New Homes
I wouldn’t call it a glut, but there are 62 new (built 2005 or 2006) houses currently for sale, 44 of which are priced from $3,500,000 up to $14,500,000. Location, as ever, is the key to a builder’s success so I wouldn’t take a chance on an iffy-street right now. You’ve got a lot of competition out there, and judging from what I see going up around town, more to come.

Where Are We Heading?
An article in last week’s Wall Street Journal reported that New England is losing jobs, population and house sales. It’s a disturbing trend and I don’t think it can all be attributable to the horrendous traffic problems here in the southern tier. The Milken Institute (yes, that Milken, but never mind) ranks Connecicut as the 5th most expensive state to do business in, Massachusetts 3rd and New York 2nd (Hawaii wins 1st place but does anyone really move to Hawaii to conduct business? Aside from growing Maui Wowie?). One little bright spot for Connecticut is that last year we moved from dead last in job creation to 44th. But our Legislature will be back in session soon and I’m sure they’ll find a way to end that.

Are Prices Softening?
Lots of us realtors with buyers for clients can report that there’s a strong reluctance out there to make offers; the buyers are waiting for prices to fall. Because of our Board’s inability to match sales price to original asking price I can give you no definitive statistics but my instinct tells me that prices are still holding. Yes, a house on Riverside Avenue just went off to contract at a price at least 20% lower than first asked a year ago, but the fact that the house sat unsold for all of 2005, a strong market, suggests strongly that it was just mis-priced to begin with. Average sales price this June is 21.7% higher than June ’05 and, year to date, that average is 20.7% higher, so waiting hasn’t proved a winning strategy so far. But this much is definite: justified or not, there is no sense of urgency among buyers. Perhaps there should be.

6 Glen Court
My brother Gideon has the listing for this in-town property but I still like it. Five bedrooms, brand new kitchen and a terrific backyard, unusual for this area. All updated mechanicals, nice slate roof, asking $2,275,000. Seems about right to me.

Artificial Turf, Revisited
I heard from both the owner of the orchard Street house (not a condo, as I supposed) with the artificial lawn and its installer, Ken Gentile of Executive Putting Greens. Turns out, synthetic lawn turf may well be the future. Put it down over a 6” crushed rubber fill and you have a safe playground area that won’t wear out. Build, as Gentile’s company name suggests, a putting green that never needs maintenance. This stuff is completely different from the original Astro-Turf (which went out of business four years ago, I’ve learned). Manufacturers can replicate almost any type of grass, and do, depending on intended use. Las Vegas, to encourage water conservation, even pays homeowners $1.00 a foot to replace their organic stuff with artificial. I’m not necessarily sold on the concept but it is intriguing and if I had small kids or played golf I’d definitely look into it. You can find more information on the Web or call Gentile at (203) 496-0891.

And Speaking of Plastic
One of my clients asked if she should even consider any house with vinyl siding. It’s entirely personal, of course, but I side (pun intended) with Tom Silva of This Old House who says, “I love wood, but I’d rather spend weekends on my boat.” I think the solid panel version looks pretty good and, having spent countless hours scraping, sanding, staining and cleaning up after myself, I’d consider using it. You can’t get away with it on a high end house but I’m not a high end kind of guy, so that solves that. One caveat: don’t slap up vinyl to cover up peeling, blistered siding without first correcting the underlying moisture problem that’s causing your paint to fail. You’ll hide the symptom but rot the house.

California Dreaming
Did you see the New York Times article on Hollywood big shots erecting 30,000 sq.ft. mansions on 2-acre lots? All in one (crowded) neighborhood. Since every bad idea California comes up with – Scientology comes to mind – eventually drifts east, I have finally found something good to say about our FAR regulations.