Price Reductions Monday Morning

There must have been some interesting discussions between brokers and owners last week because this morning sees several substantial price reductions reported.

221 Taconic Road, a beautiful older house pretty far up Taconic (near the original Stanwich Church) has almost five acres of fields and was completely renovated a few years ago. It sold in just 21 days for $4.150 million back in ’02 and the buyers must have thought they’d gotten a below-market deal because they relisted it soon after for $5.250 million. That didn’t work so they renovated what they’d purchased, adding a pool, a great new kitchen, etc. and tried again this past May at $8.2 million. No sale in 21 days this time, in this market, so today they’ve chopped $900,000 from its price and now offer it at $7.3 million. Nice land, nice house, bad market – we’ll see.

51 North Stanwich, the antique cottage discussed last week, has seen another price drop and is now priced at $1.790 million. The sellers bought it for $1.5 million in 2004, performed a “total renovation” and placed it back up for sale last May for $2.275 million. Today’s price drop brings it that much closer to its original price, pre-renovation.

One house that hasn’t seen a price drop is 19 Terrace Avenue in Riverside, which expired last November, unsold. I bring it up to illustrate what was happening to our market last year when prices were dropping and sellers’ expectations were not. This was an almost-new house (complete renovation) in 2005 and sold for $2.8 million back then. I was surprised at that price at the time and even more surprised when it showed up for sale again last year, looking for $3.495 million.  I didn’t think prices had increased 25% since 2005 – quite the contrary, but the sellers obviously did. The market didn’t share their optimism and, as noted, it didn’t sell. I’ll be curious to see whether it comes back on and if it does, at what price.