Back on the market

67 Bedford Road, 4 acres and a decrepit house (“House is unsafe - please do not enter.”) came on the market for $1.299 million March 7th, was under contract by March 26th, and has returned to the active list today after the deal fell through.

It’s an estate sale, which usually means the heirs would like to dispose of it and move on, and there’s no mortgage on the property; sometimes a busted deal in these circumstances can open the way to a low-priced purchase from the disappointed sellers. Sometimes.

A 2016 appraisal for a foreclosing bank referred to the house as being “in deferred condition”, which I think is a much kinder term that “decrepit” — I may use it myself, next time.

I'm sure they made money on this project, just not as much as they'd hoped for

32 Meadowcroft Lane has sold for $11.7 million; the sellers paid $7.5 for it in 2021, completely renovated it, and put it back on the market for $15 million a year ago April. They could have done worse: its builder tried for $12.750 in 2011 and finally unloaded it for $9.2 three years later in 2014. And that buyer, in turn, resold it 2021 for $7.5.

Ugly house, wnd one that contributed to the ruination of what was once one of the prettiest roads in Greenwich.

If Trump is acquitted before then, it'll be game over before the candidates take the stage

guardians of liberty

Trump has agreed to debate Ol’ Dependables, and the first is scheduled for June 27th, but if that NYC jury acquits him, and this 3X - former juror thinks they very well may, Biden’s grievous abuse and corruption of his Justice Department will be fatal.

This quote from Biden’s challenge yesterday will come back to haunt him:

“Well, make my day, pal, I’ll even do it twice. So let’s pick the dates, Donald – I hear you’re free on Wednesdays,” Biden continued, alluding to Trump’s court schedule.

UPDATE: Biden’s handlers have insisted that their puppet perform without a live audience in attendance; that Trump’s microphone be turned off if he exceeds his time limit or interrupts the Liar in Chief; that RFK, Jr. be excluded from participating; and that Fox News not host the event. I’m going to guess that they’ll also impose a brief — 2 or 3 minute — time limit for each question so that Biden won’t start yelling and/or get confused and wander, either off the question or off the stage.

Trump will still clean his clock.

First, he was going to end democracy and put all the liberals in concentration camps; that was bad enough, but now, according to the NYT, he's really gone too far

John Hinderaker:

Leading Democrats have realized that Joe Biden is hopeless as a presidential candidate, and that Donald Trump may actually win the election. Their desperation is therefore mounting, and they are pulling out all the stops.

For a long time, the New York Times has been basically a clipping service for the Democratic National Committee. But in the present crisis, the Times is taking hysteria to a level that might embarrass even the DNC. This headline, from today’s Times, is so over the top as to be unintentionally funny. But no, it is not a parody. The Democrats really are this crazed.

A bidding war even in Stamford, for heaven's sake

44 Carrington Drive, listed at $899,000, gone to contract in 6 days. Stamford schools and, just as bad, Stamford taxes — $19,100, in this instance — but Carrington has a Greenwich mailing address which, unless things have changed, will get you a beach pass, because the Parks Department merely checks an applicant’s mailing address, rather than conduct a survey of the property itself. that doesn’t work for schools, alas.

Still, who’d expect a bidding war to break out in our eastern neighbor?

That's not (particularly) racist, just stupid UPDATED

well, it’s true that lloyd bridges was a good swimmer, or he played one in hollywood, anyway

NYC Mayor Adams Suggests Illegal Immigrants Become Lifeguards Because They Are 'Excellent Swimmers’

(Just for my own amusement I looked up the actor “John Hott”, who’s given second billing on this poster, and, small world, he must have been a classmate of my father at Yale, class of ‘27. My father never mentioned him, and judging from his bio, not many others did, either.)

UPDATE: While I was at it, I looked up the co-star of this film, Nancy Gates, came across this film in her bio, “Hitler’s Children”. Produced in 1943, so you wouldn’t expect soft music and flowers, but, boy, Casablanca it was not. Absolutely brutal plot that I doubt would be greenlighted today for modern, sensitive audiences that require trigger warnings before Snow White is given a poisoned apple.

Of interest, to me, is that the heroine is sent to a concentration camp to be sterilized by a sadistic Nazi. It was my understanding that our government always denied specific knowledge of what was going on in the concentration camps until the war was almost over, but if it was known in Hollywood in 1943, I suspect that Washington was aware of the evil doings long before that.

Maybe not so much in Greenwich, but we've certainly seen some impressive — or depressing, depending on your view — price increases

what can’t go on, won’t

Instapundit:

WOW: US home prices have soared 47% since 2020.

Despite mortgage rates skyrocketing to around 7%, double what they were at the peak of the pandemic, home prices refuse to plateau.

That’s due the insatiable appetite for housing coupled with a crippling shortage in supply.

“Because the Fed kept rates too low for too long during the pandemic, listing inventory was essentially wiped off the map, keeping prices rising sharply despite the surge in mortgage rates,” appraiser Jonathan Miller told The Post. “Would-be home sellers that bought or refinanced at a 2.5% to 4% rate during the pandemic became trapped due to the lock-in effect. They became reluctant to list their homes because, as new buyers, they would get a lot less for their money because of the much higher mortgage rates. The way out of this appears to be to hope for a drop in mortgage rates, but that could take years.”

To put things in perspective, the median US home sale price hit $420,800 in the first quarter of this year. Compare that to a modest $327,100 at the beginning of the decade. It was $124,800 at the dawn of the ’90s.

Lance Lambert, co-founder of ResiClub, says housing price growth in the first 50 months of this decade has outpaced not just one, but the last three decades combined.

Often, the first offer is the best one

21 Innis Lane was listed for $1.780 million and announced a deal one day later. I had expected that to mean that a number of above-ask offers had come in, but it closed today at $1.695. Sometimes it pays to take the money and run.

One step forward, two steps back

1 Stepping Stone Lane was listed on April 1 for $2.650 million and two days later reported a contract. That deal must have fallen through, though, because it was put back on the market April 17 at a new, higher price of $2.8. I speculated then that there must have been several offers above ask, and so the owners, naturally, tried to recapture that magic.

It didn’t work: the price was dropped to $2.725 on May 3, and today it’s been cut to $2.695 million, pretty much where it started off. We all hate when that happens, but it’s not at all uncommon when it does.

That was then, this is now

The owners of 25 Ferncliff Road in Cos Cob put it on the market back in 2021 at a suggested price of $1.849 and, finding no takers, rented it out instead. Lease over, they brought it back two weeks ago, unchanged except for its new, improved price of $2.1 million. Instantly went to “highest and best offers” and it is now pending.