thinking [sic] and her activist ways. Can’t stop that, I suppose, but there was time when Yale grads were deemed fit to practice in the real world.

“I think Yale Law School, as an institution and as an administration, has an obligation to speak out on behalf of legal process and the rule of law,” said Catherine McCarthy, a third-year student.

What happened to the New Yorker's vaunted fact checkers? Trump

Some years ago; roughly, 2007, a New Yorker writer came to Greenwich to work up an article on Greenwich’s real estate scene. I was a minor part of that process, though I did spend about five days escorting him around, introducing him to spec builders and supplying him my own opinion on what was going on (for the record, I predicted disaster).

I was a very minor part of the final article, but I was still contacted by one of the New Yorker’s fact-checkers, and spent 45 minute confirming everything the writer attributed to me: yes, we have public housing projects, yes, the Grass Island sewage plant is right next to Belle Haven, Greenwich’s most expensive real estate, yes, our town dump is cheek-by-jowl with one of our poorer neighborhoods, yes, high-end sales were declining, and so forth. Point is, everything the writer claimed I’d said was verified, and the examiner’s thoroughness jibed with stories I’d heard from family friends who’d written for the New Yorker in years past, going back for decades. All that time spent on me, a bit player in the article, was typical.

So it’s a fair question why that same magazine last week published Roman Farrow’s allegation that a former Yale student now remembers that Judge Kavanaugh flourished his penis in her face 35 years ago at a Yale drinking party. The woman, a fervent anti-Trump activist, has now admitted that she was a drunken mess, lying on the floor at the time, and hadn’t “remembered” who her “attacker” was until just recently, when she was enabled by a therapist to recover her memory, an uncorroborated memory at that.

I cancelled my subscription to the New Yorker back in the early 80s because I’d grown tired of its leftist slant, but when, twenty years later, I agreed to cooperate with one of its writers, it was because I was aware of the magazine’s incredible fact-checking staff, and was pretty confident that whatever I said would be fairly reported, and confirmed. And indeed, the reporter did treat did treat me fairly, as did the fact-checker.

That has obviously changed. and that’s why, as Rich Lowry says, “The assault on Kavanaugh is proving Trump voters right”. The mainstream media has burned through its seed corn: a belief by readers that they are receiving straight reporting. By the time this Kavanaugh debacle is over, regardless of outcome, there will be nothing remaining of that credibility. And, down the road, that will have consequences the left hasn’t yet grasped.

UPDATE:

HIT PIECE: On The New Yorker’s Grossly Irresponsible Story.

The piece starts out not with a summary of the story, but with the news that Democrats in Washington are taking it seriously — a weaselly attempt to pass the buck if I ever saw one (“People are saying!”). After that throat clearing, it is acknowledged that the person making the accusation around which the piece revolves had not mentioned it until Kavanaugh was nominated, “was reluctant to characterize Kavanaugh’s role in the alleged incident with certainty,” and agreed to make the charge on the record only after she had spent “six days [] carefully assessing her memories and consulting with her attorney.”

There are no corroborating witnesses. None. Of the “dozens” of classmates The New Yorker contacted, all either failed “to respond to interview requests . . . declined to comment, or said they did not attend or remember the party.” Indeed, we learn late in the piece that the authors could not establish that Kavanaugh was even there. “The New Yorker,” the tenth paragraph begins, “has not confirmed with other eyewitnesses that Kavanaugh was present at the party.” The only “evidence” provided comes from a “classmate” who was not at the party, but is certain he heard about the incident, and from “another classmate” who thinks he heard about an incident that could vaguely resemble the one alleged, but doesn’t know to whom it was done, or by whom. Or, as we would traditionally put it: The only proof provided is rumor.

Hardest hit? Ronan Farrow’s hard-won reputation as a tough, fair journalist. 

