Can you spot Reese’s piece?
Reese Witherspoon sells her California bungalow for “a major loss”: $4.9 million, on an original purchase price of $5.8. Sheesh, that’s less than $900,000 – chump change here in our own fair city.
The actress does have something in common with many Greenwich home sellers, however: after paying $5.8 for the place in 2008, she listed it last year for $10. I wonder if a local Greenwich firm is now operating out west?
Comments Off on Hell, Greenwich homeowners consider such a puny loss a profit
Filed under pricing
70 Sherwood Ave
70 Sherwood Avenue, way out west, is up for sale at $4.975 million after being purchased in 2010 for $3.375. The house is a 1986 house that was totally, completely redone back in 2007 by a spec builder and put up for sale that year for $5.775. As noted, it sold three years later for $3.375.
The seller justifies this $1.6 million price jump by citing the renovations that have been done since it was purchased, but the house was essentially brand new back then and in need of no “renovations” – I don’t get it. I’m further confused because, looking at the 2007 listing and today’s, I don’t see much difference in their descriptions, even though they were written by different brokers. Perhaps Joe Biden wrote the second one.
Here’s what the 2007 broker said about the house:
FRENCH STYLE COUNTRY 2 ACRE ESTATE HAS BEEN EXQUISITELY RENOVATED TO REFLECT THE BEST OF THE OLD & NEW WORLD. GRAND INTERIOR OF THE FINEST WORKMANSHIP. JULIET BALCONIES OVERLOOK THE BREATHTAKING 20 FT FOYER. 5 BEDROOMS, FORMAL LIVING & DINING RM. LIBRARY, KITCHEN W/BRKFT RM, FAMILY RM, ELEVATOR, MEDIA & FITNESS RMS. 3 CAR GARAGE & MORE. BEAUTIFUL TERRACES OVERLOOKING PICTURESQUE POND & NEW LANDSCAPING, UNDERSTATED ELEGANCE & EXQUISITE WORKMANSHIP THROUGHOUT.
That certainly sounded nice – so nice, in fact, that the new broker, three years on, seems to have kept everything, including that “understated elegance”. Looks to me that the pool, the gate and the generator are new; not sure they’re worth $1.6 extra, but then, I haven’t seen the gate.
FRENCH STYLE COUNTRY 2 ACRE ESTATE HAS BEEN EXQUISITELY RENOVATED TO REFLECT THE BEST OF THE OLD & NEW WORLD. GRAND INTERIOR OF THE FINEST WORKMANSHIP. JULIET BALCONIES OVERLOOK THE BREATHTAKING 20 FT FOYER. 5 BEDROOMS, FORMAL LIVING & DINING RM, LIBRARY, KITCHEN W/BRKFT RM, FAMILY RM, ELEVATOR, MEDIA & FITNESS RMS. 3 CAR GARAGE & MORE. BEAUTIFUL TERRACES OVERLOOKING PICTURESQUE POND & NEW LANDSCAPING. UNDERSTATED ELEGANCE & EXQUISITE WORKMANSHIP THROUGHOUT. NEW INFINITY POOL. NEW GENERATOR AND ELECTRIC GATE.
And both are at least “interesting”.
43 Richmond Hill Rd
43 Richmond Hill Road is back, now at $3.950 million. It sold new in 2006 for $4.9 million, came back on at $5.495 in 2010, and has been kicking around ever since at successively lower prices. I’m not sure that this is, finally, the right price: as I recall, the land’s a little iffy (not bad, just not spectacular) and, to my taste, the barn silo-thing going on at one end of the structure is sort of silly, but the inside is very nice and the price trend is making it look better all the time.
(Representative)
And 552 River Road (the River Road east of the Mianus, not the one along the harbor in Cos Cob) comes back to us at the same price it wouldn’t sell for before, $1.2 million. This property’s at the southern end of River, a neighborhood of rather rough-looking multi-families and modest single family residences, but it’s zoned to permit at least three, maybe four units, and its acre appears to back up to the river. I’m not suggesting you put up a $3 million home here, but there ought to be a way to make some money on a couple of rental houses, or something. It’s an estate sale, and those are usually tough, because there’s always one heir who lives out of state and is convinced that anything in “Greenwich” must be worth millions. But might be worth taking a run at.
Filed under Buying/Selling Greenwich Real Estate, Uncategorized
Going down?
