And another COVID-market sale

After 1,074 days of trying, 19 Witherell Drive has sold for $4.2 million. It’s a beautiful, 1910 home in a great setting. These sellers paid $5 million for it in 2012, put some real money into renovations, and put it back up for sale in 2017 at $5.795, which probably represented a loss even then.

We’re seeing a huge amount of sales activity, though so far, not many sellers seem to be making obscene profits. But they are getting rid of homes they no longer want; pre-COVID, that was often hard to do.

Westchester hell arrives in Greenwich

50 Dublin Hill Drive, part of that new subdivision, is priced at $8.495 million and has just been reported as pending.

Built by Doran Sabag and Jim Hoffman, who build an excellent home. They use to design and build more conventional designs, but these are savvy guys, so I assume that they’ve noticed that the industrial warehouse look has become popular with our new buyers, and are building accordingly..

Sale pending in our slow-selling North East Kingdom

83 Howard Road, asking $2.445 million, after almost a year on the market. Its original builder blew it, and missed the last bubble by pricing it at $4.2 in 2007, before finally selling it to these owners for $2.6 in 2010.

I like the house, though its location isn’t a market favorite and — though don’t hold me to this, because memory has dimmed — I don’t believe the yard is a knock-out.

But some people, including myself, appreciate the privacy you find up here, and what else is available in this price range these days?

You’d think the Zebra would have clinched a sale long ago

And, in case the ironic reference to the orange was too subtle in the zebra den, here it is again, in a place of honor

And COVID continues to clear out old inventory

11 Red Coat Lane (off North Street), currently listed at $2.1 million, reports a contract. I always thought this was a pleasant house but unfortunately, the owners bought at the very top of the last frenzy, in 2008, for $2.830 million, and understandably but unsuccessfully attempted to get back their price when they went to sell in 2014. That effort has stretched, off-and-on since they began at $2.895.

I’m sorry they’re losing money here, but I do think $2 million’s a more appropriate price.

Babylon Bee, or the NYT?

Our new ambassador to Iowa

There’s no possible way to distinguish them these days.

This site claims to be quoting Thomas Friedman, from the New York Times. In this era of fake news, I’m skeptical.

“Kamala Harris Deserves a More Important Job”:

Harris is too smart and energetic to be just the vice president, a position with few official responsibilities. I’d love to see President-elect Joe Biden give her a more important job: his de facto secretary of rural development, in charge of closing the opportunity gap, the connectivity gap, the learning gap, the start-up gap — and the anger and alienation gap — between rural America and the rest of the country.

Kamala Harris is a natural for that task. Who better to bridge Silicon Valley and the rural valleys of America?

[…]

Harris will soon be the first woman, the first Black and the first Indian-American vice president, which certainly resonates with a lot of urban voters. However, if she could make herself the person in the Biden cabinet who always shows up FIRST to listen in rural America and the FIRST to appreciate its concerns and the FIRST to make sure its concerns are addressed, she and the Democrats could make themselves competitive in a lot more rural counties.

Riverside waterfront sale

22 Pilot Rock Lane, $14 million. I’ll admit to having lingered in Riverside long enough to see Harbor Point developed, friend’s parents move from the intersection of Riverside Avenue and Lockwood to build here in, I don’t know, mid-60s?, sell out very well in 1994 for $1.6 to a couple who also became my friends. They sold in 2012 for $6.2. That house is gone, this house isn’t. My gracious.

(Interesting factoid: the developer of Harbor Point went bust trying to sell lots here in the mid-60s, when waterfront sold at a 15% discount. Al Gore and AOC would approve).

Why would anyone let themselves be injected with this stuff?

Chinese Bat Flu vaccine won’t prevent you from being infected, media “medical experts” proclaim.

Supposedly, the dose might prevent you from getting seriously ill, but that’s already the case for 99% of those hit with the bug, so WTF?

This is all about seizing power and imposing a centralized economic system.

I didn’t use to be a whacked-out conspiracist; I was wrong.

Riverside sale

19 Hendrie Avenue has sold for $2.050 million. Brother Gideon, who sold it in 2014 for $1.9, had it on the market in 2018 for $1.995, with no takers. This time he sold it in-house, with no need to put it on the MLS. I still believe that the multi-list is the best way to get your best price, but maybe the Panic’s offering an exception to that rule, for now.

(Of historical interest, perhaps, is that this 1892 farmhouse is not original to the site: a developer back in the day (30s? 50s?) brought a number of old farmhouses down from upstate and planted them on Hendrie. It seems to have been successful).

I won't name names, because it turns out to have been a tax fraud, but the sentiment is true about the entire market right now

A comment I just posted about an entirely different property

I just had a client's multi-million-dollar bid, full-price of what it was priced at last year, spat back with "we won't dignify that with a response" — current sellers are doing swimmingly, current buyers are fools.

If I were a better citizen, I’d report this to our asessor and the Greenwich Association of Realtors, but the hell with it: in this year of mega-frauds, what’s a bitsy agent/seller duplicity?

(UPDATED)

On reconsideration, why let that (previous) broker off for allowing this rip-off of Greenwich tax payers?

Peninsula land sale?

8 Broad Road, Belle Haven, has sold for $6.2 million. The original price for this 1925 home was $11.5, which obviously incorporated an overly-optimistic valuation of the structure itself.

UPDATE: A couple of readers’ comments about the interior made me go back and look; good Lord. Sample: