What do you do if you couldn’t sell your house for $8.7 million in 2021? Bring it back on in 2025 for $11.250. It'll probably work, too, especially after Tuesday’s primary results (Updated)

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200 Shore Road, now $11.250. Greenwich’s real estate market may be about to enjoy a Mamdani surge, inshallah.

UPDATE: Maybe Greenwich won’t see an influx of rich refugees after all, and I get it: New England, including Connecticut, has increasingly become a hostile environment for businesses and those with taxable income (about 30% of the population, I’d estimate) and if the financial industry, in particular, can pretty much operate from anywhere, why move from the fire to an ever-hotter frying pan? Go west or south, young man.

Wall Street Panics Over Prospect of a Socialist Running New York City.

“I can’t believe I even need to say this, but socialism doesn’t work,” said Anthony Pompliano, CEO of Professional Capital Management, a bitcoin-focused financial services company. “It has failed in every American city it was tried.”

There were renewed questions about whether Wall Street executives would stay in New York or if Mamdani’s plans for the city would send more financiers to states such as Florida and Texas. Some executives cited concerns about taxes and crime under a potential Mamdani administration as well as fears of rising antisemitism.

Sander Gerber, chief executive of investment firm Hudson Bay Capital, said he fielded texts from some of his 170 employees who said they were “thinking of leaving.”

Some developers and landlords said they are already making plans to exit New York and focus on more business-friendly markets like Miami, Dallas or Nashville.

“I’m depressed and sad,” said Ricky Sandler, who runs Eminence Capital, a Midtown Manhattan hedge fund, which employs 55 people. “If Mamdani becomes mayor, I will likely move my business and family out of New York.”

Pending in Havemeyer; 20 days (Corrected)

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15 Macarthur Drive, $1,925,000. A re-do of one of the original 1948 homes, these owners tried without success to sell it in 2017 to 2018, even though they dropped its price from $1.649 to $1.399. They’re probably glad now that that effort “failed”.

Correction: a Guest commenter sends this information:

Actually, the current owners bought in July 2020 at 1.285
They bought when COVID caused mass panic.

He’s right; I checked the town records. It was an non-MLS sale, so doesn’t show up on their records.

Old Greenwich sale price reported, and the property's history provides an interesting look at price evolution over the past two decades

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47 Arcadia Road, listed at $3.850 million, has sold for $4.2. The house was pretty-well rundown when it sold in a bidding war in 2005 for $1,277,042. Those buyers fixed it up, listed it at $2.550 in 2006 but only got $2.150. Put back on the market in 2013 at $2.395, it sold for $2.550, and again in 2019 for $2.720 on a $2.750 ask. So, a fairly gradual price curve for all those years, while the house stayed in essentially the same condition — a kitchen upgrade, new bathroom fixtures — it was in when that 2005-06 renovation was performed; then came the post-COVID market.

Pending after 41 days

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170 John Street, $8.750 million 43 days. 1942 construction, renovated in 2000, on 9-acres, it’s just around the corner from 118 John Street, built in 1996, 10.78 acres, but of radically different design. I like 118 John Street, as I mentioned here yesterday, but these buyers must have looked at its pictures or even toured it, and chose 180. So there it is.

But caution: although a formal style seems to be preferred by buyers in the current market, other factors may have been in play here

And a subtle hint of danger does seem to excite some well-heeled NYC refugees who miss the drama of that city’s streets and subways

It took 691 days, but they stuck to their price and by golly, they came pretty close; I'd personally find the carrying costs for such a spec house daunting, but some builders have deep pockets.

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27 Weston Hill Road, Riverside, was sold (by Gideon’s clients) for $1.660 million in July 2021, a new house replace it and was put up for sale in December 2022 for $5.495 million. It finally sold yesterday for $5.170.

The pictures for this iteration have been removed from the web, but there’s still up from an earlier one, and because the house has been empty all this time, I imagine they’re about the same, except for the stager’s now-removed furniture.

What the headline should read is "Done with his headfake for Independent and Republican voters, Lamont promises to return to his base Democrats" *

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After vetoes on housing and labor, Lamont tries to make amends

[An unnecessary gesture except to signal who he is and where his sympathies lie: who are these people going to vote for, a Republican? Pshaw.]

Gov. Ned Lamont has turned to repairing relationships frayed by his vetoes of an omnibus housing bill and a measure that would have provided jobless benefits for strikers, both priorities of various elements of the Democratic coalition and its party’s legislative leaders.

…. A call to [ House Majority Leader Jason Rojas] was one of the first Lamont made after the veto Monday. Another went to Ed Hawthorne, the president of the Connecticut AFL-CIO, the labor federation that worked successfully with the Democratic governor on a significant list of first-term labor victories.

The challenge now facing Lamont became clear in two very different conversations: one with a legislative leader who sees and is ready to grasp the building blocks of a housing deal; the other with a union man who sees Lamont unfeeling about workers and immovable on an issue that has come to the fore for labor.

“I was very frank with him,” Hawthorne said in an interview Tuesday. “The state elected Democrats, and Democrats put two bills on his desk that would have made a difference to working people. And he sided with Republicans.”

Lamont cast himself as a labor ally, a Democrat horrified at the Trump administration’s efforts to cripple the influence of public sector unions in the federal workforce and its removal of labor-friendly members of the National Labor Relations Board.

“I think about labor rights, and I think about what the Trump administration is doing to the NLRB and the rights of our workers to organize, rights of our workers to stand up to themselves. We’re trying to do everything we can,” Lamont said Tuesday at a public event at the state Capitol.

In his veto message the previous day about Senate Bill 8, which would have provided jobless benefits to strikers in Connecticut, the governor enumerated the first-term victories he helped deliver for the labor movement.

