Barbarians on the field!
Our little town has achieved front page status in the New York Times (check link - I think it's working) via an article by my friend, Peter Applebaum. Peter wrote a fair and balanced story covering the issue but I tend to side with our town's chief of police who is quoted in the Greenwich Time this morning as disapproving the kids' argument that it's a choice between whiffleball and heroin. Reminds of that idiotic ad campaign in the 60's (or maybe early 70's) showing an unattended car with its key in the ignition and the tag line, "don't help a good boy go bad". I was very much not good boy during that period, but even I could appreciate that good boys wouldn't be tempted to do evil by the sight of an easily-boosted car.

I sympathize with both sides here. The kids were bored, and Greenwich is truly boring for kids of that age, so they did something about it in an enterprising way. The neighbors want peace and quiet, however, and that's being ruined by the noisy games. It will take a wiser man than I to decide this one fairly - in the meantime, the neighbors could pray for rain.

UPDATE
One commentator below expressed disappointment that I don't side more strongly take the kids' side - I was focusing more on the dumb threat one of the kids made that, if they weren't allowed wiffleball they'd just turn to drugs, but the merits of the case itself probably fall in favor of the kids. Heck, we had a pretty-much non-stop baseball game going on in my backyard in Riverside long ago, with an ever-changing lineup as local kids showed up, played a few innings and went on to other things (drugs and alcohol? I think we were too young) and were replaced by the next player. I'm sure our games made a lot of noise but somehow the adult neighbors survived and amazingly (this was 40 years ago, in another era) never complained. For that matter, and again to demonstrate how different is the world we live in today, we had at least two broken arms from bat-body collissions, another couple of broken arms from kids falling out of the big tree in the outfield, and not one of the parents brought suit. Imagine that.

Apples to Apples?
It's often difficult to calculate price increases in the market because so many older houses are bought at one price, completely renovated and then placed back on the market. If they sell for a higher price, how much can be attributed to shiny new kitchen appliances, master baths and granite counters versus the general upswing of the market itself? So it's nice to find an untouched house and see what's going on. One such example is 228 Stanwich Road, an older house in need of renovation that sold for $1,700,000 (from an original asking price of $2,125,000) on August 30,2007. The new owners did nothing to it and changed their mind about holding on to it so today it was returned to the market at $1,895,000. Has the property really increased $200,000 in value? I personally doubt it, but I'll watch what happens and let you know.
196 Bible Street sold on June 14,2007, for $4,050,000 and after being re listed in November for $4,555,000, untouched, was dropped today to $3,850,000. There's an owner who has some grasp of current market conditions, I think.

Then there's 23 West End Avenue, new construction right next to the Old Greenwich sewage pumping station. The seller originally asked $1,895,000 and the house sat unsold, despite its description as "abutting town land" (might have worked for noseless, blind buyers). It remains unsold, three years later and today was listed for $1,649,000. The builder owner is getting there, but now he's selling a three-year-old house. Tough to get new construction pricing under that circumstance.

Mortgages in Greenwich?
A reader expresses surprise that we have such things - "I thought everyone paid in cash?" Hardly. First, if the median price for a house in town is around $2,000,000, that leaves plenty of houses for sale in the $450,000 - $2,000,000 range to be purchased by folks who, if they lived in Zimbabwe, might be considered wildly rich but here in Greenwich are probably just struggling to get buy. No college scholarships for most of these people, but lots of taxes and more on their way - someone has to pay for Obama's largess. Second, even wealthy people don't like sticking a huge sum of cash into a relatively illiquid "investment". I know many instances where buyers of multi-million dollar mansions took out 80% mortgages. either because their stock holdings were restricted or they just didn't want to part with their cash. I've got a call in to a couple of my mortgage broker friends but I'd bet at least 80% of all house sales in town involve a mortgage, even though the current tax law disallows any interest deduction after the first million (at least, I think that's still the law - not being in quite that category myself, I haven't checked recently).

Here's a price reduction for you
45 Baldwin Farms South was brought to market in January for $9,750,000. Very nice house but an inadequate yard, in my opinion, for that price range, and stuck on a flag lot (long narrow driveway that runs forever before finally reaching the lot itself). Today it was reduced 30% to $6,995,000, or nearly $3,000,000. Not necessarily a sign that the market is collapsing, because, as I said, I never liked its original price, but that's a heck of a whack. For you price per square foot fans, it's a drop from $1,000 a foot to $715. I still wouldn't call it a bargain, but its builder is obviously eager to sell.

The end of my air travel
I thought this idea (electric shock bracelets for all airline pasengers, in case the link doesn't work) was a joke. But at Homeland Security, there is no laughing, ever.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/weblogs/aviation-security/2008/Jul/01/want-some-torture-with-your-peanuts/

Market Timing
One reader points out that, if prices are likely to continue falling for the next year or two so it's better to sell now, than then. Another asks the entirely sensible question, so is this not the time to buy? The best answer I can give is, "who the hell knows?". If you want to sell your existing house and buy another, you might as well do it now. If you don't have a house to sell, waiting a year could yield some financial benefits. But people go broke trying to time their Wall Street investments and you could hurt yourself trying the same thing in real estate. What I've always suggested to my clients is that they look at a house as a place to raise a family and find shelter from the storm. If you want or need a new house and find one you like go ahead and buy it now. Prices have dropped and most (many, anyway) sellers are realistically flexible. If you don't need a new house right now, you might want to wait to see what happens over the next year. One caveat: the home lending market seems to be falling apart and, a year from now, you might find it much harder to obtain a mortgage.

Daily Rant
I heard a perfectly rational-sounding fellow on Connecticut NPR yesterday discussing all the wonderful new energy sources that will power our state and, by extension (pun intended) our country. Wind, solar, electric cars, you name it, it will all be along soon to keep us warm and scurrying about. In the meantime, of course, there must be no new production of energy sources from "old" technology, such as coal, oil or natural gas. I look forward to the day when we can tell our Arab friends to pound sand but experts like the one on NPR never address one basic question: how is all this great stuff going to be delivered to our state and who will tolerate (and pay for) the necessary infrastructure?
Connecticut has fought, and defeated,mostly, every effort to bring more energy here. We don't want gas pipelines running across our fields or Long Island Sound; no new transmission lines, anywhere, no liquid gas barges six miles out and, of course, no nukes! So okay: somewhere in Texas, they're planning a million acre plus solar energy installation. Good for Texas, but that leaves us in the dark. Plug-in electrical cars would be wonderful, but where is the electricity to charge them?

In South Africa, gold mines are shut down, bakeries are closed, schools are operating in the dark because of periodic, daily blackouts that come and go at unpredictable times. The country's leader admits that there have been warnings of exactly this happening for the past 11 years, but the country found other uses for its limited funds. Now those funds are even more limited, because gold mining was a huge source of income.

The folks in charge of predicting the Washington D.C. - Baltimore region's energy needs - not mouthpieces for the energy industry but honest-to-God citizens - said last week that in less than 3 years the region can expect the same sort of blackouts now afflicting South Africa because no one will even begin to consider a permitting process to bring in more electricity from the west. We're not talking about the actual location of such transmission lines-that's whole'nother fight - just the concept itself-a beginning of a discussion. I can only hope that Washington goes dark and its politicians go home but the howling from down there will certainly reach us here in Connecticut, especially because our own TVs and radios will have shut down,I-95 will be traffic free, and we'll all be living in blissful buccolic quiet.

Go have a talk with a Green and ask them how they propose to power the country. They'll tell you of the wonder of wind farms, ignoring the fact that the wind don't always blow and Teddy Kennedy and his ilk won't let them be located anywhere nearby. They like the idea of hydrogen cells and ignore the sad fact that to make hydrogen you'll need some form of energy, perhaps from those non-existant wind farms. They're happy to tell you what they don't want: no more oil drilling, either offshore or onshore, no Canadian oil from the oil sands and again, no coal, no nukes, no gas - it only encourages Big Oil and encourages them to keep up their evil ways. Biofuel is turning into an embarrassing mess (as predicted in this column repeatedly over the years)but something is bound to turn up, just in time - wait and see (I actually heard a caller complain yesterday that Detroit has sat on a super-secret engine that yields 120 mpg for 30 years, just to force Detroit's customers to pay more for gas. That same rumor has been around all of my life and, according to my mother, at least since 1930, so I guess it must be true). Greens believe in pixie dust and fairy magic and what's scary is that they seem to be prevailing. I don't much care that 53%of Americans believe that the US government attacked the World Trade Center on 9/11 and a larger percentage think Elvis is alive but when that same horde shuts down our economy's engines, there will be hell to pay and we're all going to be forced to make that payment.

