So what are the crackers supposed to do now for entertainment?

Florida, having survived for a hundred years ago without such a law, bans sex between humans and animals. Connecticut, the land of steady habits, has always penalized bestiality and still does today: horse fondler gets probation.

More on silly sales-to-ask ratios

13 Partridge Hollow

Original price, 2005: $12.950 million. Final asking price, $4.7 million. Contract reported today. If it sells close to its (final) ask, our real estate board will chalk it up as, say, a 90% of asking price statistic, and certain agents will use that to show the vibrancy of our market. I won’t.

It’s rare, but it happens

72 Mead Ave

This Byram property was listed for $539,000 back in May of last year and didn’t sell so in March ’11, he raised his price to $579. It just sold for $541,500, which baffles me: if you know (and I assume the buyer’s agent told him this) that the seller was willing to accept a lower price a year ago, why on earth would you pay more today?

 

There’s another property I remember this tactic working for, a Flagler Lane house that had some of the worst construction I’d seen (but it was huge, goddammit!). The owner listed it at one price and then jacked it by a very large amount and promptly unloaded it on an unlucky buyer. Still, these two are the exceptions to the rule.

 

UPDATE: ha! Reader “Don’t get me started” asks, “was the listing agent also the buyer’s agent”? I hadn’t noticed but I went back and looked and by golly, Dont’s hunch was spot on. I’ve met buyers who tell me that they only work with listing agents “because they know all about the property”. Yeah well, sometimes, but a listing agent owes 100% of her loyalty to her seller, so whatever she may or my not know about her listing, she is not at liberty to disclose anything that might hurt her seller’s interest. Buyers’ agents, on the other hand, are supposed to dig up all the dirt they can – a pending divorce, bankruptcy looming, arrest coming, foreclosure, whatever, and pass it on to their client, the buyer. It’s the seller who pays the buyers agent and if a buyer doesn’t uses his own agent there’s still going to be a 5% commission paid out, so you the buyer save nothing and don’t learn anything about the seller’s circumstances. Why would you do that?

Oh, come on

A real estate agent in town reports today that Greenwich houses are selling for 90% of their asking price (it used to be 96%, but never mind, that’s not where I’m going with this). “This shows, writes she, “that properties priced to sell are getting close to ask in this market.”  What it really demonstrates, I suggest, is that houses sell only when their owners have given up their pie-in-the sky original pricing and get real.

90% of the final ask price is a far cry from 90% of the original price (to be fair, the columnist does admit that  “‘some’ of these properties have had prior price adjustments”). A final sales price is by definition final only because the house finally sells. All those other prices, as the seller gradually cut his price? Those aren’t final because they weren’t enough to tempt a buyer. This figure is almost meaningless, which is why I like to cite the original asking price – that’s a far better illustration of the delusions of sellers.

UPDATE: I was just playing around with some sales on Flagler Road and came across 1 Flagler. It was priced at $8.495 in 2005 and finally dropped to $4.6 million, whereupon it sold at full price. That’s either 100% of asking price or 54%. Guess which figure the GMLS and most agents use?

Looking for short-term rental

What’s the use of running a blog if you can’t try to help friends? My friends, husband and wife and two very well-behaved children, are looking for a short-term rental in town (or I suppose Stamford) while they complete their new house. 4 months, August – October. That’s a tough one because it straddles the summer market and runs into the fall, when all landlords are optimistic about finding a long-term tenant. Still, any suggestions would be welcomed.

Why don’t they just ban real estate agents?

Town turns street lights on 24 – hours a day to deter copper thieves.

Those Demmerkrats are so cute: always a new idea for a new tax!

The Hartford loonies have a new tax planned with which to pummel the real estate markets: a new tax of $1,500 for every buyer of real estate. The money so raised will stay with the town that taxes it (in Greenwch, that would have been $981,000 last year (654 total sales, single family, multi-family, condos and land) and $1,276,500 in 2006, when we last had a robust market (851 total sales).

My pal Fudrucker defends this tax because it will be used to buy open space for the town. Well that’s nice, but why should buying a home trigger an obligation different from other property owners to support the purchase of open space? If it’s a town goal then it’s a town obligation and one that should be paid for by all taxpayers, not just a select group.

Besides, why stop there? The high school wants a new auditorium, the Back Country wants a performing arts building, and baby needs new shoes. Why not special taxes for buyers so that these worthy causes can be funded too? And how long will it take Hartford to discover that a wealthy town like Greenwich is sitting on a pool of millions of dollars before it dips its beak?

This is a very bad idea, but hardly a surprising one.

Here’s a price cut

41 Meadow Wood Drive, in Belle Haven cut from $18.9 million to $16.9. That in itself isn’t particularly impressive, but when you consider that its original price back in August 2010 was $29 million, I’d say the seller is getting serious.

Nice house, by the way. The seller paid $6 for it (down from original ask of $9.750) back in 2006, when it was just an old, 4,000 sq.ft. house with four acres. He expanded it three-fold to 12,000 sq. ft. and completely rebuilt it. That didn’t make it worth $29 million, obviously, but maybe it’s approaching reality now.

“Squatter’s rent” adds dollars to a nation of deadbeat’s pockets

Bloomberg looks at what folks are doing with all that money they used to pay their mortgage with. I was in one house recently whose owners hadn’t paid their mortgage in three years. The bottled water service was still active, as was their cable, there were nice new iPads in the kids’ bedrooms and, all in all, it was obvious that the family was living very comfortably. As they should – I figure they have an extra $75,000 a year, minimum, to play with. God bless America.

So I’ll give up exercise

Coffee, sex and exercise increase risk of stroke

Coyote’s back

Big coyote crossed our creek this morning and headed north on the Old Greenwich side. It was carrying something dead in its mouth, so I’m guessing it’s a she and she has pups to feed nearby. Cathy Lee, if you’re missing another of those tiny foo-foo dogs of yours, you might want to check around Ole’s.

Sell your house NOW, then go out and spend the money

End of the world May 21st. There will be no fall market, I guess.