Appraisal Scandal?
Andrew Cumo, New York’s Attorney General, has alleged that appraisal firms jacked up the estimated value of houses they surveyed in order to please their lending banks. We’ll see how the evidence turns out; certainly, I have heard stories of such fraud, but usually as a collusion between the appraiser and a mortgage broker, not the lender itself. After all, it’s the lender who’s on the hook if a loan goes bad and there isn’t enough equity to protect it. In my experience, admittedly limited solely to Greenwich, appraisers have been scrupulously honest; I’ve sat with them as we went over comparable sales and I never witnessed them fudging figures; quite the contrary. So we’ll see.

Waterfront!
If there’s anything that’s pushed up the average sale price of Greenwich real estate this year it’s been waterfront property. With few exceptions (see below) anything that has saltwater as a backyard has sold, quickly, for astonishing prices. The latest sale was that of Tamar Lurie, who sold her own listing at 109 Byram Shore Road, asking $40,000,000, to her own client. That’s the kind of sale that would tempt most of us to take the year off but Tamar, no doubt, is still in the trenches as of this writing. From a buyer’s perspective, I’m astonished that anyone could be convinced to pay $40,000,000 for property that sold for $17,000,000 two years ago but I suppose, when bonus money’s burning a hole in your pocket, you buy what you want, when you want it. Sooee. This sale, by the way, is yet another example of Byram Shore Road’s command of the highest prices in Greenwich. Counterintuitive, but true.

More waterfront
Layne Smalheiser’s listing at 50 Carriglea Drive in Riverside remains unsold at $5,850,000 (there was a deal that fell through for reasons unrelated to the merits of the property). I really like this place. There’s a perfectly nice contemporary on the property but the land’s highest and best use is probably a new house, sited to take advantage of the great views across Cos Cob Harbor and down Long Island Sound. A dock permit has been obtained and Carriglea is a nice, dead-end street that should easily support a land purchase in this range, I think. Go buy it.

Over-priced houses
I mention these almost every week because I remain surprised at the stubbornness of some sellers. The market is pretty soft, so good pricing is even more important than usual, yet a ton of houses are out there at asking prices at least 50% higher than they’re worth (in my opinion, of course – the owners beg to differ). A $9,000,000 house that’s actually worth, say, $6,000,000 will attract no bids. It’s a useless exercise to bid on such a property, something like Mark Twain’s line about teaching pigs to sing: you waste your time and it annoys the pig (Twain scholars, feel free to correct me on this attribution – the sentiment is accurate, though).

And of course, there are some bargains
One reason Tamar Lurie’s still working is that she has a new listing at 11 Vineyard Lane that she’s priced at $10,975,000. I’ll confess that when this house was listed with another broker, at a far higher price, I wasn’t impressed but now, all things being relative, it’s a great deal. Five acres of wonderful yard, with pool and tennis court, and a completely renovated Georgian Colonial originally built in 1930. I obviously can’t speak for the owner, who I don’t know, but, to my eye, more money went into this project than is coming out. Certainly you couldn’t take a comparable house and renovate it to this standard for anything close to this price. Write that check, move in tomorrow; not a bad deal.
Pet Deposits
No, not the kind you place in plastic bags. Our state board has just reminded us that, by law, security deposits for rentals are limited to two months, maximum – no extra deposits for pet damage allowed. Good intention, bad result, as fewer landlords will accept tenants with pets.

Politics (real estate readers avert your eyes)
Teddy Kennedy has announced that he opposes the current nominee for U.S. Attorney General because that individual refuses to denounce “water-boarding”, or simulated drowning. Mary Jo Kopechne was unavailable for comment.