More on pricing per square foot
A reader asks (see comments) "So land is not a variable in the square foot method? Where does it fit it, or is it added as a premium to the overall price?" Not quite, but when I'm using the method as a rough tool for measuring value, I just lump the land value into the total asking price and see what turns up. Again, though, you have to be sure you're comparing apples to apples. For instance, a building lot in Havemeyer that would support a 4,000 sq.ft. house might sell for $750,000 (sad news for Havemeyer residents who a few years ago might have expected as much as $900-$950K, but that's what's happening). A similar lot in Riverside, south of the Post Road on a decent street might sell for $1,350,000. That's a land cost of $187.50 per sq. ft. for the former, $337.50 psf for the latter. Assuming (dreaming, perhaps) that you could sell that Havemeyer new construction for $2,000,000, total cost for a 4,000 sq.ft. house would be $500 per sq. ft., including the land value and a $2,750,000 house of the same size in Riverside (ignoring the fact that buyers of new construction in Riverside prefer 5,000 sq.ft. and up) would cost $687 per sq.ft. for what I am assuming is the identically-constructed and finished house. So land value does play a role, but if you're comparing two new houses in Havemeyer or two new houses in Riverside, you can (sort of) ignore the land value.

But builders don't.I've seen houses in Havemeyer priced at $950,000 being pitched as ideal building sites. The math won't work for a builder. Figure $200 per square foot construction costs and $100,000 soft costs - interest, lawyers fees even, God bless them, real estate commissions - that's $900,000. Add $950,000 in land cost and the builder's up to $1,850,000 before he even tries to sell his project for that hypothetical $2,000,000. Consider the likelihood that he'll have to sell for less than he's asking in this market, and he's risking a huge sum for a small gain. So, not surprisingly, land values are dropping. Not to nothing,but dropping all the same. My advice for now is, if you aren't in a rush to sell, postpone.

June Inventory
Courtesy of my friend John Cooke, here are the latest numbers for our June inventory of single family homes (click on the image and it should enlarge for easy reading - hope you're as impressed as i am that I figured out how to upload this as a jpeg).

Look at the homes between $7,000,000 - $8,000,000. Up 128%. If I were a mansion seller, new or old, I'd be nervous. In fact, anything priced over $4,000,000 would have me checking my bank's lending policies.

Price per square foot
A reader asked me to comment on this method of valuing a house and I'm happy to do so. When I went house hunting in Boulder CO a few years ago I discovered (a) that land use laws have driven prices way above even Greenwich and (b) new houses are sold by the square foot. My Realtor showed me various developments on the plains (the hills of Boulder itself are long since built out) and described them as "$200 per square ft. houses", or "$400 psf houses". and so on. Worked for me, but here in Greenwich, it's not so easy.
Some of the problems with using the method here are the variables. A house north of the Post Road in Riverside or Old Greenwich will obviously not command the same price as one south of that road, so the land value will be less, the builder, if he's smart, won't put the same finishes into the house, etc. Still, withing a discrete neighborhood, and adjusting for precise location, it's not a bad tool. But watch out for builders' calculations of square footage, because some add the basement to that measurement while others do not. Finished or not, a basement just isn't worth the same as finished space above grade. I work with a client, Greenwich Construction Company (just in the way of full disclosure here) who never includes the basement space in the square footage calculation. They (and I - remember the above disclosure) sold 4 new houses in Riverside last year for between $635 and $675 psf. That's up quite a bit from a few years ago, when I did a survey of new homes sold in Riverside and found an average price of $565. Unsold new houses at that time averaged $665 and never did sell until they dropped below $600. We've seen some big increases in land and building material costs since then, so that probably accounts for the jump.

It's tougher to use this method on existing houses but, with the possible exception of Conyer's farm or high end direct waterfront like Meade Point or Field Point Circle, any house asking more than $1,000 psf is usually doomed to sit for a long, long time. This is not a widely-known fact, judging from some of the prices I see out there.

Any builder knows his numbers and they all use pretty much the same figures. Land is "X", and varies with location and size, but basic constrution costs are about the same - the huge differences come when finishes are selected. Buyers all want granite counter tops (why?), Sub-zero appliances why again?) and so forth, but add a mahagonny panelled library and such and you start piling up the money. Your choice of either a slate,cedar or asphalt shingle roof can easily make a $100,000 difference, and that's before you've added those copper gutters and downspouts.

All that said, it is indeed possible, and not at all foolish, to take a selection of comparable houses, divide their square footage by their asking price and see which is the better value. So long as you make certain you're not including one building's basement and not the other's, you'll end up with a useful gauge. Of course, it helps if you like the house, too.

Fireworks!
I wasn't going to attend the Binney Park fireworks Saturday night but I remembered that it's been Chip Kreuger's Greenwich Capital that's funded these shows for the past decade and Chip sold his company to a Scottish bank last year who, in turn, isn't having such a great year this year. It might be a long time before we see such corporate largess again, so off I went. Not a bad show and enhanced by the presence nearby of two small boys going "oooo, ahhhh!" after almost every explosion. I'm way too coll at my age to express such sentiments, but I was right there with them. The grand finale was the best in my memory so, all in all, a good 1/2 hour well spent. I just hope it can continue - the old funding model of volunteers with fishing nets soliciting contributions during the Memorial Day parade stopped working long ago, which is why Kreuger stepped in. Thanks are due.

Ada's
Ada Cantavero, who ran a little candy store in Riverside forever, has finally died at 88. Funny, but Ada seemed ancient in 1960, when I was just 7, and then seemed to stop aging. When my brother Gideon called with the sad news my first question was, "how old was she?" "104", he replied, and I actually believed him. But she was great.

When I was a kid, penny candy really cost a penny and there was nothing worse than being stuck behind some rich kid with a buck to spend, calling out his selections one by one. Most of us had a nickle or maybe a dime to spare, so the line usually moved quickly, but if I bear any resentment toward the rich, it probably originated here.

Ada would let us hang out on her front porch but any misbehavior risked at least a temporary banishment, a terrible threat that kept us in line. When kids had trouble at home - a divorce, drunken dad, whatever - she'd comfort them and cheer them up and provide a refuge. A heck of a woman and one who seemed to remember all of her kids, no matter how much time passed. I stopped by maybe five years ago to say hello 25-30 years since my last visit and she greeted me, "Hi, Bobby!". Bob is my older brother, but the fact that she could place me in the right family was amazing. Riverside has lost a wonderful institution.

More on moderate housing
Something many of us don't know (I certainly didn't, anyway) is that what used to be called an "elderly conversion unit" - a separate apartment with kitchen - and which could be built and occupied only if at least one of the occupants of either the main house or the apartment was over 62, was changed to the term "accessory housing" and now permits occupancy by tenants of "moderate income". I don't know what the income guidelines are for this exception (it's adjusted from time to time) nor whether it applies, as does the age requirement, to either the main house or just the apartment, but a call to the Zoning Board (call Town Hall at 622-7700 and ask for Zoning or go to the town's website and enter "accessory housing" into the search feature) will answer those questions. Yes, I'm still working on links here - a new project I'm involved with may soon provide an entire website entirely devoted to Greenwich news, opinion, neighborhood association news, etc., so if I'm going to be changing formats, ...) In any event, from what I'm told, teachers, firefighters or policemen would probably qualify as moderate income. Any one of those groups could provide a nice pool of good tenants. You could make some decent money, have live-in security and know that you're doing your small part to provide additional housing in Greenwich, all with the town's blessing. Not a bad deal.

Price Drop?
One of our commentators asks, "is a house that was worth $7,500,000 last year now worth $6,500,000? Certainly not in the case of the Thunder Mountain Road house I mentioned yesterday. In that case, the house was never worth $7,500,000, it was just an imaginary figure dreamed up and reported by a broker trying to protect its client's other project on the same road. Although, it must be said, the average price has dropped 14% this year and that would neatly place a $7,500,000 house at $6,450,000 so perhaps the argument can be made. My point about Thunder Mountain Road is that, since there never was a genuine sale at the reported price, it's impossible to tell. Certainly, if you bought a house last year and want to sell it today, brace yourself for some bad news. If you bought before 2000, relax and enjoy your sizeable gain. Anything in between, it's a guessing game, but it could get ugly out there.

