All that’s old is new again

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.

More Mid Country blues

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.

We’re not in Riverside anymore, Toto

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.

So what were they thinking in 2007?

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.

On the other hand, here’s someone who disagrees with the previous post

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.

Abandoned Ridgeview Ave. house finds buyer and (unrelated), the Synagogue expands its Cos Cob footprint

 

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.

Slow day for real estate

Three small items to note.

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.

Foreclosure price cut on Round Hill Road

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.

Dang, I was hoping to snag this one for my own kids

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.

 

Back from open houses

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.

54 Cathlow Drive, Riverside

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.

She wore an itsy bitsy, teenie weenie, yellow polkadot …

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.

Former First Selectman Tom Ragland is moving

His home at 2 Spring Street, Riverside, just came on, asking $2.395. No pictures posted yet but it’s always been a very pretty house and looks extremely well maintained. I always thought more of his house than I did his services and talents as our First Selectman, but when he and another First Selectman, the late Bill Lewis (whom I greatly admired) both lived on Spring, there was one street in Riverside you could count on being plowed, no matter how large or unexpected the storm. That was before Cos Cobbers reclaimed the town government, of course, and the decline began.

$2.225 for an undersized building lot in Harbor Point?

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.

Riverside land for $9.5 million? Maybe

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.

And back for another try…

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.

After Greenway’s $50 million cut, a mere $2 million doesn’t sound like much.

This one won’t last!

Nonetheless, that’s what the owner of 918 North Street has shaved off his price, so what would have cost you $13.9 million yesterday can be yours today for $11.9 million. This property has been on the market since 2009, when it asked $16.9 million and so far, it’s proved to have the attractiveness of a junked Corolla. Perhaps this latest reduction will fix that.

Deep pockets

6 Meadowcroft: should be a rather generous negotiating buffer now.

Two days ago I mentioned that 6 Meadowcroft Road, priced at $13.750 million, was back on the market after reporting a fully executed contract back in June, and I wondered whether, as there were no contingencies, the defaulting buyer had forfeited his 10% deposit. I now hear that indeed he did; he found another house he liked better. As a product of the “new math” curriculum of the late 60s, I’ll have to leave it to you math wizards to calculate ten percent of $13,750,000, but it’s a lot.

Often, the more I like a house, the longer it takes to find a buyer. Here’s an example

335 Valley Road

335 Valley Road has finally reported an executed contract. (link now fixed)

I loved this house when I saw it four months ago and predicted it would sell within two weeks. Off by 127 days (well technically, subtract 14 days from that number) and it had to take a price cut, from $2.375 million to $2.250.

Oh well. I’m delighted that it has found a buyer in any event, and I hope the new owners will like it as much as I do. And I still think, given what’s out there in this price range, it’s one of the best. Obviously, a number of other buyers disagreed, but that’s why houses come in different styles. How boring it would be to live in one of those modern, built-on-a-cornfield developments you find in northern Virginia, for instance, where the only variation, house after house, row after row, is which side of the house the garage is on.

♫ Back in the saddle, again

326 Cognewaugh, $1.275 ask, was reported as having an accepted offer last week but is back on active status today. Deals go wrong for lots of reasons so I won’t speculate, but this is never good news for home owners.