Activity, or not

Results of a February bidding war and two more price cuts.

8 Dearfield

8 Dearfield Drive, cheek by jowl to the commercial zone, asked $1.195 last February and promptly entered a bidding war. It closed just now, at $1.4 million.

39 Hearthstone

39 Hearthstone, on the other hand, has cut its price to $1.795 just 59 days after starting off at $1.950 million. It sold for $1.450 in 2009 and when it first came on this time I questioned whether it could really fetch such a premium price for some fairly modest improvements. Guess not.

12 S. Baldwin

And back with yet another broker and a brand new price, 12 S. Baldwin Farms is now looking for $5.295 million.

Jay Silver assembled this spec home in 2007 and priced it at $12.495. That proved to be the wrong price for this French Chateau/farm house/American Eclectic style (the “Dog’s Breakfast Model”, I’d call it) and its price dropped down to $8.995 in 2008, when Patriot Bank started a foreclosure suit. The bank eventually prevailed and brought the house back on in 2011 for $7.499. That price was no more popular than Mr. Silver’s suggested retail so now, another broker, another price.

At $2.975, you might have a deal.

Price war in the backcountry and … the waiting game

 

98 Lower Cross Rd

98 Lower Cross Road asked $1.950 in June and got into a bidding war that month. Sold today for $2.050. This was my brother Gideon’s listing back in 2009, when it sold for $1.850 million. Despite its ridiculously non-conforming size; 0.5 acre in the R-4 zone, it’s a very nice house inside and backs up to the Babcock Property, so you won’t run out of recreational space. It’s a reach to town but obviously there are people out there willing to deal with that. I know I would.

2 Sheldrake

And behind the hospital, 2 Sheldrake, what the new listing broker describes as an “interesting” split-level is back at $1.296 million after expiring unsold this past April at $1.155. The owners have been trying to sell this since at least 2010, when they priced it at $1.290, so they clearly are in no rush to move it. The recovering market will probably enable them to get their price, eventually.

Here’s what’s selling

139 Havemeyer Place

This 1911 2 -family went to contract today. Asked $949,000 and eventually dropped 25% to $699. My guess is it sold for even less than that. A brave builder or a low-end buyer who saw a chance to get into Greenwich cheap? We’ll find out, eventually.

Nice House

3 MacPherson Drive

is a 1929 charmer on that odd little street off lower North Street: the street has its own small green ringed by great old houses of which all but this one have been renovated. And this one has, in my opinion, the best, quietest, most private yard of them all. It could use a new kitchen and probably some updating of its mechanicals but it has 9′ ceilings, beautiful “bones”, to use that real estate cliche and, given its location, well worth the money and time you’d invest in bringing it up to date. Asking $5.0 million, or thereabouts. You can probably dicker a bit.

To market to market to buy a fat hog,

Spec houses are still coming onto the market as they are completed, although I wonder how many of their builders wish they’d never started their project to begin with. 49 Woodland is a single family home that’s new today – I assume it’s been built but I have not seen it. From its description it sounds nice: 4500 sf spread over three levels, four bedrooms, four baths and two powder rooms, a splashy new kitchen, etc. Can a house on this street on 0.12 acre command $2.695 in today’s market? I really don’t know.

Woodland is that loop of a street that runs from the hill on Sound View over to Field Point Road. You can walk to town or the train from there but you’ll have to bring your climbing boots for that hill. And as some readers have pointed out about the trucks winding their way up Sound View, there’s some noise in the area; Woodland itself is somewhat removed from that circus but so is Idar Court and the houses there didn’t do well when they were first offered for sale.

How about a 4 bedroom house on such a tiny lot, however? Four bedrooms implies a house for a family with kids; 0.12 acres suggests a town house for empty nesters. An interesting dichotomy, to be sure. Well, as I’m fond of saying these days, we will see.