$50 million price cut from Ogilvy

Stormy Weather ….

499 Indian Field Road, which made headlines around the world when it was listed a few months ago for $190 million has, as predicted here, taken the first of what will probably be many price cuts. Today, that same property can be yours for the bargain price of just $140 million. Also as predicted here, the same reporters who gave Ogilvy such great press originally will not be around to report on this or subsequent price cuts. Smart man, that Ogilvy and a master at garnering free publicity.

I’m still holding to my prediction of $45 million, tops.

Stormy Circle

Further down the price scale and across the street from the water, 7 Stormy Circle (I kid you not) reports an accepted offer. It asked $1.680 in 2004 and didn’t get it. Owner brought it back at $1.095 this year and found a buyer.

Fortress Singapore?

There’s a rather modest house on the corner of Marks Road and Riverside Avenue that recently sold. The new owners have been busy ever since laying down stone, everywhere and building what I think will prove to be the framework  for a stone wall. At least I think it will be a wall; it’s late in the season to grow climbing beans.

Hey, it’s their property and the can do what they like with it, but it does add a certain fortified look to the neighborhood.

FWIW Ace Cub Reporter/photographer Sarah Fountain has been on the scene.

Bank owned in Byram

9 Byram Dock Street. I don’t recall if I saw this, but off the top of my head, I bet Zillow’s closer to the mark than the property’s new, unwilling owner. It did sell for $2.5 million in 2000, more fool they, but given its age: 1920, and its location directly on the water, it’s got to be non-FEMA-compliant, so look to spend major bucks bringing it up to code.

9 Byram Dock Street

UPDATE: I pulled the old MLS listing and now I do remember it. Absolutely fabulous house, and the new bank-listed price is probably not bad, with the same caveat of FEMA compliance. I saw this in 2007 and really, really liked it, but it was asking the ridiculous, verging-on-nuts price of $5.8 million. So instead of pricing it reasonably, the owner lost it all. Hard as it is to believe, Greenwich is known for its sophisticated, savvy people. Not all of them, obviously.

UPDATE II: Looks to me like there was $5.8 million in mortgage debt on this place, which explains the original asking price and the reason for the collapse of our banking system. Other observations: Deutsche Bank started foreclosure proceedings in 2009 and only fought past the defenses of the debtor this summer – not bad for the debtor: stay in the house rent-free for four years.

Bill Ferrell says, “why they’ll just let anyone in television!”

The (former) owner, one William G. Farell Ferrell, was a trader turned hedgefunder who used to write about a number of topics including “risk management”. Oops.

Here’s Zillow’s take:

SEPT 10 2013	Listed by bank	$2,429,845	This property was foreclosed and now the lender is selling it for$2,429,845.Zillow’s Foreclosure Estimate predicts this property will sell for$1,206,754.
	Foreclosed		The lender assumed this property during foreclosure proceedings and now owns it.

40 Byram Shore goes to Royal Bank of Scotland

A reader asked about a property transaction reported in the GT today showing this place going to RBS for a buck. “Is that a foreclosure?” he asked? Yup.

The unfortunate homeowner originally  bought the  place (across the street from the water so never worth all that much) for $739,000 in 2000 and must have run into financial trouble in 2006 because he put it up for sale at $1.595 with the notation that “seller eager for expeditious closing”. My advice, which he obviously didn’t get from his broker, is that if you’re in trouble, don’t mess around with a bad price. In any event, it didn’t sell and I’m pretty sure it went over to the bank awhile ago. At least, Weikert was trying to sell it as land for $949 and showed the owner as “retained property” which sounds like a bank/owner to me. That was back in November ’06 so perhaps the foreclosure dragged on but it now officially belongs to the bank. Lucky bank.

Testing the waters in Byram

57 Byram Shore Road is a nice older house with, these days, “water views” (its land was long since divided). It was first offered for sale in January 2005 for $5.775 million. The seller must have received some honest feedback at her first broker open house because it was dropped to $4.775 million just a few weeks later. It was still too expensive and languished, slowly dropping to a final price of $3.950 and then expiring unsold. Six months later in June 2006 the owner tried again, this time at $4.495, apparently hoping that the intervening months had magically added $545,000 to the house’s value. Sometimes there is no magic and that was the case here – the listing expired again, still priced at $4.495 in November of that year. After some regrouping the house is back today for a third time, priced at $4.650 million. If the real estate market has improved since November, 2006, it escaped me here in Riverside. Perhaps Byram is different.