580 Lake Avenue

This house came on the market in January 2006 asking $5,550,000. 2 1/2 years later, it sold yesterday for $2,685,000. I continue to be amazed at how wrong some prices can be.

Foreclosure in Greenwich
There's an interesting comment below on affordable housing, with several good ideas on how me might address the problem, if we must. One idea that probably won't work, however, is buying foreclosed houses. In Greenwich they're rare - perhaps two a year. But last Saturday, a house on Round Hill Road did pass via foreclosure. Seven plus acres, some wetlands but, all in all, beautiful land. According to a reporter friend of mine, almost no one showed up: two couples who were apparently under the delusion that they could pick up a Round Hill property for a couple of hundred thousand dollars and a representative of the bank, there to make sure that the lender's $3.9 debt was covered. So it sold for $3,900,000 to the bank, and will presumably be returned to the market soon. It wasn't that long ago that seven acres of Round Hill land (there is a house on the property but not for long, I suspect) for just under $4,000,000 would have drawn the interest of any number of spec builders. Not today.

How Not To Sell a House
A house in "the Golden Triangle" of Greenwich came on the market just this spring asking $6,950,000, a ridiculous price for a house on 0.6 of an acre in a 1 acre zone - no room for expansion, among other problems. It didn't sell - there's a surprise - and there followed a rapid series of reductions all the way down to $3,695,000, still pretty strong for this neighborhood and this house, but at least some sort of reality seeped in. But that initial price killed it I think - we agents see it, dismiss it, and forget it exists. At that point, we don't follow its reductions, we just move on to another house with a more realistic owner. It's now been withdrawn from the market. We'll see what price it reappears at, if it does. I'm just speculating here, but this misadventure has the earmarks of an overly optimistic owner, rather than a deluded broker - a broker/agent would have kept the high price going for far longer, if only to justify his original opinion. But it points out the danger of taking over-priced listings just to get the listing (we're all tempted by the reasoning that "if I don't take it, someone else will"). It's just a waste of time and money and, since I stopped succumbing to that temptation, I now enjoy a certain amount of schadenfreude when passing houses I rejected sitting forlornly on the market, forever.

To tell the truth
I got in trouble last fall when I took on a local real estate firm for falsely reporting a house on Thunder Mountain as "sold" for $7,500,000 (or somehere close to that figure) when in fact it sold, unfinished, for less than half that sum. The agngry brokerage firm (Greenwich Fine Properties, in fact - isn't it fun not to have to worry about annoying advertisers anymore?) yanked all its advertising from my paper and explained that the larger price was what the builder estimated the value would have been had it actually been finished. Well his project next door, pretty much identical to the first one, just sold Friday for $6,495,000. Not a bad price at all, but if a selling broker had used the $7,500,000 price as a comp, she would have cost her buyer a million dollars. And wouldn't she have looked stupid?

Affordable Housing
It's back in the news again. Greewnich, under state law, must provide a certain number of affordable housing units for its population. Not surprisingly, in a town where a single building lot can easily cost $1,000,000, we're not in compliance. The latest plan to add a couple of hundred units (elderly and moderate income) in Byram has met fierce resistance from that neighborhood and, I suppose that if those same units were proposed for Riverside, I'd howl too. But where else can we build? Someone suggested highrise apartments in the back country which, while amusing to contemplate (perhaps just off Round Hill Club's 18th hole?) isn't going to fly. I'd suggest that we forget the whole thing but again, there's a state law in the way, which can basically override our zoning regulations and force construction anywhere a developer likes (again, wouldn't it be fun to see moderate income folks belly up to the bar at the Round Hill Club?) McKinney Terrace and Quarry Knoll, properties already owned by the town, have the space, if not the local good will, to accommodate a large number of additional units - I can't think of another area that does, withe possible exception of the idea being floated for building a high rise on stilts above the Island beach parking lot. Heck, they'd do that in New York, but I suspect that the cost would be way beyond our means. Intriguing idea, though.

But why is our housing so expensive?
There's not enough land, obviously, but we can also look to our restrictive zoning regulations. I recently read that an economics professor in Seattle examined the rise in average Seattle area house prices from $230,000 to $460,000 and concluded that $200,000 of that rise was directly attributable to the strict zoning rules imposed by the city - lot size, house size, etc. The professor happened to be a proponant of those regulations and wasn't advocating their repeal; he was just monetarizing their cost. Life is full of choices. I, for one, would prefer that Greenwich not become the next Riverdale, but I wonder how long we can insist on minimum lot sizes and low height restrictions before we run afoul of our friends in Hartford. Vote Republican, is my advice.

June 27th
Some houses are selling, even at (especially at) the higher price ranges, by which I mean $11,000,000 - $7,000,000. I notice though that of the 10 sales reported yesterday all but one had sat on the market for 12-18 months, and almost all sold for substantially less than their original asking price. Hmmm there may be a lesson there. One exception: 56 Rockwood Lane, a teardown on a nice street, was listed May 12 of this year for $2,250,000 and went to contract May 20th. It sold yesterday for $2,610,000, showing that (a) you can still generate a bidding war if you price things right and (b)you can't underprice your house, even in this market. If you undershoot the right price, there are still buyers out there willing to correct your "mistake" or your smart move. Forget Casey Kasin and don't reach for the stars.

Okay, so I've been remiss
I'm in the middle of what promises to be an exciting (to me, at any rate) new website with a number of webdesigners, columnists, reporters and editors (the free time of all of whom has been blessedly freed up by the ever-increasing rapidity of newspaper cut-backs, and blogging has been none-existent. Details forthcoming soon, but, if there are still any readers out there for this blog, here's some information you probably already knew: the market is in the tank.

A handful of houses have gone to contract in the past 21 days, some at impressive prices, but the trend is dismal. 215 house price reductions, some by millions of dolllars, vs. 44 contracts. Interestingly, and as a sign that sellers new to the market still don't get it, 205 new listings have come to market in that same period and, to my eye, the vast majority are grossly (which I define as in excess of 10% of their eventual selling price) over-priced. I've finally gotten smart and started refusing over-priced listings - why waste time and money marketing them when they aren't going anywhere? There are still agents out there who will take a listing, any listing, at any price. One house I turned down because I valued it at $1,495,000 to, in their dreams, $1,695,000, was just listed by another agent at $2,000,000. That's just crazy, and I want no part of it. A house I mentioned in an earlier column as insanely priced at $6,000,000 finally went to contract somewhere in the $3,000,000s. That agent spent over a year holding open houses, paying for full-sized ads and showing the damn thing when the only thing that was ever going to work was getting the price to its proper level. Buyers aren't stupid and in fact, they're growing more stubborn every day, no doubt because they go home each night and read more scary headlines about the housing market. We're not in a free fall, but if ever there was a time to aggressively price your house, this ain't it.

UBS Leaving Town?
That's the rumor that's reported in today's daily and if it's true (or even if the prediction of a 500 employee layoff s true), it doesn't bode well for our immediate future. Lots of the support staff for UBS probably lives in Shelton and points north, but a lot of the higher level folks bought homes in Greenwich. Just what we need: more inventory.

Thanks for your comments
lots of you have written in support and I appreciate your words greatly. My poor Internet guru is temporarily out of action due to a motorcycle accident ( I knew I made the right decision to sell mine in 1972) but I hope to have a real web site up and running in 2 weeks. In the meantime, here's my response to an inquiry about the weight to give to the town's assessment of a home's value: it depends. Some of these assessments are spot on; others miss by a mile. Some years ago, my own house was grossly over-assessed because the out-of-town appraisors considered all waterfront, tidal creeks to Belle Haven, to be of equal value. Don't tell them so, but I think they've over corrected and I'm now valued at less than a modest home on Perry Ridge. So use the assessment as one datum, not the sole determinative of value.

Memorial Day Parade in Old Greenwich
10: 00 am. Last vestige of small town America in this town, and a chance to thank our soldiers. Don't miss it.

We're on Mars!
pretty nifty. I stand in awe of people who can shoot a rocket 400 million miles into space, land it safely and begin exploring.

But as for another use of our tax dollars...
the New York Times reports today that states are chafing at having to spend anti-terrorism funds on, ah, anti-terrorism. Rhode Island, for instance, was outraged that the heavy truck it purchased to pull a horse trailor was initially denied funding (the state prevailed, naturally, after intervention by its pols). We taxpayers are paying $23 billion for this program-if the states don't need the money, why not end it? Silly question, I know.

