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.

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.

♫ 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.

Turns out, there IS a limit

And not just in Riverside, as these transactions from all parts of town show.

5 Old Mill Lane

5 Old Mill Lane, 14,000 sq.ft of questionable taste on 2 acres, sold for $10.375 million. That’s  lot of money, for some of you, but the sellers paid $11.2 million for it in 2007. They originally priced it at $12.750 this past winter, but that proved overly optimistic.

5 Irvine

5 Irvine Road, Old Greenwich’s price trajectory also illustrates, maybe, that there’s  a ceiling after all. It’s marked down today (pictures will be posted soon, I assume), for $2.835 million. That’s a lot for a house with a FARport instead of a garage to keep Stamford bicycle thieves at bay, but it sold for $2.750 in 2004, $2.875 in 2005, and $3.225 in 2007. This time around, in 2012, it started at $3.350 million before falling back to earth. Welcome back to 2004, if someone’s lucky.

31 Vista is not a new listing, but its agent switched brokers and took this property with her. Given its history, her old broker was probably glad to see it go. It’s been for sale since early 2010, when it wanted $16.750 million, and has been at its current price, $8.995, for more than a year. Not happening. I’m not sure what a waterfront building lot’s worth over here: I’d guess around $5 million, but whatever that price is, that’s what this place is worth.

6 Meadowcroft

And here’s a surprise: 6 Meadowcroft, which started at $17.4 million in 2011 and finally reported a contract on its last price of $13.750 million a few months ago is back on the market, still at that $13.750 price. The contract was reported as fully executed, no contingencies, so I wonder whether the defaulting buyer walked from his 10% deposit? That would hurt.

Two contracts, one price cut

Havemeyer’s low end is still smoking; Round Hill land, not so much.

36 Old Wagon

36 Old Wagon, $849,000, nine days on market.

10 Edward Place

10 Edward Place, $799,000, 18 DOM

434 Round Hill Rd

434 Round hill Road, 7.8 acres of gorgeous land, with tear-down, just dropped from $7 million to $5.795. Call me crazy, but I’m having difficulty seeing all that much difference between this land and the land at 558 Round Hill Road, also 8 acres, also a $2.2 assessment, also swooping meadows, which sold last month for $3.5 million. Let’s see if the market can.

Accepted offers reported

Four of them.

171 Cognewaugh

171 Cognewaugh, an 1800 house on 2+ acres, asking $1.289. I assume this will prove to be a land sale only, which is too bad; Cognewaugh and Cat Rock are just about the last streets in town to still have antique homes, and they’re disappearing at an increasing pace.

11 Meadow Drive

11 Meadow Drive, in Cos Cob, asked $744,500 and has gone in 9 days. At this price, in that neighborhood, no surprise.

75 Ct. Avenue

75 Connecticut Avenue tried without success to get $3.895 back in 2007 and was rented out since. When the owner cut $1.150 million from its price and listed it at $2.699, it sold. Good house, but it overlooks chicken shacks and pig pens on the street behind it.

2 Carey Road

And good gracious, 2 Carey Road, Riverside, has another buyer. This wreck of a house has a boulder for a yard, no access to the Mianus (no easy access when the cops don’t cut it down, a rope swing allows visiting swimmers to drop in), and just 0.16 of an acre to build on. Notwithstanding those limitations it found a buyer last June, only to have the deal fall through. Now it’s done it again.

A little bit of activity reported

A sale, an accepted offer, a price increase (!) and a decrease (in Riverside, no less).

22 Welywnn

An August 8 sale that was just posted today is 22 Welywnn Road, Riverside, asked $2599, got $2.375. Welywnn’s a nice street, off the northern portion of Indian Head Road, so easy walk to the schools and train; this price doesn’t surprise me at all.

85 Richmond Hill Rd

And poor old 85 Richmond Hill Road, up near the North Pole, has finally found a buyer, or at least someone has made an acceptable offer. Latest asking price was $5.495 million, which sounds like a lot, and it is, but the owner bought this spec home when it was brand spanking new in 2006 for $7.1 million. I don’t think he ever lived in it – marital discord, and he put it bad up for sale in 2007 for $8.9 million, with no explanation of why it was worth almost $2 million more than the year before. Even more curious, when it didn’t sell after six months he must have panicked, because he chopped a full $5,000.00 off its price and, six months later again, another $5,000. That $10,000 reduction produced nothing in the way of a buyer but did provide a good source for derision, heaped on with great enthusiasm by this blogger.

It was rented out for a while, then returned to the market in 2010 for $7.675 and, 1,438 days after beginning its journey, has seemingly found a buyer. It looks as though instead of making $2 million on his purchase, the owner will lose $2 million. Real estate’s funny that way.

6 Dunwoodie

The owners of 6 Dunwoodie are taking a different approach from Richmond Hill’s and after they were unable to sell their home for $1.690 million, have increased it today to $2.250 – let this serve as a cautionary tale to you recalcitrant buyers: pay full asking price now or be punished later; your choice.

