Pending on Park Avenue (Greenwich)

77 Park Avenue listed as both land and residential and skiing $2.2 million. There’s nothing particularly noteworthy about the house (dated, built in 1900) but real estate activity is pretty much dormant at this time of year, and like that mohel in the old joke, I gotta put something in the window. You can use the number for stats on land values on this street, if you wish, or cruise over to the leftists’ sites and amuse yourself watching them trying to spin positive news from yesterday’s Mueller disaster.

Bernie lifts spirits and hopes of his young idealists crushed by today's Mueller flop by raising hourly wage to $700

“YOU ASKED FOR IT, YOU DESERVE IT, YOU GOT IT!”

And as usual, the Babylon Bee’s on top of the story

Of course, there’s a minor problem with St. Bernard’s plan

Washington, D.C.—According to an official press release from the Bernie 2020 campaign, presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders will be raising his staff’s minimum pay to $700 per hour. While some questioned the feasibility of the new plan, the release explained that this can easily be accomplished by laying off everyone except Bernie Sanders.

Despite tirelessly advocating for a $15 federal minimum wage on the campaign trail, Sanders has recently been the center of controversy after complaints by his staff that they were being paid only $13 per hour.

“Once I was made aware of my staff’s concerns, I took swift action to rectify the situation!” Sanders explained. He went on to say that he cares so much about “addressing income inequality” that he immediately began to work on the solution from his third home in Vermont, rather than waiting until he had returned to DC on a charter jet

Many of Bernie’s staffers responded enthusiastically to the announcement. “To be honest, I don’t really understand what he was saying about laying people off, or what this pink piece of paper is for,” said Bernie 2020 Street Team member Renee Schuler, “but I really liked the part about making more money.”

“If there’s one thing this proves, it’s that socialist leaders always put the people ahead of their own self-interests!” said another staffer, just before being handed a cardboard box of his personal items and then forcibly escorted out of the building by security.

"He's not senile, he's just saving his breath"

No, I didn’t watch the Mueller Circus — I have a life — so I won’t opine on whether or not he seemed befuddled and confused. But the MNBC hostess’s defense of his mental faculties: “he was perfectly capable of handling questions that only required a one-word answer” would seem to confirm the reports. That’s the best she could do in his defense?

Planes, trains, and automobiles

And trucks; none help a home’s price. 3 Meadow Wood Drive, for instance, in Belle Haven, sold for $3.245 million in 2005. The buyers took it down to studs for a complete renovation and placed it back on the market in 2015 for $5.995. Today it dropped to $3.995, and it wouldn't be surprising if it eventually sells for hat 2005 price, and all those renovation costs lost.

It’s certainly a nice house, and heck, the town appraises it at $5,155,700, but the appriser wasn’t looking at it with an intention to buy. Those that have viewed it with a buyer’s eye have been turned off by the looming presence of I-95 in the backyard, and that’s not good.

I’ve noticed over the years that owners of houses subject to traffic noise acclimatize to it after a few months and, years later, when it’s time to sell, they refuse to discount for the roar they don’t hear. Unfortunately, buyers seeing the place for the first time do notice, and they get back in their cars and drive away.

Bottom story of the day

So much better: modestly dressed, and empowered!

After driving off its last 100 viewers by eliminating the swimsuit competition, Miss America contest limps off to Mohegan Sun

Miss America is leaving Atlantic City for the second time, trading one casino town for another in a move that caps a whirlwind of change at the nearly century-old pageant.

[The pageant’s 2017 leaders] were replaced by female leadership including former Fox News host Gretchen Carlson, a former Miss America.

But state pageant organizations chafed under the new leadership and launched vocal protests against the new leadership, which vowed to move forward with changes designed to make Miss America more relevant and empowering to women.

The biggest change included the elimination of the swimsuit competition in favor of more in-depth contestant interviews.

Carlson has since stepped down.

The pageant’s departure from Atlantic City had been expected since the Casino Reinvestment Development Authority declined to renew subsidies for the pageant following last September’s competition [and zero ratings — Ed]

Would I buy on Riversville? Probably not; not yet, anyway.

Prices continue to decline. For example, 350 Riversville Road sold new in 2007 for $3,187,900 and has been for sale or rented out since 2017, when it began at $2.950 million. Today it dropped to $2.150.

Not that the current owners are to blame, but a beautiful 1848 Italianate house sat on this lot until 2003, when a builder named Hatch bought it, scraped it and replaced it with this rather plebeian example of “a modern farmhouse”.

Bah.

Planning a little golf at the Bruce? This should give you pause

Bear sightings on King Street.

Belle Haven loss

101 Otter Rock Drive has closed at $3.950 million. The sellers paid $5.245 for it in November, 2014, and started off on this reselling adventure in January, 2017, at $5.475. I’m surprised that they got even this much, because pseudo-French Provincials aren’t in demand much here in Greenwich, and the land this one sits on is heavily compromised by its hilly topography and extensive wetlands. Its land is valued by the town at $2.7 million, and that’s about what I would have expected it to sell for.

But someone obviously liked the house, too.

And tomorrow's Mueller flop will finish the job

But Rachael promised!

President Trump’s favored candidate Boris Johnson wins PM race in a landslide. This has the Leftists teetering; tomorrow, the same people are expecting Mueller’s testimony to trigger the impeachment and downfall of Trump himself.

We’ll be able to hear their heads exploding from up here.

When the sole exterior shot of a house is the 26th out of 27 pictures, you have a problem

You can run, but you cannot hide.

I mean, unless you show it exclusively at night, sooner or later the prospective buyer’s gonna see what it looks like. 444 Old Church Road, located at the busiest intersection north of the Post Road, has cut its price to $2.745 million, which is an improvement over 2016’s $3.249, but will it prove sufficient? To my taste, the location and the design work against this house, but taste is so personal that I wouldn’t dare pronounce judgment. After all, these owners bought it.