Daily Archives: September 30, 2008

Bedtime reading (if you enjoy nightmares)Reader Craig Vorselen has sent me this link to a Crains New York article on layoffs in the financial industry and this equally cheerful one about foreclosures in NYC. If you don’t like reading phrases … Continue reading →

Amazing wonders in real estate pricingSo there are three houses currently for sale on Old Church Road, a great street very close to town.149 Old Church is an 1899 house, renovated in 2006, on 1.48 acres and assessed (70%) at … Continue reading →

What’s happening with Bentleys?By Amanda Von Stuckle What with all this fooferall about house prices dropping a teensey bit I decided to vist my pal George Louderkin III, the wonderful salesman who sold me my first luxury car years ago … Continue reading →

O.K., The Greenwich market is down Have you considered investing in Nigeria?But be careful, as the linked website warns, Lagos Nigeria real estate market is a vast property market where a newcomer can get easily lost and cheated by scammers. … Continue reading →

Denver Commercial Real Estate Exec:This could get ugly.But there’s this:“Santora added that Denver is one of the three strongest markets in the country, with the other two being Houston (because of its energy sector employment) and Washington, D.C.” Hmm – … Continue reading →

The stock market’s up today, so farI suspect that our President isn’t the only one holding his breath. UpdateBut the credit market, which powers the world’s economy, is a mess. I think we’re in trouble, Toto.

Offers I never finish reading Or wouldn’t if I didn’t need material for this blog. I just received an invitation from a new real estate agency in town to meet someone named “Niurka” – no last name, which doesn’t make … Continue reading →

This is for real Children sing for Obama If your video isn’t working, here’s the actual U-Tube description supplied by the film’s creators: Sing for Change chronicles a recent Sunday afternoon, when 22 children, ages 5-12, gathered to sing original … Continue reading →

Shuttered BanksI’ve just come back from counting the number of banks in town: 3,217 all of which are, as of yesterday, owned by just one large institution. Will it need all these branches? Will it decide that commerce dictates that … Continue reading →

47 Will Merry Lane Is 80% the new 100?This house was listed a while ago (April, 2007) for $1.895 million. Today, 1 1/2 years later, it’s been reported as under contract. Last asking price (the actual agreed upon price is … Continue reading →

Interesting, if trueOne of my clients tells me that he received a flyer in the mail advertising an auction of a very expensive house we looked at together last year. It’s a spec house whose price has been sinking like … Continue reading →

Angry PeopleWhat scares me most about the current fuss is the anger I hear from so many people who should otherwise know better. These folks, fairly sophisticated Greenwich types who made nice livings as Wall Street prospered, are furious at … Continue reading →

I’m not sure how much weight to give to these data According to the Boston Globe, the more money a Congressman received from the financial industry, the more likely he was to have voted for yesterday’s bailout bill. Supporters of … Continue reading →

The Wall Street Journal has a bunch of links to articles on What Happens Next. Interesting – go see. And, courtesy of the same paper, here’s an article on the Case – Shiller Index of Housing Values. The index runs … Continue reading →

Open House ReportNothing out there of note, in my opinion. A few retreads, a few new listings with sellers who are a tad optimistic – I’ll stop by in six months and see whether they’ve gotten the message, and that’s … Continue reading →

From Mark Steyn:” “As a general proposition, when told by unanimous elites that a particular course of action is urgent and necessary to avoid disaster, there’s a lot to be said for going fishing.” Courtesy of Instapundit.com

A reader asks, “Hey Chris, during the good old days 2000-06, did you ever steer a prospective buyer away from a property that based on their income, you thought they couldn’t afford even though the bank was willing to lend … Continue reading →

David Stockman at CVS!By Amanda Von Stuckle(Editor’s note: Amanda was going to take a long vacation, because her first day of blogging tired her out. The overwhelming positive response to her first appearance convinced us to bring her back at … Continue reading →

Here’s a depressing way to end the evening.The Wall Street Journal is pessimistic after today’s vote. So am I. Both he [Bernanke] and Paulson gave the politicians and Main Street too much credit. They have behaved too calmly, and too … Continue reading →