Greenwich, Connecticut real estate, politics, and more.
Greenwich, Connecticut real estate, politics, and more
30 Konittekock, a 1929 Normandy on three acres, is new today at $13.995 million. It was thoroughly redone a few years ago, and Normandies may be coming back in fashion, who knows?, so they might get it. I’d expect at least a pool, if not a tennis court for this kind of money, though neither is necessary; that’s what the Junior League’s Byram Beach is for, but our new market of NYC refugees probably expects them.
We’ll track its progress here.
34 Annjim Drive, April contract, has closed at $3 million.
Pending at 25 Richmond Hill; 13 years on market
Frantic New Yorkers snapping up unwanted homes
They were the castoffs of local real estate — until coronavirus came to call.
Some houses in suburban towns and rural areas outside of New York City sat on the market for years.
But then the pandemic spurred cooped-up urbanites to run for the hills and sparked an uptick in property sales within a few-hour radius of Manhattan.
In Connecticut, a charming colonial home in Darien lingered on the market for 1,083 days, while a 1980s contemporary in Salisbury ticked over the 1,500-day mark.
But then COVID-19 hit. They went from being the last kids picked on the team to idyllic quarantine dreams.
Two additional takeaways:
“Before the pandemic, everyone would say, ‘Hey, if I’m buying a million-dollar house, I want a new kitchen and renovated bathrooms,” says listing broker Bill Melnick of Elyse Harney Real Estate. “But now if the toilet flushes and they can move in quickly, they’re here!”
And:
Larger homes that fell out of favor are now back en vogue, agents add. “It allows working couples to have two home offices in addition to bedrooms with the possibility that shelter [in place] will happen again,” [Catskill agent] Serouya says.
And my own observation: in Greenwich, these unwanted lovelies are still selling at a fraction of their original asking prices, indicating that overpricing played a role – often, in my opinion, the sole role — in their failure to sell for so long. The NY post article suggests the same point.
49 Midwood Rd
First, the big house: 49 Midwood Road, in Deer Park, 11,000+ sq. ft. of new construction asking $11.950 million, is under contract.
26 Meadowcroft
26 Meadowcroft, 3 acres, December contract, has closed at $2.150 million. This was originally priced at $4.5 million a year ago — silly price — but it’s interesting that its listing price at the time an offer was accepted was still $3.495. Which shows, perhaps, that you shouldn’t be afraid to offer a reasonable price for an unreasonably-priced property. As I tell my own clients, “the worst that happens, they say no, but they might say yes”. Offers cost nothing.
Bulldog! Bulldog! Bow, wow wow, Eli Yale!
Yogi Berra was right: it’s déjà vu all over again. Just turn on the evening news. If you are old enough, you might blink twice and wonder whether you are not back in 1968. The looting and mayhem, the promiscuous invocations of universal ‘racism’ and ‘non-negotiable demands.’ Haven’t we been there, done that? ‘We must recognize that justice is a higher social goal than law and order.’ Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to some eager CNN reporter? No, that was William Sloane Coffin, Jr., Chaplin of Yale University, in 1972.
Remember Bobby Seale and the Black Panthers? When his trial for murder opened in New Haven in 1970, Yale’s President, the pathetic patrician Kingman Brewster, said that ‘I am skeptical of the ability of black revolutionaries to achieve a fair trial anywhere in the United States.’ That more or less guaranteed, and half-excused, the round of violence that followed.
Over the last few days, numerous policemen have been attacked, several have been killed, in the wave of domestic terrorism coruscating across the country. Seale would have been pleased. ‘If a pig comes up to us and starts swinging a billy club,’ he told a crowd, ‘you got to [shoot] that pig in defense of yourself! We’re gonna barbecue some pork!’ Tom Hayden, all admiration for Seale’s performance, told the crowd to ‘make sure that if blood is going to flow, it will flow all over the city.’
I use the phrase ‘domestic terrorism’ advisedly. Neither the New York Times nor CNN will tell this secret. The violence that is exploding across the country now has almost nothing to doing with the killing of George Floyd, a black man, by Derek Chauvin, a white policeman. That was merely the catalyst for a process that has deep roots in American culture.