More Market Blues, or, Apples to Apples
1 Brookside Park in Greenwich came on the market in May 2006 asking $4,895,000 and sold in November for $4,250,000. Whether because of buyer's remorse or a change in circumstances it was returned to the market by the new buyers in February, 2007, for $4,650,000 (nothing having been added or changed), lingered for 408 days and finally sold this past May 12th for $3,800,000. Rumor has it that the owners turned down an offer that would have brought them close to break-even and then ended up sitting on the place for another year. True or not, in this market, it probably pays to keep would-be-buyers talking.

We're back!
Just spent time in northern California attending my daughter Kate's graduation from Humbolt State University. Lots of redwoods, ocean breezes and aging hippies from my generation. Wonderful people, so long as you avoid talking politics, which I did. When I complete my fatherly duties and pay for all my kids' educations, I may very well retire out there, assuming they'll accept a Ronald reagan/libertarian - heck, I'm tired of arguing anyway.

State of the market -
Nothing encouraging. 217 Riverside Avenue came on nine months ago for $1,965,000. It closed yesterday for $1,588,000. Now, the owners bought it for a song a long time ago (I believe my daughter Sarah, now 21, was 3 then, and a friend of the owners' daughter) so no one lost money here, but that's still a big drop from hoped for to reality. Similarly, 808 North Street, purchased for $11,300,000 in 2000, has been returned to the market and, after a few price reductions,is now asking $11,750,000, 8 years later. We're in a flat market, folks, or even, God forbid, a declining one. I recently gave a price opinion on a house that I thought should be below $2,000,000, but when I pulled the town tax card, I saw that Greenwich is taxing it as though it's worth over $2,500,000. Tough to tell an owner that his house is worth half a million less than the town is taxing him, so, coward that I am, I didn't. But I anticipate a tough sell (and,whether I'm the broker or not, I suspect it will sell for less than $2,000,000).
Column News
I was in negotiations with my former publisher, Greenwich Post, about returning as a paying advertiser, rather than a paid columnist. They wanted far more (5X) what they paid me for my column and, frankly, I couldn't see why I should invest in what is essentially a dying business. I can pay a smart young college kid I know a fraction of that fee to design and maintain a website, with links, photos, etc, and make this a better column, so that's what I've decided to do. Check back in soon and see what we've done.

Simmons Lane
In one of my last printed columns, I mentioned this monstrosity and suggested that it seemed a tad large for the neighborhood. A number of writers told me that I'd understated its size: 35,000 sq.ft above ground, yes, but the Russian owners were also planning an additional 25,000 sq.ft of underground rooms. Considering that these Russians tend to dissappear to Siberia, thanks to Putin, leaving projects half-done, it was gratifying to lean that our P&Z turned the plans down. We'll see what they come back with, if they come back at all.

Must it always be Greenwich?
According to this article, a Greenwich man, one Michael Guite, is trying to move a family cemetary on property he's purchased in Springfield, Vermont so he can build a house. At lease one of the graves holds the remains of a veteran of the War of 1812 and, not surprisingly, the Vermonters aren't pleased. I'm sure Mr. Guite is a nice man; I just wished he came from some other town.

Bad times for all newspaper folks
I just heard that Joe Pisani, editor of Greenwich Time, has been fired by that paper's new owner. Sad, if true- the man did a yeoman's job producing a cleanly written story of our town, every day, for years. My banishment to the Internet is probably all for the best, and inevitable.
Update
Firing confirmed. New owners wanted more scandalous headlines, Mr. Pisani resisted, so off he went.god bless him, god bless the Internet.

Linens and Things declares bankruptcy
This was the story that got me fired. Apollo Group, owner of Linens and Things, was reported (by the NYT) to be ready to put the chain into bankruptcy, together with its real estate company, Realogy, which controls Coldwell Banker and Sotheby's. Friday, Linens and Things went down, confirming that part of the story. This is being posted via iPhone which, while loveable, is lousy for links. Come back later and you'll have them.

If you want to contact my publisher
It won't do any good, but if you'd like to send along your opinion to my former publisher about his firing me, : Mhersam@hersamacorn.com will reach him. I'm just about to email him myself to cancel my subscription.

Wall Street's latest Scam
That would be, "auction rated securities". These were financial instruments touted as " just like certificates of deposit", and carried as cash on the account statements of private investors. Turns out, of course, they aren't, and now people who stashed their money in the things waiting to pay their kids' college tuition or put a down payment on a house are discovering that they can't get at their money. A year and a half ago, when the whole thing started going down, Wall Street (UBS, Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch, name your favorite) alerted their institutional investors and concentrated their selling efforts on chumps. Only in February of this year did the whole structure freeze up. Now, if you need to pay your bills, your friendly banker will loan you up to half the money they've frozen, at a nice interest rate. I don't really blame the "financial advisors" who simply parroted what their bosses told them about these things - these people are nothing more than broo-pushing custodians granted a title and a desk in order to scam their customers- but the principals of the firms knew exactly what they were pushing and should be, but won't be, held accountable. Almost makes me want to dust off my legal degree and go chase someone.

The beat goes on
Houses are still selling, despite bad market news. All it takes is a good price. Joe Barbieri's listing at 33 Meeting House Lane has gone to contract somewhere around its asking price of $8,995,000. When I previewed it, I guessed its worth in the high 9's or low 10's, so this was a comparative value.

More impressively, if you're lucky enough to own direct waterfront, is Mark O'Brien's place at 15 Meadow Place in Old Greenwich. Came on the market last Thursday at $7,995,000 and was gone by Sunday via bidding war. This house, in all respect to Mark and the previous owner, Eugene Remmer, is a tear-down (with the best tree house I've ever been in). Waterfront remains king.

Fired!
My publisher, Greenwich Post, has just fired me - according to the owner, it came down to a choice between my readers, who liked me, and certain real estate agencies who did not. The latter pays bills, the former does not, so I got the heave ho. Fair enough, but I question the wisdom of eliminating one of the few items in a newspaper that, according to my readers,anyway, made the paper worth perusing. If you have no readers, who will advertise? Oh well. I'll be punching up my posting activity on this site, so please check in regularly for truthful reporting on the real estate scene. If you'd like calm, reassuring news that your real estate investment in Greenwich is doing just fine, feel free to check the Greenwich Post each week.

News Flash
One reason I was dumped was, I believe, my reporting a New York Times report that Realogy, parent company of Coldwell Banker, Century 21 and Soetheby's, was in danger of going bankrupt. I hear from other agents that staff members of at least one of those firms haven't been paid in 4 weeks - they got flowers on their desks this past Friday. That's a nice touch, but try placating your landlord with a bunch of wilted orchads.

The Helmsley Palace
Thanks to David Ogilvy’s impressive power of persuasion, he was permitted to open the doors of his Helmsley listing on Round Hill Road to all of us unwashed agents who are no more likely to have a buyer in its price range ($125,000,000, if you’re asking) than David is to list my $250,000 mobile home. Some house. I’ll confess that I expected to see a sadly run-down mansion – I don’t know why, except that I know Leona Helmsley was in ill health for a time and I assumed that she’d neglected the house in her final days. Ha! It’s in beautiful condition, maintained, I’m sure, as scrupulously as one of her hotels. This has to be the most famous house in Greenwich, and the view of Long Island Sound, the beautifully decorated rooms, two pools (one indoors) and, of course, 40 acres of lawns all justify that fame. As I am unlikely to be invited to dinner by the next owner, I jumped at the opportunity to see this fabulous mansion that I’ve admired during my fifty-plus years in town. If you’ve got the money, or can at least pretend to, call David for a tour. The wine cellar alone is worth the effort.

Pricing
There were twelve price reductions the other day, neatly balancing twelve new listings, but I believe that sellers still don’t understand our brave new market. I understand that some sellers feel no pressure to sell and for them, it makes sense, sort of, to refuse anything less than the asking price. But if you want to, or have to move, this is not the time to hold fast. Of every ten houses I see on the open house circuit, I’d guess that eight won’t sell at their current asking price. That’s discouraging. There are buyers out there, but they aren’t going to overpay. Right now, buyers and sellers are pretty far apart as to what constitutes overpaying. I think the buyers have the better side of the argument.

