This was the listing photo - no kidding

425 N. Maple has sold for $1.750 million, significantly below its first asking price of $3.125 million and less than what the town calculated to be 70% of its market value, $2.393. The source of that unfortunate result might be because the listing broker posted only one bad picture of the house online, but I’d attribute the dismal showing to that first price, that drove buyers away.

Look, this isn’t that complicated: people in the $3 million range are looking for more house, however you define that: better yard, better fixtures, layout, whatever, than those in the $2 range. So if you price your $2 million house at $3 you repel the high end buyers – there are better homes in that price range, and you scare off the $2 million buyers who assume you’ll never drop your price enough for them to afford it so why even bother looking? The result? No buyers in either class until you whack the bejesus out of the price. Then you attract the bottom feeders (often represented by me, sorry to say) and you get less than you would have had you priced it properly to begin with.

Try it next time.

(Artist's rendering)

487 North Street, two lots combined as one, under contract. Only took since September.

That's okay, it happens to everybody

Condos refusing to let electric car owners recharge the batteries. Harsh bud, Dude.

Go away!

Not enough data to explain why doctors are leaving Medicare. It’s bizarre: we keep cutting Medicare reimbursement to doctors yet they keep shedding those patients. Who can explain this?

Jesus Christ

A friend who has access to such stuff gave me a pound of Starbucks new “Blonde” bean so that I could decide for myself if it was as bad as I expected. It’s worse, bringing to mind Monty Python’s riff about Australian wines coming in a poor second to Aborigine armpit sweat. Who comes up with a product like this? How could a panel of coffee makers sit around the cupping room, taste what they had produced and declare it fit for pig washing and human consumption? Poor pigs.

The unused portion of those beans is headed for the Bridgeport incinerator and my friend is now off my Christmas list - his was a cruel joke to play on anyone.

Honey, we have company

Back from open houses (open house, actually). Nice place, although I’m pretty the buyer I had in mind for it won’t like its architecture or the layout of the kitchen/family area. I noticed a water stain on a section of the carpeting in the basement – “lower level”, at this price range – so I opened the door behind it to see what was up. A Bilco door leading up and outside, naturally and, judging from the sunlight I saw pouring in from its sides and top, the Sgt. Bilko there is probably the source of the rain water.

No big deal and easily remedied – by the seller, I would argue. But at the foot of the steps leading out, on either side, were two big rat baits, and don’t they pose an ethical dilemma? As listing agent, do you leave the baits where they are and thus alert the home buyer of the presence of pets, or do you remove them and let the happy new owners discover a native population of Willards themselves?

I think I move the baits.