Greenwich, Connecticut real estate, politics, and more.
Greenwich, Connecticut real estate, politics, and more
106 Lockwood Road, Riverside, has a new price: $3.199 million, and a new broker. It asked for $3.985 when it was newly constructed in October, 2016. Failures like this are testimony to buyers’ common sense: by the time they’ve seen four-or-five homes in a given price range, they’re far more attuned to market value than any individual home owner.
26 Chapel Lane, Riverside (September listing), went to contract in mere days and closed yesterday at $1.035 million. Probably headed for the dumpster, but as a Riverside starter home, it could work (no worse, certainly, than Pal Nancy’s and my own starter, though ours was priced at $40,00, back in the day, and three states north of here).
80 Howard Road, recent (2016) construction priced at $5.3 million, is reported as pending. Howard Road is located way up Taconic in our far northeastern corner and has never been known to have been a popular draw, so anything approaching this home’s asking price … surprises me.
I’m guessing out-of-town agent, out-of-town buyer, but in these lean times ….
UPDATE: Oops! the report shows that the selling agent is local. What can I say? Some of my peers are experts at discovering heretofore unsuspected value.
42 Indian Head Road, new today at $2.195 million. For this location, that seems like a reasonable price. Sellers paid $2.345 for it in January, 2007, when its renovations were fresher.
642 lake Avenue, still licking its wounds at being rejected for the past three years at $4.995, is back on the market with a new agent and a new price, $3.650 million. The house remains what it was: an undistinguished 1972 contemporary on a bland, 2-acre lot.
The town has generously appraised this place at $2.758; I’d give it land value only, and that’s going to be less than our optimistic tax collector is calculating.
1927 was then, this is now
137 Old Mill Road was originally listed in June, 2014 for $11.5 million, and that price remained stubbornly unchanged for the next four years, doubtless because its owners and their listing agent firmly believed in their agent’s glowing appreciation of the house and its provenance:
SUPERBLY RESTORED CLASSIC GEORGIAN DECORATED BY NOTED DESIGNER HOWARD SLATKIN WITH WONDERFUL ADDITIONS IN CHARACTER BY FAMED ENGLISH ARCHITECT CHRISTOPHER SMALLWOOD - 2 STORY LIBRARY WING (ONE IS OCTAGONAL)IN A MANNER OF DALYESFORD AND GARDEN ROOM AFTER OSTERLY HOUSE, TWO OF THE MOST FAMOUS 18TH CENTURY ENGLISH HOMES DESIGNED BY ROBERT ADAM. GRAND SCALE, HIGH CEILINGS, SUPERB DETAILING - LIVING ROOM WITH EXQUISITE PANELING, MEMORABLE DINING ROOM, GREAT COUNTRY KITCHEN/FAMILY ROOM PLUS UPSTAIRS FAMILY ROOM. TWO BEDROOM GUEST HOUSE WITH LIVING ROOM, WET BAR AND BATHROOM. CHARMING POOL HOUSE.
Right: that’s what a couple of 35-year-old super star achievers are looking for.
As of today the property has a new agent and a new price: $6.7 million. but both agents are of the same generation, and are both romantics, still harboring visions of back country fox hunts and swapping houses among the oh-so-dear trust fund children during Greenwich garden parties. In fact, those kids all disappeared to Berkley in the late 60s and never came back — they’re hidden in the wine country out there, emerging only when the occasional wild fire forces them from their walled enclaves. Today’s Greenwich buyers, the ones I know, came up from nowhere, beat the shit out of their competitors by being smarter, quicker, and far-faster than their peers. They’ve never heard of the Osterly House, or Robert Adam, or any of his imitators, and couldn’t care less about whatever the “manner of Dalyesford” might have been (and I’m with them in their ignorance). They aren’t likely to be intimidated or snowed by references to grand back country fox hunt tours that are no more, and won’t be returning, ever. This home’s original listing verbiage is directed at 1965 buyers, who cleared out of town long ago.
Time for this era of sellers and their agents really stopped in about 1968, but just as a Hinkley yacht will keep coasting even after its mainsail is dropped, the market for these homes continued, haltingly, through 2008, when it finally ran aground.
The ludicrous $11.5 million 2015 price for this relic, together with its listing's fulsome prose*, brings to mind Captain Ahab, stumping about on the teak deck of that Hinkley, screaming about white whales.
Today's price, its new agent’s slightly less pretentious wording notwithstanding, is just as nuts.
Right across the street from this one, the baseball player’s house at 390 Round Hill just sold for $3.5. I’m giving this a $3.2 price tag, and I’m probably being a romantic nostalgic at that.
Old-timey tv a designer touch by Howard Slatkin, perhaps.
gold-plated sink trap: another contribution by Christopher Smallwood?
and to my pedantic, smarter younger brother Anthony, I do know the definition of “fulsome” — in this case, I find the description fulsome, even it its writer meant it sincerely.
Hollywood billionaires clamour for gated communities.
These are generally the same people who fly their private jets to conferences on global warming.
To be fair, this poor woman is a graduate of the University of Arizona, known exclusively for its production of drunken sorority girls and witless frat boys, but complete ignorance of plate tectonics, basic geology, and even history doesn’t excuse her claim to be capable of offering an informed opinion on global warming.
Of course, the same holds true for the rest of mainstream media’s “science reporters”.
979 Lake (go past Whitby, look for sign), has dropped to $1.199 million. When this 1968-construction first came on the market in June, 2017, it was priced at $1.995 and three months later its then-listing agent dropped it to $1,749,500 and proclaimed a “HUGE price reduction, home now well below Zestimate”. Unfortunately for her and the owners, the town’s appraisal back then was $1,326,500 — still too high, but a number that undoubtedly cast doubt on the realtor’s boast and Zillow’s estimated value.
This property might fetch $1.7 in Riverside — not a price I’d recommend, but Riverside’s funny — but it was never going to get close to $2 million in this out-of-town location. $1.1 might do it, I suppose, but a lot of time’s been wasted here.
I’m desperately looking for interesting Greenwich real estate news these days because this is, after all, supposed to be a blog devoted to the subject, but there’s practically none; the market will resume after New Years. But I did find a report of 45 Londonderry Drive pending as a land sale, asking $1.295 million.
There was a house here once, built in 2004, sold for $4.525 in 2014 (which astonished me — it was a decent house, but ….) and returned to the market in 2017 at $4.250. Before a buyer could appear it burned down, and now, the insurance having been paid off, the land it stood on is selling as a new building site.
Let’s hope the new owners are more provident.
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