Simmons Lane Monstrosity?
A couple of readers have emailed me about this proposed project, a 30,000 sq.ft. replacement for what was, alas, a rather tired mansion. Not living on the street, its size doesn’t worry me as much as it does the neighbors, but it does seem a tad over-sized, even for Greenwich. What intrigues me most is that this eight - bedroom house intends to host twenty-six toilets. Is there something in the water?

Going Down?
If you believe the New York Times (an iffy supposition), the private management firm that took over a bunch of companies recently is preparing to shed them in bankruptcy. Linens and Things is the most likely victim but, according to the Times, so to is Realogy, the corporation that owns a slew of real estate firms like Coldwell Banker, Soetheby’s and Century 21. As I understand the matter, the firms themselves are okay but the new owners saddled them with huge debt obligations so that the private bankers could pay their investors fat dividends. My father, a Wall Street veteran since 1929, quit investing in the early 1980’s, saying that he no longer understood the business. I think he was on to something.

Ethanol, revisited
I’m delighted to see that my reservations about turning corn into alcohol are now being seconded by the main stream media. Turns out that palm oil and corn are not going to save the world from global warming and will instead lead to deforestation and a doubling of food prices. Duh. Just wait until reporters figure out that ethanol as an “oxygenator” that reduces air pollution is a hoax, and that it costs at least as much energy to produce a gallon of the stuff as it yields. Why, given time, they might even rethink the whole global warming scam itself.

New York Times
I spent the day recently with New York Times reporter Peter Applebome, who will presumably write a column about our tour of Greenwich. I just want to say now about any quotes he may attribute to me that: I never said it; it was taken out of context; and any reference to bitter, unemployed Greenwichites clinging to their mansions was entirely invented by the reporter. You just can’t trust these guys!

Down Market
My friend John Cooke at Prudential has sent me some statistics showing that unit sales for single family homes are down 39% compared to last year. That’s a big drop, but from conversations with other brokers and my own observation, it seems that sellers haven’t absorbed the information. Houses are, in general, ridiculously overpriced – apparently, buyers are taking 2004 prices and adding 10% appreciation for each year since then and expecting to sell them for a huge premium. Sorry to tell you this, but that’s not going to work. We’ve been in a flat market for some time now – don’t be thrown off by the average price increase, because that reflects new construction selling, not your tired old cape – and you should price accordingly. Unless you really don’t want to sell your house, in which case, why is it on the market?

Same theme
The New York Times reports that Europe is suffering even worse that we are, with prices in Ireland and Spain, for instance, dropping way off from last year’s pricing. Well, what goes up, goes down. Greenwich has usually withstood these market fluctuations but we’ve certainly witnessed years where what up stays flat, and I think that’s where we are now. Again: don’t get out your whiteboard and chart a neat graph of appreciation to arrive at your asking price because you’re doomed to disappointment.

47 Shore Road, Old Greenwich
Beautifully built new house, constructed by John Routh, of Coldwell banker. Top quality construction in every inch, including a terrific utility sink – you laugh, but most builders I know stick a $3 plastic sink in the laundry figuring that even buyers of $9,000,000 houses won’t notice. Mr. Routh obviously does and here, as in every other detail, his care shines through.

Riverside Association, property values
I was once a member of the governing board of this association so I intend no ill will towards the group, but its recent survey of residents bodes nothing good. They’re asking questions about new construction, excessive house size, tree cutting, too lenient FAR regulations, etc., all of which makes me suspect that they’re back, as they were when I served with them, to attacking new construction. Look: if you want to return to the 1950s, when new houses in Greenwich were 1500 square feet (twice the size of the national average, by the way) go ahead, but be aware that you will be paying for it. There is no market, now, for a house less than 3,500 sq.ft and in fact, 5,000 sq.ft is about the real minimum for new construction. You can indeed create moderate income housing in Riverside by limiting house size, but know that, if you do, you won’t be able to sell your house for anything like the price your neighbors received for theirs. A 1,500 sq.ft. new house is worth, I’d guess, about $750,000, so if you’re selling to a builder, calculate $250,000 for the value of your land. A 3,500 sq.ft. house might net $1,800,000, so you can maybe sell your land for $750,000. It’s your money, and your house and if you feel the impulse to subsidize poor folks who can only afford a $2,000,000 house, God bless you. Just be aware of what you’re doing when you vote to shackle your land with these kinds of restrictions, and hope that your IRA will carry you through your retirement.

Schools
The driving force of Greenwich real estate has always been the quality of our schools. So it’s a shame that we are turning against them. Stanwich School’s expansion plans seem to be foundering on the shoals of NIMBYism, our new public school superintendent is doing her best to dismantle the talented and gifted program and, I hear, we have at least one avowed communist teaching our kids Advanced Placement history in our high school. Unsophisticates might think that the place to serve the oppressed poor would be inner city high schools, but to really stick it to the Man, you want a tenured position, paying $150,000 a year, in the belly of the beast, where there are no knifings, shootings, or 275 SAT scores to distract you. Right on, brother! We can’t fire these people, but perhaps the administration could be more selective in hiring them in the first place. Which will happen only if we get rid of our current superintendent, a denouement we should all feverently wish for.

Market Statistics
John Cooke at Prudential received a fair bit of flack a few weeks ago for allowing himself to be quoted by another newspaper as saying the market was pretty darn bad. As John points out, he didn’t write the headline, he just told the truth but apparently there are those who think he, and all of us Realtors, should sugarcoat things. Bah. Our selling clients certainly can figure out what’s going on, because their houses aren’t selling, so who are we supposed to be keeping in the dark? Anyway, as of the end of February, according to John, we’re down 39% in units sold compared to last year. Worst hit segments are the $1,000,000-$1,500,000 range (-53%) and $2,000,000-$3,000,000 (-50%). $3,000,000-$4,000,000 held steady, but that category only sold 9 units; not enough to sustain the brokers in town. The over $5,000,000 houses dropped unit volume but average price soared from $6,346,000 to $10,595,625, so some folks must be enjoying themselves. The market is not dead: 30 single family houses went to contract the last 21 days; but, like the parrot in that Monty Python routine, it’s certainly resting.

Return to sender?
A couple of houses came back on the market last week after just recently being purchased. Buyer’s remorse is understandable but, so far as I can see, these owners did nothing to improve the houses during their brief ownership yet they’re asking millions of dollars more than they paid. That might have worked a few years ago but it’s not a great strategy in today’s market.

There ought to be a law?
I received a lengthy, well written email from a reader responding to my earlier posting on a considerate builder who took extraordinary steps to shield his neighbors from the effect of his construction. It seems that such builders are the exception, not the rule. My correspondent, a lawyer, said that, short of filing suit, there isn’t much to be done about goons who start work at zero hour in the morning, blast ledges, cut down trees, dump water onto adjoining land and so forth – the town is basically powerless, although it did send inspectors over to the site to remonstrate with the contractor. My reader thinks that we need stronger regulations to whack these guys. I am philosophically opposed to still more regulations and laws affecting how people can use and develop their property but if our current set of laws is being abused, maybe we do. If that happens, it will once again provide an example of bad people bringing down bad effects on the good – I don’t know whether there’s a contractors’ association operating in town but if there is, its members might want to talk things over with those who are abusing our relatively lax laws and tell them to cut it out.

Plastic Bags
A few weepy-eyed readers brought my attention to a story about Albatrosses on Midway Island choking on plastic and asked me if I wasn’t sorry to have said mean things about the effort to ban plastic shopping bags. No I’m not, and here’s why: the poor birds aren’t choking on plastic bags – they’re ingesting bits of plastic from the tons of other types of plastic stuff floating in our oceans – fishing nets, packaging, Bic lighters, you name it. My point about plastic bags is that it’s an easy thing to do that accomplishes nothing yet convinces shoppers that they’ve done something to save the planet while excusing them from taking any serious steps. Very similar to Australia turning off its lights for an hour (I myself turned on all our outdoor floodlights), Look – if you really want to go back to horse-drawn carts, early death and backbreaking labor, Cuba and Zimbabwe await you with open arms (please bring your capitalist earnings as a donation to the beloved leader). I myself prefer my water hot (On the other hand, maybe banning plastic bags is a good thing, if it spares us from shutting down our economy in order to free the Chinese to ruin the world by themselves. I have grave doubts about global warming, humanity’s role in it and our ability to affect it with 20 years of self-deprivation but, if we’re going to shut down the western world, I’d prefer to see us drag down Asia with us).

