Curious moments in pricing

13 Chieftans has cut its price to $3.195 million from its August price of $3.295. What puzzles me about this strategy is that the listing expired in July, when it was asking $2.995 million. Why’d they raise it $300,000?

This house sold new in 2005 for $3.5 million, and resold for $2.650 in 2015; like all the homes in this development, prices have been dropping, not rising.

They’re all good houses, built on the former Gimbel estate (of Gimbel’s department stores; a sad chapter in Greenwich history saw Jews shunted to our northwestern corner, if they were allowed to buy land here at all. Mr. Bernard Gimbel was a client of a law firm I worked for long ago, and I had a chance to meet with him a few times. What a wise, elegant gentleman — Greenwich in the 20s-60s could be an ugly place). But I digress; nice development, well-built homes but up to now, the market has drifted south and east. The Flu may change that.

What a difference a school makes

Almost, but not quite

I saw that 37 Carrington Drive, off Stanwich, is under contract and at an asking price of $1.025 million, it seemed like a really good deal for a nice house. And it is a nice house, but this house, like some others on Carrington, has a Greenwich mailing address but Stamford schools, and that’s not the same thing as all-Greenwich.

Still, if these buyers don’t mind the Stamford school system or have children in private school, they’re getting a good house for not a whole lot of money.

It also offers a good illustration of relative values between the two towns.

Ah, Facebook

BLM/ANTIFA thug attacks black conservative, knocking out two teeth, and is arrested for assault, battery, and commission of a hate crime. Guess who’s Twitter and Facebook accounts were frozen?

Some hero

Eric Topol, M.D. Mission accomplished

MIT Technology Review is out with a hagiography of a California heart doctor, one Eric Topol, under the title “One doctor’s campaign to stop a Covid-19 vaccine being rushed through before Election Day”. It’s littered with terms like “courageous”, and “steadfast”, but reading the article it becomes clear that Topol’s sole motivation was to deny Trump an opportunity to claim a bold development in the COVID battle before November 3rd; Topol had no objection to an approval granted any time after November 3rd.

There’s some lip service paid to the astonishing speed vaccines have been developed, but no credit given to Trump for marshaling that effort and pushing aside the bureaucratic hurdles that have previously caused five-year waits for vaccine and drug approvals because Trump.

Dr. Topol used his political skills to delay a vaccine, and he did so solely because he hates Trump. He sounds more a hypocrite than a follower of the Hippocratic Oath.

At long last love

Five years after being set afloat on the choppy seas of our Greenwich real estate market at $3.895 million 282 Taconic Road, now priced at $2.675, has a contract. It’s an odd house, with a compromised yard and not a great location, but it’s a house, and these days, I suppose that will do.

I had very good friends who lived here once, but they got out in 2004, selling it for $3.275. That was a wise move.

(Update: It occurs to me to add that the house has a great flow for entertaining, and my friends hosted some large gatherings there where everyone was easily and comfortably accommodated. So odd or not, it does have its virtues.)

Sale price reported

8 Boulder Brook Road, new construction, asked for $6.4595 million and got $5.9 which, as these things go, is pretty good; there’s always some negotiating room packed into new construction prices.

As an indication of how much the flu panic has affected our market, or how wrong I can be, I wrote about this when it first appeared a year-ago September, and didn’t think much of its price. Mind you, it did end up selling for $600,000 less than its asking price, but still ….

Tired of the Hunt for Hunter? I am.

The latest “bombshell” is rumored to be pictures of young Chinese girls on the pervert’s computer. Yawn.

Of interest to me would be evidence that Joe was involved in his son’s business dealings, either profiting from them personally or even just lending his name and supposed influence to help Hunter. We’ve seen a couple of emails to that effect, and there’s a picture of Joe meeting with Hunter’s Ukrainian pals, but the rest of this is as irrelevant as the details of Jeff Toobin’s misaadventures on Zoom; entertaining, but in the context of the election, irrelevant.

I’m hoping that Rudy’s holding back emails that will reveal Joe Biden’s perfidy, but if all he has are more photos of Hunter in a bathtub, with or without a crack pipe, alone or accompanied by a whore, it won’t help the cause (unless, of course, the picture shows Joe in the tub with them — that would be fun).

The important story so far is the exposure of the press corp as partisan scribes for their masters in the Democrat party, but we already knew that; this just makes it more blatantly obvious. I want more. Or less.

What a difference a few months make

Just give me a minute — I’m getting up, I’m getting up!

From a NYT interview with Joltin’ Joe January 2020:

KK: Since you just called yourself the old guy — Jimmy Carter has said that he wouldn’t be up for the job of the presidency at age 80. He’s obviously experienced the job, and lived the job. How do you respond to comments like that? Are you too old to be running for president?

Watch me. Watch me. All this stuff about lack of energy. Come get in the bus with me, 16 hours a day, 10 days in a row. Come see me.

The woes of a Michigan Millionaire

He’s no ordinary Joe

Trump is killing his small business. O tempora, O mores!

Jim Treacher:

The struggling Michigan bar owner at the center of a Joe Biden campaign ad is actually a wealthy tech investor whose startup was seeded by a large family inheritance.

The ad, which the Biden campaign released Thursday, identifies Michigan entrepreneur Joe Malcoun as co-owner of the Blind Pig, a bar and live music venue in Ann Arbor, Mich…

According to a 2018 interview with local NBC affiliate Click on Detroit, Malcoun became a well-known “angel investor” in local tech startups after receiving a large inheritance from his wife’s late grandfather roughly a decade ago. He described the inheritance as “almost like winning the lottery…”

Malcoun has also repeatedly praised Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer’s (D.) coronavirus response, saying she “is doing it right” in an April tweet.

The NY Post’s own article on this story includes this heartrending quote:

“We don’t know how much longer we can survive not having any revenue. A lot of restaurants, bars that have been mainstays for years will not make it through this. This is Donald Trump’s economy," he continued. "There’s no plan, you don’t know how to move forward. It makes me so angry. My only hope for my family and this business and my community is that Joe Biden wins this election. That’s the kind of person we need.”  

Michigan’s Whitmer has gained national fame for her harsh, arbitrary lockdown rules she created by herself (the power for her to do so was just struck down by her state’s Supreme Court). One of her many odd edicts was that residents would be allowed to use rowboats on the state’s lakes (if they were alone in said craft) but not motorboats. The scientific evidence showing that there’s a difference in infection rates between row boats and power boats? Don’t ask, because she won’t tell. If Malcoun has a complaint about the lockdown’s effect on his bar business, his beef lies with his governor, not the Orange Man.

Back to Treacher:

And didn’t Biden say he would lock down the whole country if “the scientists” said so? Let me just google it real quick… yep, he certainly did say that.

The Democrats' passion for mail-in voting explained

Poll Watchers

Judicial Watch compares U.S. Census count with registered voters — they don’t match up

Judicial Watch has released a comparison study of Census Bureau population statistics and state voter registration data to reveal a notable disparity. …

The study found that 352 U.S. counties in 29 states managed to have 1.8 million more registered voters than eligible voting-age citizens.

“In other words, the registration rates of those counties exceeded 100% of eligible voters. The study found eight states showing state-wide registration rates exceeding 100%: Alaska, Colorado, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Vermont,” reported Tom Fitton, president of the watchdog group.

Some of that excess ran as high as 187% in Texas, 177% in New Mexico and 171% in South Dakota.

“The new study of excess — or ghost voters — highlights the recklessness of mailing blindly ballots and ballot applications to voter registration lists. Dirty voting rolls can mean dirty elections,” Mr. Fitton noted.