Well this is useful

Riverside continues apace

 

7 Verona Drive

7 Verona Drive, $1.899, goes to a bidding war that has now been closed. Three bedroom house (listing claims four), okay house, good street, but bidding war? There you have it.

Awful news from Boston

Bombs (? explosions, at this point) go off, killing and maiming runners. A lot of Greenwich residents are there today – the horror is the same, of course, regardless of where the victims are from, but cause for particular worry for many of us.

Sale reported

 

72 Butternut Hollow

72 Butternut Hollow, 2.24 acres in the R-2 zone, sells for $1.425, on a 2011 asking price of $1.950. This was a fairly old contract but the estate was in probate, and that takes awhile. I like the house but it’s reported as a land sale, so that’s probably that, for this structure.

 

435 Lake Avenue

435 Lake Avenue,  $8.5 million (down from $12.750 in 2008), has another accepted offer. There was one reported earlier this year but the buyer backed off when he discovered that the house had been built sideways to the street.

David Ogilvy issues updated etiquette guide for his sales force?

 

Off to White Birch

Or at least I think it’s from David.

1. “Don’t talk aloud in a railway carriage, and thus prevent your fellow passengers from reading their book or newspaper.”

2. “Don’t talk of ‘the opera’ in the presence of those who are not frequenters of it.”

3. “Don’t respond to remarks made to you with mere monosyllables. This is chilling, if not fairly insulting. Have something to say, and say it.”

Many of the rules are easier said than done. It takes a lot of concentration to keep your voice, meaning, and mysterious allure at the exact perfect level at all times.

4. “Always select words calculated to convey an exact impression of your meaning.”

5. “Don’t talk in a high, shrill voice, and avoid nasal tones. Cultivate a chest voice; learn to moderate your tones. Talk always in a low register, but not too low.”

6. “Avoid any air of mystery when speaking to those next to you; it is ill-bred and in excessively bad taste.”

You also need to choose your words carefully. Remember, your food is not healthy, you do not wear pants, and your wife is no lady.

7. “Don’t use meaningless exclamations, such as ‘Oh, my!’ ‘Oh, cracky’ etc.”

8. “Don’t say gents for gentlemen or pants for pantaloons. These are inexcusable vulgarisms. Don’t say vest for waistcoat.”

9. “Don’t speak of this or that kind of food being healthy or unhealthy; say always wholesome or unwholesome.”

10. “‘It made me quite low spirited; my heart felt as heavy as lead.’ We most of us know what a heavy heart is; but lead is by no means the correct metaphor to use in speaking of a heavy heart.”

11. “Don’t say lady when you mean wife.”

Acting things out is not funny — unless, of course, you are doing it to make fun of entire classes or nationalities.

12. “Never gesticulate in every day conversation, unless you wish to be mistaken for a fifth rate comedian.”

13. “A little graceful imitation of actors and public speakers may be allowed. National manners, and the peculiarities of entire classes, are fair game. French dandies, Yankee bargainers, and English exquisites, may be ridiculed at pleasure; you may even bring forward Irish porters, cab-drivers and bog-trotters — provided you can imitate their wit and humor.”

Ladies do not make good conversational partners.

14. “Never ask a lady a question about anything whatever.”

15. “In the company of ladies, do not labor to establish learned points by long-winded arguments. They do not care to take too much pains to find out truth.”

Which may have something to do with what’s in their etiquette books.

16. “Never question the veracity of any statement made in general conversation.”

17. “Men frequently look with a jealous eye on a learned woman … be cautious, therefore, in mixed company of showing yourself too much beyond those around you.”

Try conversing with them by eye instead.

18. “It may be coquettish, but there is nothing particularly womanly in never looking a man in the eye. Search the face that confronts you, and learn what manner of man this is whom you are receiving into your company and fellowship. If he quails under the inquisition, so much the worse for him. If he is worth looking at, it is a pity to miss the sight.”

A/O out west

 

37 Ettle Lane

37 Ettle Lane, Glenville, reports that it’s found a buyer. Asking $1.175 million, it looks like a good house and Ettle Lane is a nice neighborhood.

A moveable feast?

Atlantic Relocation Services

Reader Mike Vitelli, Old Greenwich, sends along the following suggestion, which sounds sensible to me.