Time for the Republicans to finally stand up

It appears that Christine Ford may be developing cold feet about testifying Thursday, but is that sufficient? So far, the Republicans have caved to every demand of the Democrats, extending deadlines, allowing additional witnesses, and so forth. If that’s because the leadership can no longer count on 50 Republican votes, it’s understandable, sort of, but a better policy is for their leadership to go to work on those waverers and demand a united front.

Republican senators may fear losing the election if they stand up against the outrageous besmirching of Judge Kavanaugh, but in fact, that fear is misplaced. Republicans lost the suburban white woman vote the instant Trump was elected, and nothing has changed since then; nor will it. Republicans need another angle, and that’s to bring out their base. A poll reported yesterday claims that, if they come out to vote, Republicans will sweep the 2018 — if they don’t, the crazed left will swamp them. So how do you convince Republicans not to stay home? By standing on principle. If Republicans see their party’s leadership melt in the face of the Democrat media, there’s a real danger that some will see that there’s no difference between the parties and will refuse to vote for any of these lickspittle cowards.

I intend to hold my nose and vote a pure Republican slate, in the hope that we can keep the Democrats out of power, but I can easily understand why many voters will figure that the Republicans have already ceded that power to the socialist thugs, shrug their shoulders, and stay home to mow their lawn. Forcing through a decent judge’s appointment to the Supreme Court would be proof that there’s still life in the GOP, and maybe remind voters how much is at stake in November.

And who set this up?

Ted Cruz and wife driven out of D.C. restaurant by mob, just as called for his colleague, Maxine Waters.

Who set them up? It could have been a “woke” restaurant who alerted the mob to an upcoming reservation, but I’d put my money on government employees like this one”

Allison Hrabar, the low-level member of the Deep State embedded in the DOJ was (finally) fired after she boasted on tape of her work against Trump during her work day and gleefully saying that “I can’t get fired”.

In an undercover Project Veritas video, resistance leader Allison Hrabar admitted that she does research on the home addresses and license plates of private individuals so she and her socialist comrades can harass the individuals at their homes.

Hrabar led the Marxist mob that hounded Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen out of a D.C. Mexican restaurant last June.

About a dozen members of the D.C. chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) crashed Nielsen’s meal, wielding pro-illegal immigrant placards and chanting "shame!"

“Kirstjen Nielsen, you’re a villain, locking up immigrant children,” the activists shriek in the video. “The f*ing gall. Shame on you. Sham, shame, shame, fascist pig!”

After her involvement in the demonstration was brought to light, a DOJ official said in a statement that she couldn't comment on personnel issues. A couple of months later, the Washington Times reported that Hrabar was getting off scot-free.

The socialist Justice Department employee who harassed the Homeland Security secretary at a Washington restaurant won’t be disciplined for her political tweets, a government watchdog has concluded.

Allison Hrabar’s Twitter posts complaining about deportation and detention policy aren’t political activity, the Office of Special Counsel ruled, and so they don’t break the federal Hatch Act.

"There is a lot of talk at work about how we can resist from the inside," Hrabar brazenly declares in the Project Veritas video. "What's lucky is that at DOJ we really can't get fired."

“Project Veritas” has released several more videos of State Department and other government agency workers boasting of similar anti-Trump activities, and all expressing their confidence that, as government employees, they couldn’t be fired for their political activity during work hours. Those videos have received, to my knowledge, absolutely no coverage by the mainstream press. Would that have been true if, two years ago, these people had been exposed as working against Obama? To ask the question is to answer it.

Project Veritas exposed a mere handful of low level government employees who are working to undermine and thwart Trump and the will of a majority of the American voters; there certainly more, probably tens of thousands more, who are up to the same thing, and they've infested every branch and agency of our government, from the White House itself, the FBI, CIA, NSA, and the DOJ, State Department, EPA, Education, and so on. They can’t all be tracked down, unfortunately, but Trump and whatever group of loyal supporters he may have should make a concerted effort to get rid of as many as possible.

Drain the swamp — that’s why we elected him.