The moral is: ideas matter. For decades now, our colleges and universities (and increasingly our grades schools) have been preaching a gospel of cultural self-hatred. America, according to this gospel, is evil. The country is inextricably racist and beholden to an irredeemably exploitative economic system. The latest retelling of this creation myth is the Pulitzer-Prize-winning ‘1619 Project’ whose fundamental message is that America was started as a ‘slavocracy.’ According to this malignant fantasy, the Revolutionary War was fought primarily ‘to protect the institution of slavery.’ At last count, elements of this disgusting bit of historical revisionism were being adopted in the curricula of some 4,000 school districts.
More dangerous is the other contingent, the ‘intellectuals’ — pajama-boy, Soros-subsidized thugs who have been taught to hate their country and now have a chance to express that hatred unfettered by civic order. ‘After the Vietnam War,’ wrote one academic radical, ‘a lot of us didn’t just crawl back into our literary cubicles; we stepped into academic positions. With the war over, our visibility was lost, and it seemed for a while — to the unobservant — that we had disappeared. Now we have tenure, and the work of reshaping the universities has begun in earnest.’
613 Round Hill
More old, unloved listings are moving.
613 Round Hill Road, Banksville (or might as well be), asking $2.950 and now pending after 494 days on market. The sellers paid $3.999 for it in 2007 and started off at $3.8 this time in January 2019, so a bit of a disappointing outcome, but at least a buyer has appeared.
7 Dempsey
7 Dempsey Lane, a 12-acre parcel with two lots, has sold for $2.8 million. Possibly because most of those twelve acres are swamp, it took 660 days (and price cuts to an initial ask of $4.490) to finally find someone willing to jump into the deal with both feet. Another buyer did dip his toe in the water earlier, entering into a contract in December 2018, but his enthusiasm seems to have been drained by the development process and the deal fell through.
Raleigh, N.C.: Reopen your business and “you will be arrested”; loot and burn it down? You go, girl!
“When the greater risk is of injury to the officer, and I had five injured last night – a building? A window? A door? The property that was in it can easily be replaced. But for a person who has had officers shot. And more recently than not, I will not put an officer in harm’s way to protect the property inside of a building. Because insurance is most likely going to cover that as well but that officer’s safety is of the utmost importance,” Deck-Brown said.
(Begin at 14:50)
26 Owenoke Way, 0.3 acre, asking $1.475 million. 57 days on the market. Interestingly, the assessor values the land itself at $1.325 and assigns $253,400 to the house. I suppose there’s some appraisal rule that explains it, but there’s no actual value in this structure; not in our market.
Sales night at Macy’s, Herald Square
NYPD Chief: looters* on a catch and release program.
Chief Terence Monahan said he had slept for only three hours since the fifth night of protests and that all his guys are “cut up” from struggling with troublemakers in the city.
“Our guys are tired, they’re bleeding,” Monahan said. “I think everyone you’re going to see is walking around cut up. But they’re out there again tonight. They’re out there giving their blood to keep this city safe.”
Despite the cops’ efforts, “just about all” of those arrested will be back out on the streets because of bail reform, Monahan said, noting that some people arrested for guns might remain behind bars.
“But when it comes to a burglary, which is a commercial store, which is looting, they’re back out,” he said. “Because of bail reform, you’re back out on the street the next day. You cannot be held on any sort of bail. I spoke to (Manhattan District Attorney) Cy Vance about that. He told me there was nothing he could do.”
De Blasio rejects calls to bring in the National Guard: “We’ve got this”.
“I’m watching my men and women out there dealing with stuff that no cop should ever have to deal with, bricks, bottles, rocks,” Chief Monahan said. “Hit in the face with bottles and continuing to go forward to make an arrest.”
*That’s a deliberate violation of the AP’s style guide on writing about looters:
UPDATE: Too funny. Miss Kimberlee Kruesi, who posted the drivel above, is an AP reporter and this is her byline:
78 Butternut Hollow Road, $1.595 million, is under contract. 558 days on market, it started off at $2.150 in September 2018, which is what the sellers paid for it in 2011. Besides its latest and last run, it spent another year in inventory 2014-2015 when it was priced at $2.3, so that’s 923 days, total.
All that said, this won’t be a bad deal for the buyer, assuming there was some additional negotiating on that asking price. The mid-country continues to offer more house for the dollar than in regions to its southeast.
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