
286 Round Hill Road
286 Round Hill Road has taken yet another price cut and is now down to $3.250 million. This is a great house, built in 1900 (renovated and expanded since), on 3.5 acres in the 2-acre zone, and all-in-all, feels like a wonderful place to live. But it was placed for sale in 2009 at the daunting price of $5.375 and although as the years passed that price dropped, it moved slowly, step-by-step, inch-by-inch, so that now, when it’s probably priced about where it should have been four years ago, a buyer’s response upon seeing it the first time is likely to be “why should I buy what no one else wants?” Don’t let this happen to you.

12 Long View, Rvsd
Over in Riverside, where people do still want to live, 12 Long View Avenue (the short strip connecting Gilliam and Armstrong) has gone to contract after just two weeks, at $2.9 million. 0.8 acre in the R-12,000 zone and two separate building lots, but this buyer’s taking both, so look for a large house*. This is probably wise, because so much of the property is wetlands that a single house will be easier to fit around them, rather than trying to cram two houses onto what dry land there is.
The house it will be replacing, by the way, is the ugliest house I have ever seen, anywhere. The Fountain boys grew up just a few doors down on Gilliam Lane and have watched in wonder as over the decades owners came and went while the structure remained. Back in the 50s Popular Mechanics awarded it a prize for requiring the least maintenance of any home in the country, but it looks like a slate-sided outhouse and aside from the nostalgia of it all, I don’t think the neighborhood will miss it.
* it occurs to me that a builder may have bought both lots with the intention of building two houses. In my opinion, this would be the wrong choice, regardless of the presence of those wetlands, because there’s such a shortage of large (by Riverside standards) lots, a builder can expect a premium for building on one. Look at Kali-Naggy’s experience on Marks Road, also in Riverside. He took a lot of, I think, 0.6 acres, split it in two and tried selling the resulting houses for $4 million each. He never got it.