Downtown houses
120 Milbank, a nicely renovated single family house, sold for $2,465,000 on January 4, 2007. It sold again yesterday, unchanged, for $2,500,000, or 1.4% more than originally paid. While that's technically a gain, it's a nasty bite out of someone's wallet when you deduct commissions, conveyance taxes and lawyers' fees. Despite what many folks believed until this year, real estate is not the same as money in a savings account. In fact, it's more like auction rate securities which our friends in the financial services industry said were like money in a savings account.