Mortgages
We were actually doing pretty well this year in house sales: according to my friend John Cooke, at Prudential Ct, January 2008 showed a nice increase in sales from January 2007, but things have dramatically slacked off the past few months – I’ll have those statistics for you just as soon as John gets off his lazy butt and provides them – the reason for the decline, I’m guessing, is the collapse of the credit market. Right now, lenders are hugely reluctant to lend on anything that isn’t guaranteed by Freddi Mac or Fannie Mae which rules out many Greenwich mortgages. Never mind that Greenwich has seen a mere handful of foreclosures in the past decades, national lenders are running scared and can’t, or won’t distinguish Greenwich from, say, Miami Beach. If you need a $2,000,000 mortgage, these folks are insisting on a 60/40 loan-to-equity ratio, instead of the more typical 80-20. High-end folks tend to have tons of restricted stock available to pledge (unless, of course, it’s bear Stearns stock) so the very expensive houses are chugging along, but a young, highly successful young family that can afford a $3,000,000 house may have a hard time latching on to the $1,200,000 in cash that will permit their banker to sleep at night. I suspect that all this will sort itself out in the near future but, for now, there’s a squeeze on in what, for Greenwich, passes as its bread and butter sales area.

Of course, if you’re not worried about a mortgage…
Sally O’Brien has a great old (1907) Belle haven Mediterranean listed for a mere $11,400,000, and what a house it is. Walk in the front door and everything flows just the way it should: a beautiful winding stair leads to the two floors above, gracious public rooms spread out on either side and, once through the butler’s pantry, a brand new eat in kitchen/family room offers the privacy you want. I have never been able to fully adjust for the “Belle Haven premium” so I offer no opinion on price here, but if money were no object and I wanted to live in Belle Haven, I’d grab this one.

Readers
I occasionally get anonymous missives from readers who are somehow afraid that they’ll offend the real estate community if they complain. Are you kidding? We’d run over our grandmothers to get a listing – insult us, say any nasty thing you wish but, if you’ve got a listing, all is forgiven, believe me. In any event, one recent letter writer suggested that we adopt what she says is the European custom and split commissions in two, with the seller paying the listing agent and the buyer paying her own. While it was true, years ago, that both the buyer and the listing agent owed a duty to just the seller, that has changed and buyers’ brokers are now allowed and even required to exert their loyalties solely on behalf of the buyer. I have my objections to the buyer/broker contract as prepared by the mercenaries of my organization, the Connecticut Association of Realtors, and have written about those objections before, but the basic concept of a broker/agent representing a buyer is entirely sound. Sure, we’re ultimately being paid from the seller’s dime, but we’re out with the buyer for weeks on end, helping them find just the right house and our loyalties and often friendship rest with them, Beside, if we do a good job, we’ve got a nice referral who, unlike the seller, commonly, is staying in town. So if you’re a buyer, I wouldn’t worry about your agent having divided loyalties. And if you sense that he or she is primarily interested in selling you a house, any house, then perhaps you should consider finding another agent. Notwithstanding the recent downturn, there are still plenty of us to choose from.

Broadwater
I have written in support of this natural gas project before, all to the annoyance of those readers who insist that I restrict my comments strictly to real estate. It seems to me that creating energy shortages in this region does relate to real estate but rather than repeat my arguments I’ll just note this: the New York Times editorial board has just come out against it. I rest my case.

Arrgh!
No, it’s not Pirate talk day, that’s an expression of remorse for moving Chuck and Nancy Standard from Druid Lane, where they’ve been since 1954, to Hearthstone, one street over. I heard from a Hearthstone resident that the guy building a new house on that street is not nearly as accommodating as Tom Brandenburger, who is building on Druid next to the Standards (where they remain). So if you want to see what a good builder does to take care of the neighbors of his building site, drive down Druid, not Hearthstone.


Watch out below!
Some new construction on North Street, originally priced at $9.5 million, has just been relisted at $7.2. That may still be too high – we’ll see – but it does reflect a refreshingly objective view of the market. This is not the time to attempt new highs. In the same vein, I saw a mediocre assemblage of new construction in the mid-country the other day: a Westchester builder, using a Westchester agency, asking what they obviously feel is an appropriate Greenwich price. Wrong, by at least $1.5 million, in my opinion. I happen to have just sold a house for this one’s asking price and I’ve got a pretty good feel for this particular slice of the market. There’s no way I could have sold this house for the price the builder wants, even before Bear Stearn’s collapse.

Finish what you start
I saw another house last week, asking a bunch of money for an uncompleted project. I’ve been through this myself, so my sympathies lies with the seller, who is attempting to recoup his expenditures but, generally speaking, either finish the job or resign yourself to losing most of what you’ve put in. This one’s probably going to sell for its land value, and not much more.

Market Conditions
The calamity befalling Bear Stearns has hammered our market. A number of agents report that their house-hunting clients are now out of work and I know of at least one builder who isn’t even looking at potential projects until this all sorts itself out. I think we’ll all be just fine, eventually, but there’s a lot of nervousness out there, and buyers aren’t jumping out of the gate to get the house of their dreams. Still, what better time to strike a deal? Assuming you still have a job, of course.

School admissions
Private school admission decisions are forthcoming and they usually trigger a fresh flood of home buyers; Manhattan residents whose precious, two-year-old geniuses failed to make the cut at Toddler school start thinking about suburban schools and parents of would-be Brunswick kids suddenly lose interest in moving closer to King Street and start investigating houses in Old Greenwich and Riverside. It’s all good; the kids will be fine, but we Realtors appreciate the new blood.


Lost Deal
I recently pitched for, and lost, a listing here in town – the owners had a friendship with another agent and didn’t want to jeopardize it. I regret the loss of business, of course, but what I really regret losing is the chance to work with this high-class couple. The husband called me to inform me that they were listing with someone else and that’s a tough, embarrassing call to make; I’d equate it with having to call clients in my past life to tell them that the judge had ruled against us – thank God for answering machines, and the prescience to know when those clients wouldn’t be home! But really, it’s much nicer to learn of the loss personally, rather than see a hoped-for listing pop up on the MLS under another broker’s name. I used to work for another firm whose agents mostly dealt with polite, Back Country clients. Whenever we’d see the florist arrive in our parking lot we’d know that one of us had lost another potential listing. My advice is, skip the flowers, but a phone call is always appreciated.

Taxes
I read an interesting study published by the Tax Foundation the other day, comparing the tax burdens imposed on corporations by states and federal governments. Turns out that Connecticut, combined with our friends in Washington, taxes these entities at a 39.9% rate. That compares to a 34% rate in France, 28% in Sweden, and 12.5% in Ireland. Guess whose economy is growing fastest? Guess who wants to raise taxes further?

Bear Stearns, R.I.H.
That would be rest in hell, if it weren’t for my having friends who worked, honorably, for this firm. Back in the 90’s, I argued with those friends that, notwithstanding their own blameless activities, they worked for an enterprise that profited from providing financing and clearance service for corrupt penny stock – boiler room fraud machines like Stratton Oakmont, R.H. Baron’s, and the like. The SEC eventually shut down the penny stock firms, Bear Sterns paid some $48,000,000 in fines and, I hope, my friends all left for better firms. Bear Sterns itself moved into the subprime mortgage market and basically went bankrupt this week – couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch of guys. Of course, for those employees engaged in the legitimate side of the banker’s business, it may be just a bit galling to learn that, while their stock investment evaporated over the weekend, Jamie Cayne, Bear Stearn’s last corporate chief, resigned in January and closed last week on a $28,000,000 unit at New York’s Plaza Hotel.He “earned” $38,000,000 last year for guiding the firm into this mess. When all else fails, flee the ship and buy real estate.

$28 million and worth it?
I can’t guarantee that, but Helene Barre’s new listing for that price in Conyer’s Farm at least seemed reasonable. I may be nostalgic here – the house abuts the lake where we used to skip school and swim (another agent, older than I, used to “park” here” – if only Eliot Spitzer had known of the place) but the house sits on 22 acres, was magnificently built by Hobbs and, all in all, gives the impression that a huge amount of money and care went into its production. Not to cast aspersions, but that sets it apart from some other houses I know of in this price range. In addition to the fantastic trim work, I particularly liked the filtration system that whisks cigar smoke from the house: I was recently amused to see a very nice outdoor porch, with fireplace, labeled a “cigar patio”, but true masters of the universe just flip a switch and stay right in their comfy chair, puffing away without anyone complaining. Cool.