16 Dingletown Road takes another price cut, to $5.095 million. I like this house: it’s removed from Dingletown itself, has a nice back yard and a convenient location, but I did wonder at the owners’ decision to price it at $6.150 this past April after they’d paid just $5.6 for it in 2011. Now the elevator, having paused at the ground floor, is heading for the basement. Oops.
The owners aren’t alone in their overestimation of the value of this house, however; the spec builder who put it up in 2008 tried $8.995 and various lower price points until he found these people three years later who were willing to pay that $5.6.
I wonder if the buyers made the mistake of looking at the original asking price and figured they were getting a bargain? It happens.
Filed under Buying/Selling Greenwich Real Estate, Mid Country, Neighborhoods, pricing
17 Windabout Lane
We’re in the mid country, where the prices keep falling. 17 Windabout Lane just cut its price, again, and now asks $2.695 million. To be fair, that’s still a price that, for this house, might face resistance even in Riverside, but the owners can be excused for pricing it at $3.250 million 222 days ago because, after all, that’s what they paid for it in 2002.
Ouch.
Filed under Buying/Selling Greenwich Real Estate, Mid Country, pricing
195 Pecksland Road
195 Pecksland Road has a new price, $3.685 million, and notes that it now sports “a fabulous new master bedroom suite” and a new kitchen. That sounds very nice, and the price looks attractive, but if all that new stuff now makes it worth $3.7, what on earth was the justification for pricing it, pre-improvements, at $6.250 million back in 2007?
Another demonstration, if one were needed, that the authors of Freakonomics were wrong to conclude that real estate agents not only price their own homes higher than comparable homes, but get those higher prices. In Greenwich, at least, agents are notorious for overpricing their homes, but they never get what they think it’s worth. Emotionalism beats objective assessment, every time, just as it happens so often with normal people.
26 Taconic
Having failed to sell for $5.495 million in 2010 (it started at $6.495 in 2007), Kaali-Nagy has brought 26 Taconic Road back on the market for $5.950. Much as I like Mr. Kaali-Nagy’s work, and I do; he builds a beautiful home, I’ve never liked this one as much as his others. The land sucks: 2 acres, but much of it is underwater in the form of a pond or found on the hill sloping down to that pond. On the busy, lower end of Taconic. The house itself is, to my taste, too dark, in part because of a porch roof on the east side that blocks the sun.
East wall
When he couldn’t sell it he rented it, for $17,500 in 2008 and $16,000 in 2010. Now that lease has apparently ended, so he’s spruced it up and offered it for rent at $27,500 or purchase, as noted, at $6 million.
I bet he doesn’t hit either number.
Filed under Buying/Selling Greenwich Real Estate, Mid Country, pricing, spec houses
1929 Tesla
Wall Street hasn’t recovered from the crash, and probably won’t.
Ever since Lehman’s bankruptcy in September 2008 jettisoned some 26,000 employees, waves of subsequent layoffs have stripped thousands of Wall Street traders, bankers and analysts of their six- and seven-figure salaries and bonuses.
New York City lost some 28,300 securities industry jobs during the financial crisis after Lehman’s demise, according to estimates by the New York state comptroller’s office. That doesn’t include the thousands more that vanished from hedge funds and private equity shops.
Only 8,500 of those jobs have come back in the past few years, according to the comptroller’s office.
“In past recoveries, Wall Street has been a driving force. That hasn’t been the case this time around,” said Kenneth Bleiwas, deputy New York state comptroller.
What’s more telling is that members of the current crop of Wall Streeters just aren’t making the same kind of money that they were before, even if the nation’s banks are racking up record profits. The comptroller’s office said the average salary has fallen by about $40,000 since 2007.
Moreover, bonuses have declined sharply. In 2006, the average Wall Street bonus was $191,360, according to the comptroller’s office. Last year, it was $121,890.
“Five years ago, you almost had unlimited horizon of opportunity, of what you could create or how much you could make,” said Greg Gentile, who was a Lehman credit trader and played guitar at the blues lounge. “That’s been severely limited and capped by regulation and by just a massive decrease in the risk appetite of the institutions.”
One 40-something stock trader who has bounced around major Wall Street investment houses complained of a “morose” mood in his line of work. Bonuses these days are often deferred, tethering traders to their firms longer than they wish.
A former Lehman trader at the Times Square concert summed up the zeitgeist more bluntly.
