That didn’t last long

12 Wykham Hill, $2.395 million, reported an accepted offer ten days ago but came back on the market today. It happens.

It’s getting warm down there at 1600 Pennsylvania

We should never have left Chicago

White House calls liberal columnists into the West Wing, en masse, to give them talking points and direction.

Getting closer to looking like a deal

25 Selden lane, out west off of Riversville, has cut its price again and is now priced at $3.495 million. That includes a decent house, albeit one built to the 1987 spec home idea of good taste, five acres around it and a separate 2 + acre building lot. When I first saw this (the only time I saw it, come to that) was years ago, and the owners wanted $6 million: $5.250 for the house, $750,000 for the extra land. The problem I saw then was that those extra two acres made this property and, if sold off and built on, would pretty much ruin the beautiful setting.

So $6 million was a no-go, but $3.5, less whatever negotiating you can accomplish, for the 6,800 sq. ft. house and all the land – both parcels – isn’t bad.

Citizen power

Chris R sends along this great video of US citizens standing up to government goons. I’m impressed by these patriots’ cojones.

Uh oh, IRS gal takes the fifth

 

I can tell you this: Lois Lerner is no more of a crook than I am

Lois Lerner, IRS point man for charitable institutions, will invoke her right against self-incrimination when called to testify before congress. Before Obama promoted her, this lady ran the Federal Election Commission, where she also devoted her time to harrassing conservative groups. And that’s why we have background checks for these positions: the president wants to make sure he’s selecting exactly the right person for the job.

Having just said that the purchase price equals the fair market price, here’s an exception

 

15 Linwood Drive

15 Linwood Drive, Riverside, was purchased by my clients from Deutsche Bank for $1.167 million in 2009. The mortgages owed at the time were somewhere around $1.7 million so we got a great deal (yes, they asked me to represent them now, no, I didn’t want to work with a relocation company). It’s listed today for $1.725 million, which I think is pretty close to where I’d place it and even accounting for the improvements they added, this is one of those buy low sell high cases where the owners are going to do very well indeed.

Great house, by the way.

141 Cat Rock

And for those keeping track of sales, 141 Cat Rock, asking $1.295, sold for $1.175. 2 acres, decent house that needs work, but given land values, the house was free.

I don’t know why I didn’t expect this

 

 

DHS police, weapons ready

The Department of Homeland Security has its own police force, and used it today to monitor Tea Party protestors outside an IRS building. St. Louis’s own police can’t control a peaceful protest? The mystery over why the DHS has been buying a billion rounds of hollow point bullets has been solved, I suppose, but I don’t feel any better – or safer.

Waterfront in Old Greenwich for $2.195? Probably a good deal.

 

30 Sunset

30 Sunset, 0.28 acres in the R-12 zone (3,841 FAR sq.ft permissible) has an accepted offer a little over a month after being listed at $2.195. The listing claims it’s been renovated but if it has, the sellers wasted their money. With no possibility of making any improvements to the existing structure because of FEMA regs, it’s dumpster fodder.

8 Bradbury Place

Back in Riverside, 8 Bradbury Place sold in a modest bidding war for $2.9 million – sellers had asked $2.850. Purchased for $2.875 in 2008.

When he’s not frothing over Slurpees, Bloomberg can get it right

 

Swarthmore collegian demonstrates his skills as a human sandwich board

The Mayor’s career advice: go to trade school and become a plumber rather than waste your money (or your parents’) on a $100,000 “education” in, say, victimhood studies.

Absolutely agree, and his advice is doubly true for graduate school, from law to psychology to African-American studies. What could a Swarthmore student, for example, possibly offer an employer that would be of value? Protest demonstrations? Fossil fuel is death rants? Riot leader?  A heightened awareness of white oppression, coupled with an inability to think, isn’t going to command any kind of salary except in academia and the government and, so far at least, there aren’t enough jobs in those industries to support the multitudes spawning on our campuses. Swarthmore children can rely on their inheritances – debt-burdened graduates from more modest backgrounds cannot, and they’ll pay for their four wasted years for the rest of their lives.

A price cut on Dingletown

16 Dingletown Rd

16 Dingletown has dropped its price from its April listing price of $6.150 million to $5.950. That’s a start, I suppose, but it brings up an interesting phenomenon: sellers mistaking asking price for fair market price. The builder of this house originally priced it at $8.995 in 2008, which was preposterous, as noted here. It eventually sold three years later in December, 2011 to these owners for $5.6 million. Which wasn’t a bad price – I liked this house, within reason, but was just about what I’d thought it was worth originally (see previous link). But I suspect the buyers looked at that original price of $9 million and figured they’d gotten a steal and felt justified pricing it for $550,000 more than they’d paid for it the year before. Happens all the time, and sellers are disappointed all the time. As I cautioned one of my own clients who was thinking along these lines, he’d set the fair market price for his house when he bought it, not when the seller erroneously listed it for $1 million more.

Finally!

Fracking on Stanwich

Accepted offer reported on one of the two rear lots at 313 Stanwich Road. The wannabe developers paid $3.250 for the two lots in 2007 and tried selling them each for $3.600 in 2008, when the partners had a falling out (or that’s what I heard – maybe they just amicably parted ways over tea). Last asking price was $1.350 which, doing my gazintas, yields a loss: $3.250 / 2 = $1.625, less cost of (minimal) site work. And they’re still holding that second lot.

I never saw the attraction of the land because, despite its size, it was mostly some piled up dirt sufficient to support a house, then a retaining wall and a 20′ drop to the swamp in back. But land is scarce and this obviously worked for someone – possibly the buyer of the house in front, also under contract, from which these lots were split off?

There must be something in the water up there, by the way; that (asking) $3.4 million parent property started 1,391 days ago at $6.495 million, after the land split.

Sold, and still for sale

 

50 Hillcrest

50 Hillcrest Park, March contract, closed yesterday for $2.565 million. Bought new in 2004 for $2.885. Great house, no yard.

From the unsold department of Tuesday’s open house itinerary there’s 407 Round Hill Road and 30 Husted.

407 Round Hill is 7 acres of good land with a not so good house, asking $2.875 million. Cell tower overhead, so reception should be great. Owners bought it from the foreclosing bank for $1.8 million in 2009 and despite some improvements installed by the buyer the market has, so far, not noticed the million dollar increase in value.

30 Husted

From the same firm that presents Mead Point at $190 million, 30 Husted Lane is still around, two years after first starting on its quest for a buyer. Started at $18 million in 2010, today it can be yours for $10,950. Tomorrow?

Well that didn’t take long

Oh, Toto, we’re not going to be in Kansas very long!

After remaining silent during the quietest tornado season in decades, the global warmists resurface. Rhode Island Democrat blames Republicans for global warming and yesterday’s tragedy.

While children’s bodies were still being dug from the rubble. Let no crisis go unused.

I blame trailer parks.

UPDATE: A reader corrects me: at least as of 1976, tornadoes were caused by global cooling – and scientists said so!

Six things you may think add value to your home, but don’t

 

Oooh, a new dishwasher!

From Forbes.

swimming pools

overbuilding for neighborhood

extensive landscaping

high end upgrades (a new kitchen when the rest of the house is shag rugs and 1980s bathrooms doesn’t cut it)

wall to wall carpeting

invisible upgrades (buyers expect the hvac system to be working – no credit for making sure it does)

This jibes with my own experience