I’ve seen a lot of discussion on your blog about the affect of FEMA zoning rules on the concession stands and that they may have to be elevated very high to be compliant.  Do you know if anyone has considered permitting food trucks to service Todd’s point instead of a single concession?  There are already some nice food trucks around Greenwich and I assume having a few of them at Todd’s point would be appreciated by the residents as there would be a bit more selection.  Trucks have the added benefit that you can drive them away when a storm is approaching.

Here’s an interesting tidbit

I was prowling the Connecticut Judicial Branch’s case look up page just now and came across this site that lists pending foreclosure sales.  Those are homes that have been foreclosed on and have been ordered by the court to be sold. Not a single house in greenwich is on the list. We have plenty of “lis pendens” – the beginning of a foreclosure, but no sales. Greenwich homeowners have the capacity and inclination to fight, I would guess.

UPDATE: “Sound Beacher” alerts me that, for some reason, the Judicial Department separates Greenwich into our postal zones so that, for instance, Riverside is not included under Greenwich. And in fact there is a pending foreclosure sale in Riverside, 38 Bramble Lane, scheduled for May 18th. It probably won’t go forward; it was listed at $1.599 April 5th and reported as “accepted offer, continue to show” April 10th. Even if it’s not a genuine contract (not saying that it isn’t, only that such things have happened before), the court will undoubtedly postpone the auction pending developments.

UPDATE II: And another reader points out that the clerk in charge of these things can’t keep her towns straight. Here’s 11 Farley Street, Greenwich, listed under Stamford. If I were trying to delay this sale I think I’d argue that mistakenly listing the auction under the wrong town deprived the owner of full exposure to the market and demand a new date.

Sale reported

11 Prospect (old photo)

15 Prospect Street Drive (behind Greenwich Hospital), $699,000. Not officially on the MLS, but it was last year and presumably this was a development from that time. 0.05 (!) acre, 1,080 s. ft.), so I guess someone wanted a condo in the area and settled for this. Sold for $765,000 in 2006, the era of stupidity, new owners did some unspecified renovations and had a $612,000 mortgage – they probably got out without putting good money after bad, but it must have been close.

What a difference a few years (and a couple of million dollars) make

11 Pinecroft Road

11 Pinecroft Road, $2.495, reports a contract just a few days after being returned to the market after expiring unsold (at $2.995) in June, 2010. Decent house, very convenient location off of Parsonage. The owners first listed it in 2007 at $4.350 and took a number of price reductions in the succeeding years. It’s certainly true that the lower price made a difference now, but I see this also as an indication of an improved market this spring.

I also received word from an agent who’d shown my own clients a house that she received two offers over the weekend, and wanted to know if my clients were interested. They were not (nor was I) but I’m impressed that two offers should come in so quickly on a property listed just last week.

Document dump

“Gang of Eight” will release 1,500 page immigration law today, less than 48 hours before full senate is to vote on it. It was originally scheduled for release tomorrow, until the screaming by opponents and those still interested in a functioning senate got too loud to bear. “You’ll have to pass it to see what’s in it,” Senator Harry Reid, who as majority leader has scheduled one, and only one, brief hearing on the matter.

In the meantime, as details leak, businesses are objecting. Biggest gripe: engineers and other useful people will still be excluded, welfare soon-to-be Democratic voters will be ushered in by the tens of thousands.

Oh, the humanity!

Britain moves to cap welfare payments at level of average working family. £500 (pound’s worth about $1.53) per week, maximum.

Benefits claimants will not be able to receive more from the state than the average working household earns under a tough new £26,000-a-year cap launched today.

David Cameron said it was a ‘big day for benefits reform’ as the cap was imposed in the first areas ahead of the nationwide rollout from this summer.

Larger families and those living in the London are expected to be hardest hit by the decision to limit benefits to £500-a-week for couples and single parents and £350 for single people.

The policy has proven hugely popular in Downing Street polling, with the Prime Minister saying ‘amazingly’ Labour oppose the idea of insisting handouts should not be higher than average incomes in homes where someone goes out to work.

The changes are being introduced to cut Britain’s vast welfare bill and bring the level which can be claimed on benefits into line with average earnings.

The average household will lose £93-a-week.

Ten percent of families affected have six or more children, just as a bye-the-bye.