“Everybody is miserable,” said the trader, who like many still working on Wall Street declined to be quoted by name because his firm prohibits employees from speaking to reporters. “Everybody’s leaving who can, or they’re being squeezed out.”
I sold a $4 million house last year to a banker who told me, “I could buy a $9 million house (and he could have), but I want to be financially conservative”. Naturally I thanked God for sending me a client who viewed the purchase of a $4 million house as being “financially conservative”, but the fact is, that was one less sale of a $9 million house. I also have had clients who either deferred purchases or dropped their price ceiling by as much as $1 million when they found out how much of their bonus was going to be deferred: 90% in some cases. I suspect that sort of thing is happening all across the market.
Filed under Buying/Selling Greenwich Real Estate, pricing
9 Ridgeview Avenue
9 Ridgeview Avenue, placed on the market by its bank-owner at $2.999, reports a contract. The failed developer paid $2.355 for the land in 2008 and took out a $4.7 million mortgage to build this shell. I assume all of that sum hadn’t been advanced before the project went south, but it’s a fair bet that there was a serious write-off here.
I personally would be wary of a house that has sat empty for so long, but I assume an inspector has signed off on the structural integrity.
88 Orchard Street
In Cos Cob, an Irish realtor, Francis X. Fudrucker, has sold a Scotsman’s house on 88 Orchard Street to a Jewish synagogue; are we a multi-cultural town, or what? 88 looked for $2.355 million in 2011 and dropped as low as $1.795 before its listing expired on Halloween, 2011. The treat finally arrived last Friday, when they sold for $1.6 million.
241 Valley Rd
241 Valley Road, asking $895,000, reports a contingent contract. This is a 1924 shack on 0.08 of an acre overlooking, but far uphill from, the Mianus River. But a beautiful view, and no neighbors to the east, at least. I’m sure you can do something interesting here. To keep score, this sold in basically the same condition in 2000 for $515,000.
44 Hunting Ridge
44 Hunting Ridge Road has taken another price cut and now asks $5.495 million, which is better than the $7.925 it wanted back when it was first built in 2006.
414 Stanwich
And back again, 414 Stanwich is now priced at $1.525. It sold for $2.1 million in 2003, so the owners can (almost) be excused for first pricing this at $2.695 in 2006, but buyers weren’t buying it. A number of rentals, a handful of brokers, and many price cuts and years later, it’s down to this level. I like this house; it’s always been the price that put me off. Perhaps this will do it, but if I were advising my own clients here, I’d suggest that they negotiate, hard.
We’re not in La Tuna anymore, Toto
516 Round Hill Road is now offered to the discriminating buyer for $7.750 million. This property has had a colorful history, beginning back in 2003 when that lovable rascal Dom Devito bought the land and persuaded his friend Marcus Zavataro at Patriot Bank to lend him $6.143 million to build a spec house. The foundation went in, the framing went up, and there things stood for a long time, while most of the Patriot/Zavataro loans went belly up, Dom was sent off to La Tuna Federal Medium Security prison outside of El Paso, and the market for big ticket homes on Round Hill Road fell off the cliff. Eventually, Patriot won title via foreclosure (June, 2010), Marcus went off to offer financial advice to new clients and even Dom has returned, fit, rested and raring to go. He’s even driving a rather fancy Indian car around town these days – the boy knows how to land on his feet.
In any event, Patriot sold off the shell of this house for $3 million to the present owners, who finished it and put it back up for sale in January for $8.3 million. Today’s price cut indicates how that’s gone, so far. The two problems I see here (aside from price and location) are what to make of that four years or so it sat unfinished, and the affect, if any, weather and cold had on the structural integrity, and the land: Dom sort of bulldozed a pile of dirt together, just large enough to support a house footprint, held it back with a retaining wall and left the rest as an ironic reference, for movie buffs, to “The Guns of Navarone”. Tough sledding, if you will.
But there you have it. If you want to live in Dom’s neighborhood; and you should, or just down the road from the Raj, when he gets out of his prison, this is the spot for you.
555 Lake Avenue
555 Lake Avenue under full contract, $26.5 million. 19,000 square feet, 8 acres, but just 8 bedrooms – there’s still room to expand, thank goodness. This property was never on the market but supposedly it was going to be and a buyer moved in and snapped it up.
What looked like a promising day: 68 listings to see, was pretty disappointing. After weeding out the rentals, retreads and hopelessly overpriced, there were just a handful of houses worth driving to.
