Moving day?

Round Hill deportees

Ten new listings priced at $9 million and above have been added to the market in the past thirty days, joining thirty-nine homes already there. Only five in that range have sold thus far this year, but obviously the revival of the $1-$3.5 market has convinced some people that their time has come.

They may be wrong.

The exception that proves the rule

66 Glenwood

66 Glenwood Road, Belle Haven, was listed by its agent Chris Finlay for $6.750 million yet despite that preposterous price, he still managed to get it sold in under four months, for $5.1 million. Usually, too high a price simply kills a listing, so hats off to Finlay for avoiding that fate. It might be interesting to consider whether a better price could have been achieved had it been priced right to begin with, but that’s just pure speculation.

Gentlemen, start your dozers!

On the other hand, that same Mr. Finlay has probably hit the end of the nail upon its head with his new Belle Haven listing, 211 Otter Rock, at $5.4 million. This ramshackle old house (listing says “as is”), sold for $5 million at the height of the market in 2008, and it’s probably worth almost close to that today, so adjusting for the necessary sacrificial anode of that $400,000, the price seems right.

Here’s a poser

5 Meadow Wood Drive is a relatively new renovation on a back lot in Belle Haven. Unfortunately for its developer, that back lot backs all the way up to I-95 and the backyard is pretty much a green, pressure-treated wall of sound barrier. That no doubt contributed to its failure to reach its asking price of $7.950 million when it came up for sale in September 2006 and in the months since.

It’s been withdrawn as a sale and is now offered for rent, originally $25,000 per month ($300,000 per year, if your calculator isn’t handy) and, as of today, $15,000 ($180,000). That still seems stiff to me.

So here’s the question, or two questions: is it not offered for sale any longer because more is owed on the place than can reasonably be expected to be produced by a sale?; and how large is that building loan, and what does it cost to service it every month? I don’t know the answers but this house does seem to be one of the ill-advised projects begun in the go-go years and now coming back to haunt the participants.

Is Belle Haven immune from our market woes?

36 Walsh Lane

I guess we’ll find out. This house sold in August 2007 for $11,000,000. It’s back on the market today, unchanged, for 20% more than that: $13,250,000.