Smart Builder
Chuck and Nancy Standard, of Riverside, recently contacted me to compliment Tom Brandenburger (203) 912-2136, a Greenwich builder who’s been constructing a new house next door to them on Hearthstone Lane. It looks like a very nice house, but what the Standards liked was the care and attention Brandenburger bestowed on the neighbors. Trees that buffered the adjoining properties were encircled with orange fencing and posted (in both Spanish and English) “Area de la Proteccion del arbol – no entrar”, driveways were plowed, friendly greetings exchanged and concerns addressed. I work with a builder who does the same sort of thing but it astonishes me to see so many builders who ignore these common courtesies and run roughshod over neighborhoods while pursuing their projects. Dumb, because good will is invaluable.

When bad prices happen to good houses
Here are some recent asking and selling prices of perfectly good houses that sat forever on the market before finally being sold: $3.095 asking price in March ’06 sold for $1.980 March ’08. I could go on (in fact I did, in an early draft of this post but libel laws concerned me), but you get the message: the best house in the world won’t sell if it’s over-priced, so don’t do it.

Canada free trade
Did you catch the flack between Obama and Clinton over who was going to be hardest on Canada and our mutual NAFTA agreement? Someone smarter than I am (a low hurdle) points out that Canada has universal health care, a high minimum wage and environmental protection laws that would keep Dick Cheney sleepless at night, so if these two are really intent on enforcing a fair trade bill they aren’t, as they claim, interested in “a level playing field” but rather just want to shut down all trade. The last time this was tried, vie the Smoot-Hawley tariffs of 1930, things didn’t work out so well, so if either of these two is elected, I suggest you sell your real estate (especially you, Mr. Cayne), buy gold, and hunker down.

Smaller Houses
I receive a fair amount of email traffic from readers wondering why I devote so much attention to high priced houses when most of us poor slobs can only afford modest ones. The easy answer is, what passes for an “entry-level” house in this town is rarely interesting or new. But some great, small houses do occasionally come on the market and when they do, I write them up. Hendrie Lane in Riverside was a recent example: here are two more:

7 Osee Place
This is a 1927, 2,400 sq.ft. house off of Valleywood that was completely renovated about 4 years ago and is currently listed by Elizabeth Dagnino (Prudential) for $1,550,000. I really liked it. It’s been done up in what I suppose is Craftsman style but don’t rely on my skewed understanding of architectural styles- the point is, it’s absolutely beautiful, in mint condition, with a nice back yard on a great, quiet street that’s kiddie heaven. Wonderful neighborhood, really nice house, good price.

26 Spruce Street
Okay, you pay more for Riverside, but Pam Chiapetta’s new listing at $2,045,000 seemed well-priced for the quality offered. I liked this house when it was on the market a few years ago; the new owners have redone it and it’s even nicer now. I doubt there’s a scrap of extra FAR space to expand, but it has five bedrooms (I might want to sacrifice one to make an additional room) and a decent yard, all within walking distance of the schools and train. There’s good value here, in my opinion.

Apples to apples
Another complaint I get from readers is that we rarely compare actual sales of existing houses. It’s all well and good to learn that the average house price increased 7% last year, but that number is skewed by the many renovations and new construction projects: what’s happened to houses that have simply been lived in, with no new kitchens added? How have they fared? It’s hard to find such houses these days – as you know, we’re all living in a perpetual construction zone and it seems that every house is being added on to, every day. But Mandy Fry (David Ogilvy) has listed 4 Gisborne Place for $2,065,000 and this house offers a neat example of an unchanged property. It sold for $1,915,000 in August 2006 and, to the best of my memory, remains unchanged. If so, and assuming there’s some slippage between asking and selling price, then its value has remained flat for the past 18 months. That’s probably about right: I certainly wouldn’t counsel a seller to add much, if anything, to the price he paid a year or two ago. Not a disaster for the homeowner: rental value for this house would have been between $7,500 - $9,000 per month and the tax benefits accruing to mortgage payments should offset real estate commissions and other transaction costs, but the past few years were not a period in which to make a killing in real estate.

Changing Times
Average time to prepare dinner in 1930: 150 minutes; today, 15
Consumers prefer mixed, pre-washed lettuce 2:1 over conventional heads.
Pre-cooked, frozen meals and take-out sales at an all-time high.
Biggest consumer add-on to houses these days: the “gourmet” kitchen, replete with professional cooking ranges and commercial grade refrigerators.
We’re selling perception, not reality.

Plastic Bags, revisited
Did you catch that story in the Times of London reporting the consensus of a number of environmentalists that the banning of plastic shopping bags was a useless exercise in feel-good environmentalism? Turns out, we’re not choking 100,000 seabirds, whales, dolphins etc. on the things – the experts couldn’t come up with a single instance of a death occasioned by the bags- and, as usual with this kind of gesture, a ban only encourages people to think that they’re doing something significant to save the world while permitting them to ignore the truly harmful acts that we all engage in. The trouble with this sort of nonsense is, when it’s exposed as folly, it makes people like me even more cynical towards the entire environmental movement and depletes energy that might otherwise be expended on real change.

Over-priced houses
Two more houses went to contract last week, each at more than $1,000,000 below their original asking price. This is not an example of the Greenwich housing market collapsing but rather, a reflection of crazy pricing to begin with. I saw three new listings last week that, in, my opinion, will suffer the same fate, long after their owners have been driven to distraction trying to keep their homes in showroom condition, for months. Don’t do this to yourself – price it, sell, it, and move on. This is not the market to toss something out there to “see what happens”: nothing will.

But then …
There’s Jane Gosden’s listing at 123 Zaccheus Mead Lane, for $7,250,000. This one ought to go. It’s a 1923 classic, completely updated, with a new pool and pool house that look like they’ve been there for the past 80 years, all new electric and a furnace that could easily service a nuclear submarine, new windows, kitchen, etc., all on one of the best, most convenient streets in town. I thought it was a terrific house, sensibly priced, compared to others in its range.

29 Irvine Road, Old Greenwich
A long time ago a Realtor I admire tried to sell me on the merits of split-level houses. As we were in a tired, decrepit example of that style, I wasn’t buying, but Lillian Fong’s new listing in Old Greenwich has opened my eyes. This house has been completely redone in a Craftsman style by Greenwich architect Paul Peters (new to me, so I took down his contact information: 325- 1110, pjpdesign@aol.com) and it’s a real beauty – one of the nicest houses I’ve seen in years, in fact. Plenty of space, five bedrooms, great street, asking $2,695,000. I think it’s a good deal, and, if you have a split level or are considering one, you should see this so that you’ll appreciate the possibilities.

No Energy
Our awful attorney general, Michael Blumenthal, has scored yet another triumph in delaying a cross-sound electrical cable underneath the waters of Long Island Sound. I saw this man on TV last fall, harrumphing that we don’t need a Compressed Natural Gas plant 10 miles off shore because there are so many alternatives to bringing energy to Connecticut. Fine, except that this aspiring senator has done everything he can to stop any such alternative, from power lines to pipelines to nuclear reactors or even conventional power plants. The man obviously believes that fairies will circle our state, holding hands and singing Kumbaya while delivering clean, non-polluting energy to our state, all for free; the moron will be grievously disappointed when that doesn’t happen. He’s a Harvard man, naturally.

John Tesei
I don’t know if our new First Selectman went to Harvard, but he acts as though he did. He just approved, based on the plea of a thirteen-year-old boy, a plan to spend $50,000 to buy “green” energy for the town, claiming that it costs so little to send an important signal that Greenwich is environmentally conscious. I’ve come to expect that our representatives in Washington and Hartford will hold in contempt the effort citizens expend to earn money, but I’ve hoped for better from our local politicians. $50,000 represents the earnings of ten average Greenwich homeowners whose entire tax bill will be fretted away on a feel-good “symbol” that achieves nothing, all so that our First Selectman can hold his head high at the next meeting of Connecticut mayors. Jim Lash rejected this nonsense for what it was; is it too late to invite him back? Failing that, can we at least agree not to set our budget priorities on the importuning of children? Other than the occasional Christmas present, it’s not how I set our household budget and it seems a poor way to run a town.

Book SigningDiane Dutcher has invited me to sign copies of my book, Greenwich Mean Time at an open house at her listing at 7 Irvine Road, Old Greenwich, Friday night, March 14, at 6:30. I don’t expect to sell many copies, but I respect a Realtor who thinks outside the box, which Diane certainly does. Come and be feted and, perhaps, entertained.