More on those later; while I was out, two contracts were reported, both in the low range.
11 Mill Pond Court
11 Mill Pond Court, $1.345, has a fully executed contract after just 14 days, which would indicate that a buyer stepped up within just a few days of the property appearing on the market (there’s a time lag between an accepted offer and formal execution of a contract). The owners paid $725,000 for this in 2007 and did a “total renovation”; judging from the mortgage they took out to pay for that renovation, it looks like they really did redo the place. In this market, a house that needs no additional work is a valuable commodity, and the speed with which this one sold isn’t surprising. Besides, Mill Pond is a nifty little street. 0.15 acre, for those interested in saving on lawn care.
29 Riverside Lane
29 Riverside Lane, on the other hand, is not on one of our finer streets in town: it’s busy, but it has also found a buyer after 29 days. Asking $829,000; building lots here were selling for $750,000 just a short time ago. This was improved in 2004, so the buyer may intend to live in it, which would justify paying more than land value. Just about the same size lot as Mill Pond, 0.2 vs. 0.15. Your kids can still use the yard for play, so long as they play on a pogo stick.
View from 54 Cathlow Drive (Rat Island, background)
$18.225 million if you want all 4.4 acres, or just $16 if you’ll settle for 3.72. I assume that means that you can pick up a building lot for $2.225 million, which, for Cathlow Drive, is a good deal – I’ll ask at its open house tomorrow.
Cathlow is a wonderful street off Indian Head with some great houses. I won’t pretend to know what this one will sell for, though my hunch is, “less”, but it’s a fabulous location.
UPDATE: Reader “Riverside” (pseudonym of Peter Tesei’s, presumably) points out that the building lot is the land on Highgate discussed here a bit earlier today). So it is.
Price advisor
After nearly six months on the market, 45 Hillside Drive has dropped its price $100,000, and now asks $4.495 million. I suppose the idea behind taking such an itsy bitsy teenie weenie price cut is to signal that the owner is finally willing to at least listen to a lower offer, but the message I get is that, if he wouldn’t budge for six months and is barely budging now, he’s intransigent.
Which would be fine, if the entire market hadn’t been telling him since April that his price was wrong. I’ll pass.
Harbor Point Association Mutual Aid Society, Hurricane Sandy, 2013
11 Highgate Road, in Harbor Point, is 0.67 acres (R-1 zone), with a house on it that “was damaged by Sandy and must be repaired.” It’s probably safe to say that a house flooded almost a year ago and left untouched since is not a prime candidate for restoration, so we can treat this as a land sale. Is $2.225 million too much? Probably, but Harbor Point, with its private beach and small, traffic-free network of roads, is one of Riverside’s prettiest neighborhoods, and someone might bite the bullet and build a stilt house here. However, I think there’s at least one other house in this price range that is on higher ground and a much larger parcel, and I’d want to look at that, too, before deciding.
View from 73 Club Road (representative)
73 Club Road, which sold for $8 million in 2010, is back on the market, unchanged, for $9.5 million. This is very nice land with Cos Cob Harbor frontage (and Mianus Bridge highway noise, but that’s a quibble). Its 2.67 acres comprise two separate building lots but to split this parcel would, I think, be a mistake; you’d end up with two narrow side-by-side rectangles and neither would be anywhere nearly so nice as the whole.
2010 was not a great year for real estate, so it’s possible that in this recovered market this price will stick. On the other hand, Club Road sold well even during that period and $8 million struck me then as a very high value.
One way to find out: wait and see.
45 Husted Lane
45 Husted Lane, now at $6.895 million. Brother Gid tried selling this for them back in 2006 for $7.995 and it’s been on and off the market since, at various prices and with various brokers. This was built by Hobbs, according to the listing, so there can be no question as to its quality. Is there anything else, except its price, that’s preventing its sale?
I don’t remember seeing this, although I’m sure I have sometime in the past seven years, so I can’t say what the problem is with the place, if a problem there is. One clue, perhaps, is that in all its listings, even when it was new, there are no pictures of its yard. It’s on two acres (two separate, one-acre building lots, in fact), so there’s certainly room for a yard unless the topography prevents it. Swamp? Cliffs? Maybe.
But that’s just a guess. I’ll check it out next time there’s an open house and report back. Or I could just ask Gideon.
UPDATE: Another agent reports “zero yard”. No pictures: the dog that did not bark.
Filed under Mid Country
For What It's Worth 