40 Winthrop

And 40 Winthrop Drive, Riverside, which came on just a week or two ago for $3.395 has dropped to $3.195. That’s a smart move on the owners’ part and their agent. This is quite a nice home inside, and the yard and the street are great, but if the market is telling you you’ve overshot the proper price, don’t d*** around, fix it. In some areas of town, two weeks without an acceptable offer shouldn’t be wildly alarming but in Riverside, in this market, in this neighborhood, you definitely guessed a little bit wrong. Nothing wrong with that- no one said this was a science, but don’t cling stubbornly to a price you want if the market says you want too much. I applaud these folks, and if you haven’t seen it, check it out. Nice house.

Sale, contract, price cut

No, no the same property, three different ones

9 Shore Acre

9 Shore Acre Drive, Old Greenwich, asked $3.195, got $3,050,80 (there’s nothing as annoying to an agent then getting caught up in one of these end-stage nickel-and-dime negotiations when the reward for those last coins is so little. Important, no doubt, for the parties, but a 5% commission on eight eighty-bucks, divided four ways, is $1 each. And it may take three weeks to get to that dollar.

9 Paddock Drive

9 Paddock, up on the Merritt off of Lake, has a contract. Started at $2.695, dropped to $2.495, which is what it was purchased for in 2002. I liked this house very much. Paddock is a nice little dead-end street, this house itself was opened up and expanded and has a great yard, and the highway noise is not too noisy. Compared to what you’d get elsewhere in this price range, it’s a lot of house.

And, of course, convenient to transportation.

12 Shore Rd

And 12 Shore Road, also in Old Greenwich, has suffered another price cut and is now priced at $2.675, q huge improvement over its first price when it was built in 2011, $3.495. I thought the house was great when I saw it back then, with direct frontage on Tomac Cove, but it didn’t strike me, or any buyer, as a $3.5 house. Now, it looks like a relative bargain.

Contract and a new listing

534 North Street

Just about my favorite house in town, 534 North Street, is finally under contract. This 1819 Federal is a treat to drive by and a reminder, however bitter-sweet, of what North Street once was. The price that did the job was $2.395 million (that’s the last asking price; presumably the actual selling price will be less). The owners tried to get $3.295 million last year but no one bit. Overshooting by a million bucks will do that to a house.

 

 

 

Fountain’s selling tip of the day: If you want to charge $4.5 million for your house, don’t use a photo taken in mid-March for a late August debut, and stain the freakin’ deck.

Under new listings, 5 Grimes Road in Shorelands (Old Greenwich) is up, asking $4.495. This was built in 1991, so probably didn’t get hammered by Sandy but much of Shorelands did. Readers? Experience? Insights? $4.5 seems pretty steep to me, but we’ll see.

Price cut on Round Hill, land sale in Riverside

286 Round Hill Road

286 Round Hill Road has taken yet another price cut and is now down to $3.250 million. This is a great house, built in 1900 (renovated and expanded since), on 3.5 acres in the 2-acre zone, and all-in-all, feels like a wonderful place to live. But it was  placed for sale in 2009 at the daunting price of $5.375 and although as the years passed that price dropped, it moved slowly, step-by-step, inch-by-inch, so that now, when it’s probably priced about where it should have been four years ago, a buyer’s response upon seeing it the first time is likely to be “why should I buy what no one else wants?”  Don’t let this happen to you.

12 Long View, Rvsd

Over in Riverside, where people do still want to live, 12 Long View Avenue (the short strip connecting Gilliam and Armstrong) has gone to contract after just two weeks, at $2.9 million. 0.8 acre in the R-12,000 zone and two separate building lots, but this buyer’s taking both, so look for a large house*. This is probably wise, because so much of the property is wetlands that a single house will be easier to fit around them, rather than trying to cram two houses onto what dry land there is.

The house it will be replacing, by the way, is the ugliest house I have ever seen, anywhere. The Fountain boys grew up just a few doors down on Gilliam Lane and have watched in wonder as over the decades owners came and went while the structure remained. Back in the 50s Popular Mechanics awarded it a prize for requiring the least maintenance of any home in the country, but it looks like a slate-sided outhouse and aside from the nostalgia of it all, I don’t think the neighborhood will miss it.

* it occurs to me that a builder may have bought both lots with the intention of building two houses. In my opinion, this would be the wrong choice, regardless of the presence of those wetlands, because there’s such a shortage of large (by Riverside standards) lots, a builder can expect a premium for building on one. Look at Kali-Naggy’s experience on Marks Road, also in Riverside. He took a lot of, I think, 0.6 acres, split it in two and tried selling the resulting houses for $4 million each. He never got it.

Mid country land is coming back fast

12 Flagler

12 Flagler Drive, 2 acres, has an executed contract. It was listed at $2.7 million and went in just 15 days, so it’s a safe assumption that it will be selling for close to that asking price, at least.

