If you have to rely on paid propaganda to keep your paper alive, maybe it’s time to let it die

 

Carl and Bob taking a bullet for all of us?

Washington Post creates “news” section run by and censored by the Chinese government. I vaguely remember the LA Times doing something similar with the commercial developer of the Staples center in that city and being roundly denounced by its peers for abandoning its role as a newspaper. Flogging for a brutal dictatorship seems worse than that, to me.

Obumpski chastises opponents for their ignorance, exposes his own

He’s clueless, but of course we knew that. Doesn’t know his presidents, doesn’t know Columbus and clearly knows nothing about “alternative energy” except that it’s a great way to funnel money to his friends.

 

What could go wrong?

Korean and Russian scientists will bring extinct mammoth back to life

Price Cuts

11 Winding Lane announces still another price reduction and is now asking $7.2 million after 1,653 days on the market and an original asking price of $9.975. To me, and obviously to everyone who has seen this house except for its owner/seller, this is a pure land deal: 3 acres in a very convenient location in the RA-2 zone. So what’s an oversized lot worth here? $3.5 million, I’d estimate. Look for this one to be available in another 4 1/2 years. It might just set a record for futility in the Greenwich market.

28 Loading Rock

On a brighter note, 28 Loading Rock in Riverside’s NOPO region has dropped from $2.895 to $2.095 and looks much better with a slimmer price. This house was built in 2006 and overlooks the Mianus River with the association beach and boat launching area just a couple of hundred yards away. It sits up high, across the street from the river so I wouldn’t call it “waterfront” even though the listing broker does but it has great views. Nice house, now, and I’d look at it if I were shopping in the almost-two range.

Riverside is hot

46 Carriglea, waterfront acre, sold without ever being on the market for $5 million. That’s what these acres were selling for back in the good old days. Comes with a disposable house.

27 Stoney Ridge

27 Stoney Ridge, down from the Riverside station pond, has an A/O after just 37 days on market. Asking $2.850 million.

And just down the street from that, 16 Lake Drive South (click on the Stoney Ridge link for this listing’s details, too)  has an A/O after 52 days on market. This one took two price cuts, from $2.095 to $1.895 which surprised me – when it first came on I said I thought the price would generate interest and in fact I recommended a couple of my clients look at it. They aren’t from Riverside and didn’t quite get it. Nice house, though and a very reasonable deal.

I can’t understand why this never works

80 Porkchop Porchuck Hill has always had its difficulties as a listing: 0.83 acres in the R-4 zone means it’s limited by FAR to just 2,259 sq. feet and at its current 2,770 it is already 500′ above that, so no one will be adding on to this one (built in 1926, it was surely on a larger lot originally – turns out to have been a bad move to sell off the land, but I digress).

The owner paid $1.3 million in 1999, the last time this house was renovated, and tried unsuccessfully to sell it for $2.2 million in 2005. It went back up for sale in 2010 at $2.1 and gradually dropped to $1.595 in June of last year. This past November they raised the price $200,000 to $1.795 yet inexplicably failed to find a buyer. Today it’s been reduced to $1.725, a far more impressive price than June’s and one that’s bound to attract buyers who want the prestige of paying more for a house than the seller was willing to accept ten months ago.

I wasn’t impressed but perhaps you will be

I attended the open house at 122 Old Church Road today with high expectations but was disappointed. I wanted to like this house because the owners restored the old mansion rather than tear it down and notwithstanding its $10.750 price tag, I’d hoped it would sell quickly as a reward for them showing such restraint in this time of tear – downs. But I don’t think it will.

It seems like a work still in progress – the owners addressed all the important mechanical issues but either ran out of money or got tired of the process; they’ve gotten half-way through and pulled the plug. Which would be fine, except for that price. Original drafty windows don’t make it at this price range, even if they’ve had ’60′s Sears Roebuck aluminum combination screens/storm windows slapped on their exterior. Thin marble countertops in the baths look cheap, not elegant and an acrylic whirlpool tub in the master bath just feels wrong. If this house was originally built with substandard crown moldings, that error should have been corrected now, but wasn’t (I suspect there were once beautiful moldings here but were replaced sometime during a 1950′s renovation to impart a “contemporary” feel. Bad move.

There are wetlands – who knew? – smack in the middle of the back yard, preventing its use as a site for a pool house or anything like that and long ago a previous owner sold off a front lot, thereby screwing up the access width and route. You can’t blame either of these flaws on the present owners but they don’t help.

So all that’s just my impression and maybe someone with far more money than me will like this place exactly as it is. I personally think the renovators grossly overpaid for the property ($5 million plus) back in 2010 and will have a hard time recovering what they’ve put in.

Say, here’s a disappointment

OMG, it's a pick up truck!

Massachusetts Demmerkrats beginning to panic over Elizabeth Warren’s lackluster campaign. Maybe voters figure that they don’t need a second 1%er from Harvard in the Senate.

Picking through the left overs

Greenwich Realtor sifts through inventory

Another open house Thursday is upon us and I see three houses I’m interested in looking at and one of them, 122 Old Church Road, is on my list solely because I’m curious to see what they’ve done to the place. At $10.750 million, I hope it’s quite a lot. Are the Brunswick kids still on spring break cutting sugar cane in Cuba? If so, perhaps we’ll see some inventory come on next week when they return. Otherwise, it’s back to beating sellers into submission, forcing their prices down to some level of reasonableness.

This condo is looking more attractive

362 Davis Avenue suffers from highway noise but it’s also across from Bruce Park and a relatively short walk from the train station, so it’s a mix. This particular townhouse unit (just listed today, check back later for more pictures) sold for $1,000,000 in 2005 and its owners have been trying to undo that transaction since 2006, listing it first at $1.250 and gradually chasing the market down. Today it’s back up for sale at $925,000. With a bit of dickering, this could be a decent buy.

Their first victory since 1066

Ta Gueule!

French Beat Russians for Title of World’s Rudest People.

Black humor

"But we let him vote for Castro before shooting him"

The NAACP is on a tax payer-paid junket to Switzerland urging the UN Human Rights Council  to investigate voter i.d. laws in (some) United States . The NAACP’s poster child for this soiree? A convicted drug dealer/federal prisoner who fears she’ll be denied the “right” to vote if she moves to another state.

So who will be listening to this impassioned plea? A rogues gallery of dictatorships, including Cuba, Russia, Saudi Arabia, China and Uganda.

Risk alert

No bomb here, promise!

TSA will no longer force passengers 76-years and older to remove their shoes. “We’ll still grope their diapers,” a TSA spokesman said, “but after extensive research we’ve discovered that these geezers are too stiff to bend over and stuff bombs in their shoes, and now they’ll get a pass. But those 75-year-olds? Still too goddamn spry so them, we strip search.”