Taxes, spending, and illusory values

200 Old Mill Road. sold 2006, $6.3 million. Going begging today, asking $4.450. Current assessment: $6,389,100.

Just sayin’.

Greenwich resident John Lucarelli has an op-ed in today’s Greenwich Time that raises some good questions about our current Grand List and the spending we’re budgeting based on that list. Excerpt:

Our government needs to realize actual real estate declines over the past decade. The Grand List incorrectly includes a plus-60 percent increase during the 2005 revaluation followed by a token correction of 12 percent in 2009 that was offset by an even greater 18 percent mill rate increase in the same year.

Today’s Grand List is $33.1 billion with a General Fund Budget (not including Nathanial Witherell, Harris Golf Course, and other costs) of $443.5 million which appears to be around our historical average tax rate of 1.3 percent across all properties.

However, taking a closer look, many local real estate experts believe we are trading at 2004 or earlier values which puts our Grand List back below the $20.4 billion level. Applying our current General Obligation Budget of $443.5 million to the 2004 Grand List values gives us an average tax rate of 2.2 percent. So if local experts are correct we have lost more than 40 percent of our real estate values from the 2008 highs on average and at the same time effectively doubled spending relative to our property values.

Using inflated valuations for our properties have allowed elected officials to claim they are maintaining “steady and predictable” tax increases. Accurate valuations of our real estate values will show our taxes have gone up dramatically even as our properties values have fallen.

I’m not ready to sign off on Lucarelli’s estimate of a 40% town-wide decline in house values, but I do think he makes a valid point, overall.

Say goodbye to all that?

(Yet another) attempt to break Realtors’ monopoly on home sales. This one, too, may be unsuccessful, but sooner or later, and probably sooner, the career of real estate agent will go the way of travel agents. (In fact, though I’ve never checked, there are probably a lot of former travel agents working in real estate these days.)

I continue to think that a good buyer’s agent brings value to a transition, and I personally would no sooner trust a sellers gent to advise me on the merits of her listing than I would turn over my wallet to a politician for safekeeping, but that’s the future, I believe. Fortunately for me, I’m not looking to extend this gig another decade.

"What I feel almost protective about, in this really sad elegiac way, is the MLS," [Redfin CEO Glen Kelman] said. "Scientists believe that the dinosaurs were living a very marginal existence when the asteroid hit. I think the ecosystem in real estate is already just extremely vulnerable."

No wonder the eastern cottontail is endangered

7 Cottontail Road (off Stanwich) sold in just 15 days in 2006 for full price: $1.450 million. It’s been on and off the market for some years now, interspersed by rental periods. Today it sold for $1.050. Although I suspect it’s been purchased for its land value, at this price it affords a pretty decent house for not a lot of money.

Off Round Hill

15 Greenbriar Lane, asking $2.495 million, has a contract after 44 days, and why not? This is a whole lot of nice house for a reasonable place. 7,000 + sq. ft., office with separate entrance, and in excellent condition. The town appraises it at $3,819,900, and while that might be a tad overoptimistic given prices lately, $2.5 seems like a steal.

Yes, the owner/architect is a car aficionado — room for at least eight here.

Definitely a day for back country news

636 Riversville Road, which seems as though it’s even listed forever but has in fact only been on the market for seven years, is finally reported as pending. Started in 2012 at $7.590 million, eventually dropped to $3.850, and voila.

It’s up near the Audubon, and that’s long way from town for my taste but not for this buyer, obviously.

Unless used to make an ironic statement, I find communist propaganda posters in mansions to be a little too much, but ….

SAD

All alone in the wilderness

All six men attracted to feminists deeply affected by sex strike

The six men in the nation who identify as feminist-attracted include Greg, Sebastien, Shiloh, Ansel, Jade, and Ashley. All of them are from Oregon.

And still more stirrings in the back country

20 Partridge Hollow Road, currently priced at $4.850 (it started sat $5.850 in April, 2018), has a contract. Its price history shows previous sales of $6.125 in 2012, $6.0 in 2005, and $4.5 in 2003. Assuming normal price negotiations on this latest asking price, it would seem that the house is back to its 2003 level, which, these days, isn’t bad. Of course, some major renovations must have been performed to bump its price from $4.5 to $6.0 in 2003-2005, and that throws the 2003 value off a bit, but still, a sale way up here is an encouraging sign.

There's life up at Conyers Farm after all

19 Lower Cross Road, asking $13.9 million, is reported as pending after just 104 days on the market. That’s impressive, even if it did sell for $15.850 back in 2014; at this level, that’s pretty much a mere rounding error.

Sooner or later Richmond Hill's going to start looking like a bargain; won't it?

55 Richmond Hill Road, purchased new in 2001 for $4.7 million, failed to sell for $4.995 in 2016, so it was pulled from the market and returned today at $3.250. I can’t say that it’s distinguishable from all those spec houses that went up in New Canaan in the early 2000s, but it’s surely no worse, and this is (back country) Greenwich, not New Canaan.

Then again, the New Canaan market is dead, so ….

Now that’s a generator!

Quick sale on Indian Mill

22 Indian Mill Road, $1.795 million, contract after 19 days. It’s a 1965 home, but kept up to date, and Indian Mill’s a nice street, so the price seems reasonable to me. It does, however, sit on just one acre of land in a two acre zone, but aside from FAR limitations, how much land do you want to maintain?

Owner paid $1.685 for it in 2003, if you’re keeping track of such things.