21 Flagler

This compares to the 2012 sale of 21 Flagler for $2.425 which, although it had a perfectly nice house on it, was valued and sold as land. In fact, I believe the house has already disappeared. 25 took forever to sell, but that’s because it started out at $3.5 in 2010, which was just silly.

25 Flagler

And speaking of 2010, that’s when 25 Flagler sold, for $2.3. Another 2-acre lot. I’d say all three parcels were just about equal, although my personal preference was #21 – a bit of wetlands at its western border, but a fine yard all the same, and that 1930s house, a colonial reproduction, could have served as a most excellent house for a buyer with more modest taste. All that said, I’d guess that over the past three years we’ve witnessed a $400,000 increase in the price of a good mid country building lot.

487 North Street

The five acres at 487 North a client of ours bought late last year for $4.750 backs up to Flagler, and looks like a good deal today.

Contract on Gatefield Drive

28 Gatefield Drive

Reported today, 28 Gatefield Drive, asking $3.795 million, is under contract. Nice house, and a good price for the seller, but I wonder if he thinks it was worth keeping the property in showing condition for 746 days as he slowly worked his price down from $4.650? I wouldn’t.

It’s an Ogilvy listing, however, so at least there’ll be no 10% Buffet Give Back fee.

Real estate news reported

Some sales, an accepted offer and a new listing.

55 Lockwood Ave

55 Lockwood Avenue, Old Greenwich, asked $1.695 million, got $1.275.

49 Lockwood Lane

49 Lockwood Lane, Riverside, asked $1.350 and found a buyer almost immediately at $1.291 (where’d that last thousand come from?)

5 Keofferam

5 Keofferam. OG, finally has an accepted offer. It’s been asking $3.310 million these days and I really can’t understand why it’s stayed on the market so long – 382 days. Great house, recently updated, wonderful road and location. People have been paying more for far less, which just shows something about the quirky nature of real estate.

40 Winthrop Drive

And 40 Winthrop Drive, Riverside, a so-so house built in 1996 on what was the Berrizzi’s property, is new to the market and asking $3.495. I don’t see the value here (the listing makes no mention of improvements made since it was constructed 18 years ago) but Winthrop’s a popular street, so who knows?

Inventory clearance

In addition to 54 Highview Avenue, discussed below, another long time denizen of our multiple listing service, 18 Sandy Lane has gone to contract. I liked this house, off of Round Hill Road on four acres but with some exposure to Merritt Parkway noise, but I never thought it was worth its original asking price of $2.995 million. It eventually dropped, over the course of 18 months, to $1.825, which seemed closer to its real value. What did it actually sell for? I’ll let you know as soon as that is reported.

Not a creature was stirring …

We’ve seen 4 single family contracts reported these first two weeks of December all in the 2’s or lower. This compares with 12 in the same period last year, with prices ranging up to the high 7’s, 30 in those two weeks in 2006 and 28 in 2005 (prices $17 million on down). People are waiting for your prices to drop. Other people are waiting for your offers to rise. It’s a conundrum.

Missed a good one

This house at 7 Fairchild Lane was a bit off the beaten track in the Riversville Road /NW corner of town, but it seems like a good deal for two acres, 5,000 + sf (tax card and the listing differ) 6 bedrooms, pool and a nice yard. The town valued it at $2,949,000 with an assessed value (70%) of $2,064,000. It was an estate sale and I guess the heirs wanted to move it because it came on in November at just $2,250,000 and went to contract yesterday. 

The town’s estimate of value is not always right, of course, but that assessment was $2.250 was not only a smart price, it’s a good indication of what’s happening to real estate out there.

Contract

 2 Old Stone Bridge Road has finally found a buyer. Owned (or handled, anyway) by a relocation company, it was originally listed in March for $2.595 and has seen a succession of price cuts since before eventually landing at $1,995,950 – a number that suggests a grudging employee at the relo who resented every cut. I liked the house – it sits up on a hill, was nicely renovated by its current owners and had a very nice in-law or teenager suite above the garage. Unlike some houses I’ve seen that are just wildly over-priced, I think this one’s difficulties selling had more to do with the market than anything else.

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.

Where are the contracts of yesteryear?

A reader asks if, by November 2007 the market wasn’t already slowing down and wonders how many houses went to contract the year before. Here you go:

(Single family house contracts)

November 2008: 12

November 2007: 39

November 2006: 62

November 2005: 47

November 2004: 59

Any way you slice it, last month was pretty weak.

November Contracts

Twelve single family houses went to contract last month, compared to 39 in November 2007 (-70%). Worse, or better, if you’re a buyer, of the two large spec houses included in that tally one, 480 North Street, sold for $4.5 million instead of its first asking price of $9.5 and the other, 205 Clapboard Ridge, may have sold for about the same low percentage – what we do know is that it came on four years ago for $12.250  million and was last heard from at $7.950 million.

Just thought you’d want to know.