They also tend to be scrawny, miserable and obnoxious
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Here’s to happy!
Weekenders out looking?
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142 Old Mill Road, a tear-down on 0.8 acres in the R-4 zone, hit the market April 1 @$795,000 and immediately drew multiple bids. Contracts in a week, it closed today at $800,000.
Floor Area Restrictions will limit anything built (or renovated) here to just 2,000 sq.ft., but if you can keep building costs to, say, $350 sq.ft., I suppose it makes sense for a NYC couple with money to burn. As this one demonstrates, there are, or were, at least two buyers out there for exactly this situation.
GMLS data are out for May; mansion owners, take warning
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Spec house @ 429 Taconic Road. Priced at $23.5 million in 2013, current price $14.750
May, 2019, $5 million and up: 1 sold, 146 still on the market. Just sayin’.
If you’re bored and looking for amusement, you may want to sample this entirely deceptive, misleading, and just plain wrong puff piece from April, 2017 in Global Mansions, describing the glowing prospects for high end mansions in Greenwich. Everything’s coming up roses!
Coincidentally, Global Mansions sells advertising, FWIW does not.
Riverside sale
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23 Chapel Lane, priced at $2.595 million, is reported pending after just 30 days, which usually indicates that the seller will be receiving close to her asking price. Purchased new fifteen years ago from builder Mark O’Brien (he makes a good house) for $2.395, there’s no appreciation here, but no loss, either, and if you add in the rental value of a house like this for all those years, not a bad experience.
I’d say this is a pretty good example of that era’s Riverside construction on modest streets, and its sales price is a good comp for houses you may be looking at in this range.
Not a totally unexpected development
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he Berghof comes to Cos Cob
232 Valley Road, Cos Cob, has cut its price, again. Now at $2.360 million.
When it came on a year ago i wrote some uncomplimentary things about it (sentiments shared by readers) and why not just cut and paste from that post? Nothing’s changed.
Several readers have commented on the new construction at 232 Valley Road, Cos Cob. I'd figured that its asking price of $3 million would allow plenty of time — years, perhaps — to discuss it, but what the heck, why not start now?
My first question, I suppose, is why would anyone blast such an inferior building lot out of ledge and then build on it? Just because you can do something doesn't necessarily mean that you should, and this project proves it. There's no yard, the precipitous driveway guarantees a treacherous climb in the winter, and certain death for the first child to attempt to ride his bicycle or skateboard down it.
There is no basement, and the first floor has room for a kitchen, dining room and living room, period: the bulk of living space is found on the second floor and in the attic. In short, this is no house for a family, yet the builder crammed in six bedrooms, six baths and two half-baths into its 6,000 sq. ft. Who's going to use all that?
This site might have made sense as a small weekend retreat for NYC couple, perhaps, even if there's no possibility of a pool, but I know that I'd have a terrible time trying to pitch it to a family with kids, our more usual Greenwich buyers. In fact, I wouldn't try, but perhaps a better agent than I can perform that miracle.
Let's give that agent a couple of years to work her magic.
There's just not much one can do with a mid-70s house
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Or almost any Greenwich development house from the 50s-90s. By which I mean, you can certainly update them and create a very comfortable home to live in, but don’t expect much profit trying to flip them.
The owners of 215 Riverside Avenue paid $2.050 million for it —full price, 30 DOM — in August, 2016, completely redid it and put it back on the market in August, 2017 at $3.2 million. Today they took another cut, and it can be yours for $2,180,50.
Which is probably a good deal. For that money you get a new kitchen, new baths, extra space — these owners expanded it from 2,600 to 4,000 sq.ft., new mechanicals, etc., all at that 2016 purchase price. Say “thank you”, and move right in.
Here’s that original house, and its listing.
Cheaper than the Hamptons
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215 Byram Shore Road, asking $19.750 million, pending after just 35 days. Direct waterfront and in impeccable condition. This is a lot of money to spend on a weekend house but then, people who buy houses like this tend to have a lot of money, bless their hearts.
Are there still Westchester buyers?
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8 Carpenters Brook Road, currently asking $2.690 million, is reported as pending. It’s a nice enough house, but Carpenters Brook is nestled against 684 on the New York border, and I can’t see it as appealing to anyone except a current Westchester County resident hoping to escape New York taxes. If so, imagine these buyers’ disappointment when they discover that Hartford’s gone Albany.
The sellers paid $3.250 million for this in 2014, so their five-year stay is probably going to cost them around $750,000, maybe more, after commissions and taxes are subtracted from the selling price. Ow.
What do you do with ths pool space 9 months a year?
Lindsay Drive selling price reported
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4 Lindsay Drive, discussed here earlier when it entered contract last April, has closed at $3.075 million. That must have been a disappointment; the owners had started at $4.250, and they paid $3.025 in 1999, then spent a lot on expansion and improvements.
But they got twenty years of enjoyment from the place, so who’s to complain?