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Smart Money?
While many would-be buyers of smaller homes are sitting on the
sidelines waiting for the world to end and offer up cheap bargains in
housing, Joe Barberi (Soetheby’s) listed a waterfront parcel on
Meadowbank Road in Old Greenwich for $6.9 million (it has a house on
it, but not for long). That was on Thursday; it was gone by Sunday,
buried under multiple offers. There are two ways to look at this:
either folks who can afford to spend $7,000,000 + for land have so
much money that they don’t care about saving it when the price drops
or these heavy hitters, presumably far more financially savvy than you
and I, aren’t expecting the end of the world and are still buying
Greenwich real estate. I believe it’s the latter.

What a House Should Be
Jane Basham (Ogilvy) has just listed a house on the corner of Wilshire
and Lake Avenue that feels absolutely right, to me. It should – I grew
up in a similar, albeit far less fancy house in Riverside, so the
relatively low ceilings don’t strike me as off-putting. This house has
all the rooms necessary to live and entertain in, great ‘flow” as they
like to say, all new mechanicals, a really nice yard of five acres and
a very private swimming pool. It’s not for everyone – if you’re
feeling a tad insecure about your new wealth and think you need a 40′
entrance foyer to prove your importance, you won’t like this place.
But if you’re comfortable with who you are and what you’ve
accomplished in life, this would be a great place to raise a family.

And Then There are Always the Contemporaries.
I was showing a house to a client not long ago and he shook his head
and sighed, “another quirky home from Chris”. I defended myself – I
like interesting houses, and, while some of my favorites are indeed
quirky, I think most of them are just … interesting. That includes
contemporaries, and one was just listed at 327 Stanwich Road that I
liked very much. It’s set back from the road on a acre, has a nice
pool right off the master bedroom and, even on a rainy day, was bright
and cheerful. A little dated, perhaps, and the grounds could use some
upkeep but at an asking price of $1,999,000, there should be room in
the budget for improvements. It’s priced just about at land value, a
sad commentary on the place in the Greenwich marketplace for
contemporaries, so if you prefer this style of house, here’s one for
free.

To Market to Market to catch a Fat Pig?
Sellers reduced prices on 146 houses the past two weeks (compared with
198 new listings that came on). Some of these price reductions were
significant – from $19,000,000 to $14,000,000, for example – but for
the most part, I still don’t see more going on here than a reality
check. Most of these houses were never going to get their original
asking price so when you see one marked down, that’s not really
evidence of a collapse. Where I do see a weakness is in the lower end
of the market (for those of you who bought homes twenty years ago and
haven’t been keeping up, that would be “starter homes” in the $750,000
– $1,000,000 range). They aren’t selling nearly as quickly as they did
even a year ago and they certainly haven’t appreciated in that year.
For example, I priced a house a year ago last spring at $1.050,000. If
I were to price it now, given what’s currently on the market in that
price range, I think I would stick to the same figure. Why is this end
of the market being hit? The speculation among us agents includes
losing buyers to upper Fairfield – much more house for the money and,
with so many employers moving to the Rt. 7 corridor and above, less of
a penalty for the commute. And, as I’ve mentioned here before,
diminished borrowing power – about 15% this year. That has less
effect, I suspect, on the high-end buyers than it does on young
families just starting out.

That’s Parhee to You, Mon Ami
Have you noticed the now obligatory pronunciation guide governing
newscasters’ names for Third World (oh, excuse me, “developing
nations) cities? While Oslo is still Oslo and, Paris, despite my
headline, is still Paris, it is absolutely mandatory to show
solidarity with the world’s poor by garbling their cities’ names in
the local patois. Thus, when a hurricane approached Mehico recently,
good old Acapulco became “Acapoolco” (which, had the hurricane
actually hit, might have been more accurate, I suppose). Assuming
Italy manages to keep its living standard up we can all still refer to
Rome, but keep an eye out: if Fiat fails and the economy tanks, we may
have to revert to Roma.

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