They included a higher minimum wage, a nearly universal mandate for paid sick time, paid family and medical leave coverage, expanded collective bargaining rights for public employees, and protections for workers who leave captive audience meetings. 

…. Hawthorne acknowledged the governor did those things, but he noted that federal labor law largely preempts states from enhancing the standing of unions to organize workers or negotiate contracts. One notable exception, Hawthorne said, is a state’s ability to remove the prohibition on striking workers collecting unemployment.

“When we asked him to sit down to talk about the [strikers’] bill, the response was, ‘Think of something else,’” Hawthorne said. “But everything else was preempted by federal law.” [“So we needed something to show our dupes”, he means — Ed]

The governor, who was elected in 2018, reelected in 2022 and is considering running again in 2026, also has a what-have-you-done-lately problem with labor.

“There’s first-term Ned Lamont and second-term Ned Lamont,” Hawthorne said. “He mentions the minimum wage — first term; paid family leave — first term; expanded collective bargaining — first term.

Like Connecticut’s gun-confiscation advocates, these people will take what they can get, and keep coming back for more. The Long March continues.

*(Yes, the omission of a comma is intentional)

Who decides between dead and mostly dead?

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Grave Error? The late Democrat Gerry Connolly Endorses Candidate to Fill the House Seat Vacated by His Death

It’s bad enough that we have dead Democrats voting in our elections, but now we have them making candidate endorsements as well! You can’t keep a Democrat down even when it’s six feet under. On Tuesday, Virginia Representative Gerry Connolly used his X account to endorse his former chief of staff, James Walkinshaw, for his old House seat - the seat he vacated because he died in late May of this year.

…. Dems have a thing about exploiting elderly officials when they’re alive (see Joe Biden), now they’re exploiting them after they've left this mortal coil.

Paging Miracle Max

Not so fast – “Unintended Blue State consequences tend to spread to Red States. This is something to keep in mind when laughing over Blue State woes.”

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if so, they imported the stuff from out of state

An example of one of those consequences: “Green states” demand for imported electricity drives up the price for their residents, but also those of the supplier states, too.

Pennsylvania Saves “Clean Energy” Maryland from Spanish-Style Blackout during “Heat Dome”

Meanwhile, clean energy policies in Maryland contribute to rising electricity prices in Pennsylvania.

… Maryland has set ambitious clean energy goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and transition to a more sustainable energy future. Central to these efforts is the Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS), which requires electricity suppliers to source 50% of their power from renewable resources by 2030. Recent updates to the RPS exclude trash incineration from qualifying as renewable, ensuring only zero-emission technologies contribute to the state’s targets.

To further advance its climate commitments, Maryland enacted the Climate Solutions Now Act, aiming for a 60% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2031 and net zero emissions by 2045. The state is also moving toward a Clean Power Standard, which would require all electricity consumed in Maryland to come from clean and renewable sources by 2035.….

Unfortunately for Red States exporting energy, they are connected to the grid of the energy deficient regions ruled by climate cultists. Electricity costs are rising for residents throughout Pennsylvania, with the average household potentially facing an increase of $20 to $30 on their bills. Several Pennsylvania legislators attribute these price hikes to what they describe as poor energy policies enacted in Maryland and neighboring states.

…As a whole, Maryland doesn’t generate enough power to keep the lights on itself. Instead, it’s relying on Pennsylvania and other states in the PJM grid for 40% of its electricity.

“Not only are we generating the power and bear the burden of generating power, but we bear the burden of eminent domain taking our land to build these high voltage transmission line projects. We also pay for that infrastructure in PA to get that energy to a place where people are refusing to do the right thing,” [York County Senator] Phillips-Hill said. “They’re living in a green energy fantasy land.”

This NYC resident looks at the even larger picture:

…. A lot of MAGA folks say, “They voted for it. Let ’em rot.”

Really? You think this is that simple?

Here’s the truth: Yes, a majority up here do vote blue. Yes, NGOs fund just enough swing voters. And YES, the GOP barely even showed up to fight back.

But even if we did cause this… even if we do deserve the consequences… Here’s the dangerous lie: That once things get bad enough, people will wake up and common sense will return to blue states.

WRONG. That’s not how Marxists operate. They don’t fix things when cities collapse—they celebrate it. They thrive in chaos. They’ll crawl through decades of pain, suffering, and bloodshed if it means consolidating power.

The LONG MARCH was long for a reason. They didn’t care how ling death and suffering continue. They feed off despair. …

So no—this won’t fix itself. And if we don’t fight for these cities, if we just sit back and let them burn, we’re not punishing the left. We’re surrendering America. One city at a time.

Life isn’t fair. These people who run the NGOs that rig elections don’t “get what they deserve”. They get away with literal murder and escape to Martha’s Vineyard to laugh at us.

Looks as though NYC voters are going to get it, good and hard

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According to Google, estimated total turnout today is expected to be 27% of all registered NYC Democrat voters, so 73% of them are perfectly happy to let someone else choose their mayor. Republican voters comprise 35% of the total number and have no vote in today’s primary and thus no choice in this fall’s election. This can only be good news for Florida and CT real estate sales.

Update after reflecting on this: Maybe not so good for Connecticut. The state’s always benefited from being slightly more hospitable to its citizens than its neighbor, although that differential has been eroding since we voted in an income tax, but a large part of the wealth in lower Fairfield county is tied to NYC’s financial industry. What if the exodus from Wall Street, already well underway, accelerates, and what if — horrors! — the refugees don’t move over the border but abandon this expensive hellhole for more accomodating states to our south and west?

Bummer.