Monthly Archives: July 2008

The glaciers are melting! The glaciers are melting! Bruce Museum has mounted an exhibit depicting the melting of glaciers all to scare little kids and prove the wickedness of our ways. Fine and dandy, but I do wish they’d thought … Continue reading →

Seller’s season?A reader asks about the upcoming fall season but I confess that I don’t know what’s going to happen. Historically, the spring season began in late January, continued through March and early April, then cooled off when all the … Continue reading →

Oops!54 Rock Maple Road (off Stanwich) was originally listed for $12,450 last year (thanks for the correction by one of the commentators below. I thought it crazily over-priced at the time and said so (without identifying it) in my column. … Continue reading →

Falling in LoveIt almost never happens, at least in real estate. It’s true that, in 1954, my parents saw a house in Riverside with a beautiful library, with fireplace, looking west over a huge backyard and my mother did immediately … Continue reading →

Alternative Energy HogwashAlGore has demanded that we stop all production of oil and switch to “alternative energy” (undefined) by 20015. How are we to achieve that? He doesn’t say. Nor would the very nice young college student who visited my … Continue reading →

The other education shoe dropsDespite its cheery headline today,Greenwich Time does finally get around to reporting the bad news: test scores for writing and math are down for elementary and middle school students. The end of the world is not … Continue reading →

Tips for sellersI don’t have many, alas. The Wall Street Journal ran an article recently on just this subject (not worth linking to, as it’s subscription only) and it had eight or nine tips that we Realtors have been preaching … Continue reading →

460 North StreetThis mansion, across from St. Michael Church, is an outstanding old mansion whose original grounds have been sliced down to just under 4 acres. It last came on the market in April ’03 asking $12,500. I was pretty … Continue reading →

School test scores drop. Greenwich 10 th graders seem to be doing as poorly on math, science and reading scores as their counterparts in other parts of the state, which baffles me. We’re a town comprised of, in the main, … Continue reading →

TreesOnce again, according to Greenwich Time, our town officials, including a so-called Republican, Peter Crumbine, are nosing around a proposal to regulate the cutting of trees on private property. “Republican Selectman Peter Crumbine asked Tree Warden Bruce Spaman if he … Continue reading →

Bidding war!314 Sound Beach Avenue, a modest little cape, came on this spring asking $1.39M and went to contract almost immediately via a bidding war. It closed yesterday, so we in the real estate world could finally learn the winning … Continue reading →

Will this global warming stop at nothing? Sheer idiocy, and it increases daily.

The Marvelous Chuck Schumer The Wall Street Journal a has a great editorial on how this dreadful man single-handedly brought down a bank. I assume most of my readers also read the WSJ but just in case you missed it … Continue reading →

18 Sherwood Farm Lane, a very nice house built in 2001 on the Rockefeller land in Glenville, has gone to contract just two weeks or so after being listed. What impresses me is that (a) it wasn’t brand new construction … Continue reading →

Grammar PoliceA reader has taken it upon himself to monitor my spelling and grammar in this blog, which I appreciate. I no longer have a copy editor and, while I sometimes had amusing arguments with them (for instance, convincing an … Continue reading →

Waiting for the other shoe to dropNothing coming out of the banking industry is good news recently, so buyers are understandably nervous and reluctant to buy. I can’t give you advice on whether your job at UBS is threatened (well, … Continue reading →

Richmond Hill DriveThis street, way off in Greenwich’s northwestern corner by John Street, saw a spurt of building projects a few years ago. I can’t tell what happened to a couple of the most expensive of them – they were … Continue reading →

The Mortgage MessYesterday saw the Feds promise to bail out Fannie Mae and her siblings with you and me footing the bill. No surprise here – the Wall Street Journal has been predicting exactly this outcome for at least a … Continue reading →

Mega Mansions begin their decline?The New York Times reports (and a large ad in yesterday’s Greenwich Time announced) that a huge (the Times claims 26,000 sq. ft but that may not include the basement or, as such things are called … Continue reading →

Who Knew?A reader has corrected my spelling of “just deserts” which, contrary to what I thought I knew, has nothing to do with a sweet tooth and therefore deserves just one s, and not two. Check the link below for … Continue reading →