Stop Him Before He Kills Again!
In the aftermath of a Federal court’s ruling that the SEC lacks jurisdiction over hedge funds our would-be-Senator, Attorney General Richard Blumenthal has announced that he’ll seek to regulate them himself. How is this related to real estate? Simple: two-thirds of Greenwich’s commercial real estate is rented to hedge funds or hedge fund service industries, according to the recent Vanity Fair article on our town (surprisingly accurate, by the way), and 10% of all hedge fund capital is based here. I won’t try to guess how much of our residential real estate is owned by hedge fund principals and lower ranks, but it’s a lot. One of those people, a client of mine, explained that the funds moved from New York to Greenwich when New York sought to tax the earnings of non-New York residents. They moved once, they can move again. All that’s needed to trade securities these days is a high-speed internet connection, something that is as readily available in, say, Colorado as it is in Greenwich. I sympathize with Mr. Blumenthal’s desperate desire to move up in the political world, but destroying Greenwich’s economic base seems too steep a price for us to indulge his ambitions.

Insulated Concrete Forms
A reader brought to my attention a new house that’s being constructed on Bramble Lane in Riverside with what I now know are ICFs – Styrofoam molds filled with reinforced concrete. I was curious and looked the subject up on the net. While that hardly makes me an expert, this type of construction seems to hold promise. It is incredibly energy efficient and, because there’s no wood framing, the resulting house is impervious to termites and other pests. But I found enough horror stories out there to make it clear that you do not want to be the first house a builder tries this out on – there seems to be a bit of a learning curve. A Bramble Lane resident, also a builder, happened to be outside when I stopped by to see the project and he expressed skepticism while allowing that, in a place like Hawaii, where man-eating termites go through houses in a few years, it might make sense. And certainly in a place exposed to hurricanes, a house made from reinforced concrete sounds a lot more secure than a stick-built home. I’ll keep my eye on this one and tell you how it comes out.

Inventory
The single family home inventory continues to decline and is now just 9% higher than this time last year (533 vs. 488). That places us 18% higher than 2004 but, I’ll repeat, 2004 was the best year for sales in town history. I keep hearing of buyers who are “waiting for prices to fall”. They haven’t yet (we’re way above last year for both average and median prices) but buyers’ borrowing power has dropped 15% since last year due to interest hikes. So keep waiting – you’ll get less house for the same monthly payment but, by God, you won’t overpay for that muffler!

Still More Numbers
Sales this year, to date (and I dislike using sales statistics because they’re a lagging indicator) are 294 compared to 344 (all figures as of June 29) last year, or a 15% drop. Houses that went to contract between January one and now, 363 vs. 407, for a 10% decline. These are not scary drop offs, in my opinion. Price your house right, and it will sell. The only exception to all this non-alarming news might be the condominium inventory which is 78% higher than last year (160 now vs. 90 then) and sales/contracts are down 30%. There’s been a lot of new construction going on, and now might be a fine time to cut a deal with a builder.

752 North Street
When the purchasers of the beautiful 1839 home located at this address tore it down many of us were horrified. I, at least, was a bit mollified when a new, tasteful, modestly-sized house replaced it. When I toured it the other day, I learned for the first time of the ultimately futile struggle to save the original building. Sadly, the house was beyond repair and as walls were opened, new, ever more horrifying discoveries were made, necessitating still more modifications and demo work until nothing was left. But the new house is very nice and perhaps it will be as admired 160 years from now as the house it replaced. Barbara Zaccagnini listing, $4,995,000.