The spring market has finally arrived and it’s hot – I blame global warming

11 Pleasant View Place

11 Pleasant Place, in Havemeyer came on last week priced at $2.375 and already has an accepted offer. I thought it was a great renovation/transformation, with really top-quality construction. I liked it so much in fact that I didn’t mention it here, wanting to show it to my clients first. Turns out that its layout didn’t work for them, but someone else certainly liked it.

For all my enthusiasm, however, I thought, along with several other good, experienced agents I discussed it with at last week’s open house, that it would sell in the $1.9 range, not $2.3 or $2.4. I believe we all missed the shift in prices that’s occurring, which is great news for sellers, bad news for buyers. And I should have caught that shift because I’ve been upgrading my own opinion on value for a number of houses that didn’t sell last fall – those same prices are looking reasonable now, because of the lack of inventory and what houses in the $3-and-under range are selling for.

Accepted offer, Old Greenwich

141 Sound Beach Ave

141 Sound Beach Avenue, asking $1.650 million, gone in five days. Good house, not a location I’d consider spending $1.650 million to live in, just because of the Sound Beach Avenue traffic, but that’s just a personal reaction. Can’t beat the convenience, with ice cream, a bar and the train station directly across the street. The kids can grow fat on Chubby Wubby Pecan Delight while Mom sees Hubby off to work and then retires to Mackenzie’s for a couple or three morning pick-me-ups. Not that a Greenwich family would do that, naturally, I’m just pointing out that they could.

Sale and a price cut

5 Dawn Harbor

5 Dawn Harbor, Riverside, sold for $2.650 million. That’s not all that far from $3.195 million, where it started two years ago in March 2011 but apparently that 3 in front was enough to keep buyers away. It doesn’t take too much to scare off buyers, so pay attention: if you’re not getting offers, drop the price quickly. Unless you want to wait around two years and sell it for what you could have got for the joint in the first place. Your choice.

44 Hunting Ridge

And maybe the owners of 44 Hunting Ridge have figured that out, because they dropped their price today to $5.795 from last month’s $6.195 million. Of course, they started down this road way back in 2006, at $7.995, and that listing, or another one just like it expired, house unsold and asking $5.695, in May, 2012. I wouldn’t have tried to get $6.195 so soon after being unable to sell it for $5.6, but that’s just me, and today’s price cut indicates that they’re learning.

But the high-five range is tough these days. A lot of inventory, few buyers willing to part with that much money.

Whack!

82 Glenville Rd

. 82 Glenville Road. Owners paid $3 million for it in 2002 and started off this time at $3.875. They didn’t get it. Just sold for $2.350.

Our market has improved over the dismal days of 2008-2011, but don’t mistake local hot spots for the entire Greenwich area. Like everything in life, “it depends’.

Accepted offer on (the other) River Road

525 River Road

525 River Road, the River Road that leaves across from North Mianus School on Sheephill and runs north on the east side of the Mianus to Stamford, has an accepted offer, last asking price $1.845 million, after sitting around since last July at $2.1. Looks like an okay house – maybe a modular, but there’s nothing at all wrong with modulars if they’re built right (which makes them no different from stick-built homes).

This River Road’s a bit tricky, because it has dodgy houses at its entrance and then continues into a stretch of wilderness that affords no real neighborhood. That doesn’t bother some people, including me, who appreciate the beauty of the Mianus River so close by, and the quiet solitude to be found here. For others, it’s different.

But a builder I know will be encouraged by this sale, because he’s been planning three houses which he’d like to list at $1.9 apiece. I’d been dubious of his achieving that level, but apparently he can.

No open houses today

Fear of snow must have caused them to cancel. In the meantime, what little real estate news there is to report are two contracts, 20 Midbrook Lane, Old Greenwich, $1.045 ask, and 20 Winthrop, Riverside, $1.450 ask.

20 Midbrook Lane

There’s not much to Midbrook but then, there’s not much to the $1 million inventory in Old Greenwich, so you take what you can get.

20 Winthrop DriveWood was reported as having an accepted offer back in late October and I don’t know the reason for the holdup between then and now, but the parties have entered into contract now, regardless of the reason for that time gap. Interesting to note that this same house sold for $1.525 back in 2002. It’s lower price now probably reflects that it was sold as a house back then and is valued only as land now. Or that’s my stab at an explanation.

Thinking of jokes

I mentioned to Last Liberal Standing that we should share popcorn at a movie together and that got me to thinking. You’d never believe it, but (some) real estate lawyers have a sense of humor, notably, the two Kaye brothers, Joel and Jeremy and their honorary brother, Tom Ward, who was abandoned as an infant on the Kaye doorstep and raised as a Gentile in a Jewish home.

You would expect Tom and Joel to have a wicked sense of humor, and they do, but if you ever have the good fortune to have a closing with Jeremy, as buyer or seller, you really must insist – put it in the sales contract, if need be – that Jeremy agree to tell you both his jury picking/goat f”’ing joke and his popcorn/Parkinson’s Disease story. Not only does the guy have his accents down perfectly, but coming from such a sweet looking, soft speaking guy (unless you’re negotiating with him) the shock of hearing risqué jokes is doubly hilarious.

My real estate tip of the day.

Calculated Risk Blog

Reader Krazy Kat sometimes sends me links to articles on this blog, CalculatedRisk.com, and they’re always interesting. Here’s one explaining why there are two bottoms in housing declines: housing starts and new homes and then later, sometimes a couple of years later, existing housing prices. Obviously, homeowners will be more affected by the latter. Is the author right? Heck if I know but he or she seems to know a lot more than I do, so why not? I’m just guessing anyway. Scroll up (or down – it’s a great blog)  for more good stuff on the real estate market, mortgages, etc. Here’s what the author has to say about two bottoms:

In my previous post I discussed the question: Housing Starts: Is this the bottom?

We don’t know the answer yet.

But some readers are confusing a bottom in housing starts with a bottom in pricing.It doesn’t work that way!

There will be two distinct bottoms for housing:

1) First single-family housing starts and new home sales will bottom.

and then followed some time later …

2) Prices for existing homes will bottom.

Just about every housing bust follows this pattern. The bottom in prices could be a year, or two, or more away. It is way too early to try to call the bottom in prices. House prices will almost certainly fall all year and probably next year too. Prices will continue to fall. Prices are not at the bottom. 

Sorry for repeating myself.

Also, it is theoretically possible that single-family housing starts (off 80% from peak) and new home sales (off 78% from peak) could go to zero – but unlikely. Sometime this year housing starts and new home sales will probably bottom, but that doesn’t indicate a bottom for house prices.