How to Win Friends and Influence People
At a public hearing held to discuss what to do with Glenville School: tear it down, rebuild, wait and do nothing, etc., the Parkway PTA school sent a representative down from the Back Country to scold the crowd. Parkway, not Glenville, she argued, should remain open because Parkway parents pay more taxes than Glenville. Properly chastened, the Glenville folks knuckled the tips of their caps and bowed their heads in shame. Or something. Here’s a tip I’ve learned from spending a half century in Greenwich and observing its politics: people with less money than their betters don’t seem to understand that they should get the dirty end of the stick when it comes to town services. Hard to believe, but it’s true and, surprise! They vote. Try another tactic.

Contracts
As of February 12th, 57 singe family residences have gone to contract this year, which seems healthy. Of those, only seven were new construction, indicating that the market for older homes appears to be coming back.

Prices
I cannot figure out what’s going on with sellers these days. Week after week, we’re seeing houses on the broker open house circuit that are millions of dollars too high, and that’s not just my opinion; other experienced agents say the same thing. So what gives? Have sellers lost their collective mind or are agents telling them anything they want to hear to get the listing? Either way, it won’t work – the market is just fine, but you can’t sell a $2,000,000 house for $3,000,000, or a $5,000,000 house for $8,000,000, not matter how attractive your marketing.

Zillow.com
The Wall Street Journal recently compared 1,000 actual sales to Zillow’s estimate of value and came to the same conclusion I did when I conducted my far less scientific survey: the site is generally accurate but, when it’s wrong, it’s way wrong. The Journal cited one house that Zillow said was worth $600,000 – it sold for $2,600,000. Oops! The danger here cuts both ways because buyers pass on great deals when Zillow says a house is worth far less than its true value and sellers insist on pricing a house far above what it’s worth if Zillow says otherwise. Look: it’s a stone throw’s distance from Hamilton Avenue to Belle Haven. Zillow doesn’t recognize that proximity doesn’t necessarily yield a comparable sale. Be careful.

Marketing
Can’t sell your corner lot house for months and months? One Realtor’s decided to change the address to the other street and raise the price $100,000. Seems silly to me – how dumb, exactly, are we supposed to be? – but it kind of makes sense, in a sneaky sort of way. I’ll let you know if it works.

For this we need Republicans?
Governor Rell has proposed raising taxes on Greenwich by another ½%. Already our tiny sliver (less than 2% of 3.4 million residents) pays 10% of all income tax. Rell wants us to pay more. Connecticut is already the third most expensive state in which to do business. In the past two decades we’ve loaded on an estate tax, an income tax, doubled (!) the number of state employees, are looking to add a “millionaire’s tax” (defined as anyone earning $500,000, by the way), and are now proposing to tax internet sales. As a state, we’re tops in the number of young people leaving and job growth is falling off a cliff. We’re third in the nation for spending per pupil, with dismal results, so Rell wants us to be first. Greenwich’s own Livvy Floren describes the Governor’s budget as, “ gutsy and very visionary”. I have a vision, all right; one that doesn’t include Ms. Floren as a state Representative.

Delta’s Not Ready When You Are
My youngest daughter is off to Costa Rica for a semester. Delta gladly sold us a one-way ticket online (return date is uncertain) but, when we dropped her at Kennedy at 5:00 a.m. she was told that Delta will not board any passenger flying one-way from one country to another. Besides the incredible rudeness of the ticket agent and his absolute refusal to even attempt to resolve the problem, further insult was added when Delta would only “cure” things by selling us a second one-way ticket at a huge premium. Absolutely appalling service; next time this airline returns to bankruptcy and its employees whine about losing their jobs, I’ll be cheering, loudly.