Historical houses?
36 Mayo Avenue, at the gateway to Belle Haven, recently sold for $10,000,000 plus and the new owners now want to tear it down. The Greenwich Historical Society, naturally, objects, and seeks to “educate” the buyers on the merits of the house, in the hope of persuading them to rehabilitate the mansion rather than raze it. My response is, where were you when this place came on the market five years ago? Houses like this appeal or don’t appeal depending on taste: to me, it’s a large pile of unsightly rocks, a testament to too much money and too little taste belonging to an 1890’s textile merchant. And, although its former owner claims to be torn to pieces by the prospect that it’s destined for the dumpster, I note that he placed no restrictions on its sale; if he had, he’d never have sold it. The place was a dump, I’m sorry to say, and all the old molding and fantastic details did not outweigh the building’s obsolescence. I love old houses, and I’ve championed them in this column for many years, but this particular piece of architecture was ugly from its inception and has only grown uglier over the years. The new owners apparently hoped to resurrect it from ruin until they received cost estimates from their architect and builder and then decided to go for new. As Bruce Robertson, president of the Belle Haven Land Association said (quoted in Greenwich Time)” I don’t think anyone is going to be surprised [that it’s being replaced by a new home]….If done right, this could be a beautiful addition to the community”. This house is “historical” because it’s been here for 120 years, but I’m not at all convinced that it deserves another century. If the Historical Society disagrees, I ask again, where were they when the house sat unsold for so many years? The time to preserve old houses is just before or when they first come on the market. Don’t sit idle while these homes languish on the market and then bemoan their demise after the fact.

Quiet rock
I just heard about this product, and it intrigues me. It’s sheetrock, sort-of, but designed with an interior layer that dissipates sound by converting it to energy (or something). When I worked as a builder during college vacations a long time ago, I know that my boss and his customers worked mightily to insulate powder rooms, kids music rehearsal rooms and whathaveyou from the living areas of the house, usually without effect. Thirty years on, technology appears to advanced and you can now hang a ½” panel that eliminates most sound. Seems a bit pricey – check it out by Googling “Quiet Rock” - but at around $40 a panel, it’s not excessive, considering the total cost of a renovation. I haven’t used it and I don’t know if any of my builder /clients have, but it seems worthy of investigation.

Two Nice Houses
There is nothing more subjective than real estate (see my comments about Mayo Avenue, above) but I really liked two new listings last week, 25 Stony Wylde Lane and 10 Sparrow Drive (off of Parsonage). The former is new construction by Jordan Saper and, I’ll confess, I usually don’t like his projects. That’s my loss, not his, as Mr. Saper designs and sells to the market and his houses sell instantly, at full price, and resell later for even more. He either hired a new architecht for the Stony Wylde project or the lot forced changes, but this house has some nice, quirky rooms jutting off at odd angles and it all feels much more cozy than some of his previous efforts. Again, that’s just my opinion: Mr. Saper builds an incredible house and his sales reflect that quality; if I don’t “get it”, whose fault is that? Anyway, I think almost anyone will like this one. Wilson Alling, New England Land Company, has listed it at $8,475,000.

Bryan Tunney, of Cleveland, Duble & Arnold, has listed a 1900 converted barn on Sparrow Lane for $5,200,000. It was renovated and expanded in 1997 and, considering its condition, its close-to-town location and its acre-and-a-half flat yard, I think it’s a good value. Five bedrooms, a million bucks each, what else do you want? Seriously (and this is serious money) this is a really nice house and it outshines many others in its price range.

School Vacation
As a parent of school-aged kids I was all for them. As a Realtor, I’m not such a fan, because half the town empties out: good for those of us stuck here in the ice, but bad for people trying to sell their house. Ah well, we’ll get by this week (and next week, when the private school kids, safely segregated from their public school peers, disappear to St. Barts) and the market will resume.

Watch out!
I understand that an old practice has reappeared on our real estate scene: listings that are held “in-house” rather than being placed on the MLS. It’s easy to understand why a broker would like this arrangement, as a full loaf is always better than half, but what’s in it for you, the homeowner? Houses in Greenwich sell via the multiple listing exchange. The more exposure your house has to agents, the more likely a buyer will be found, so limiting that exposure to just the agents of one particular brokerage firm only hurts you: I can see no possible advantage. Here’s a suggestion: if a firm makes this pitch ask what’s in it for you? I suppose that, if they’re willing to cut the commission in half, you might want to risk a 30 day trial and see if you can save some money. But if there’s no discount, you’d be a chump to agree.

Eco-Shakes
I heard about these recycled plastic/cellulose substitutes for cedar shingles on NPR not long ago and, after researching them (Google Eco-Shake) and they seem to make sense. By using them you’ll get a product with a 50 year warranty (real cedar has a lifespan of around 20 years), a fire-resistant surface that will probably earn a reduction in your fire insurance costs, fewer problems with mold and fungus and the feel-good effect occasioned by reusing materials that would otherwise end up in a land fill. My guess is that, like the synthetic slate roofing I wrote about last year, the cost of product will probably be about the same but long term, you’ll have a better product. The builder/expert interviewed on NPR said that the finest home builder he knew (and the speaker was editor of Fine Home Building) uses these and “if they’re good enough for him …”. Worth looking into, I think.

Eco-Mommies and our town
Greenwich is all aflutter to end global warming by proposing eliminating plastic bags in supermarkets and converting the town’s fleet to hybrid vehicles. Before we rush around like headless chickens, could we please just take a deep breath and consider this? First, modern landfills are anaerobic – anything placed there, plastic or “recyclable” paper, stays there, forever; it doesn’t decompose. So no gain there. Second, hybrids use, duh, big lead batteries. That lead is mined in Canada, causing a huge toxic mess, shipped to China, converted to batteries and then shipped back here for installation in cars. There may be a net gain to our environment in all this, but I’d like to see some studies proving it.

As for eco-mommies, did you read about them in the New York Times? These are groups of unemployed ladies in Marin County (for now, but you know they’re coming our way soon) who gather in each others’ mansions, sip expensive wine and criticize each other for using wall-to-wall carpeting, paint (?!) and SUVs, all while discussing how to save the planet by switching lightbulbs and eschewing brown paper lunch bags for their kids. A recent study in Japan calculated how much of the US economy would have to be sacrificed if we were to cut our carbon emissions in half by 2050. Turns out, the study calculates it at 88%. The economists who reached this conclusion thought that was just fine (“ I like riding a bicycle”, says one) but I wonder what the ladies of Marin County will think about walking over the Golden Gate Bridge to reach their masseuse? In short, if global warming is as dire as Al Gore says it is, and we care to do something about it, we have to stop growing food, stop driving or flying or heating our homes and revert to a mediaeval standard of living. Good for Breugel, I suppose, bad for us.

19 Hendrie Lane
This is a very nice house, listed by Mandy Fry (of David Ogilvy Associates) for just $1,295,000. Hendrie Lane is that small, dead end street across from Eastern Middle School. Years ago, we’d cross the train tracks and hike up this street to get to school – an act we’d be arrested for today, I’m sure. The house has three bedrooms, expandable to four, if necessary, but I wouldn’t do that; instead, it’s a great little house for a young couple looking to get into a great area of Riverside at what, in this neck of the woods, passes for a moderate price. Nicely renovated, too.

Zillow.com – still not ready for prime time
My brother Gideon supplied me with some interesting data from Zillow , comparing their estimated value with actual selling prices. The differences indicate that, should rely on this site, you could either seriously under-price your property or be hopelessly optimistic. For instance:
Address Zillow Prediction Actual Price
185 Clapboard Ridge $5,438,000 $9,400,000
55 Perkins $10,944,000 $8,975,000
27 Valleywood $1,463,500 $1,250,000
8 Crawford $1,052,000 $825,000
50 Carriglea $5,072,000 $5,500,000
1 Hobart $4,355,000 $5,500,000
565 Stanwich $8,246,500 $6,901,000

Of all of these, the Stanwich Road property’s value might have been closest to actual value (I know, because I sold it). Fortunately for my buyers, the seller originally priced it at $11,500,000 and, after the house sat idle on the market for over two years, was finally forced to reduce it to a fire sale price just to move it, which is when we swooped in. The point is, Zillow’s computer program just can’t deal with local Greenwich pricing – yet – so don’t bug your agent with calls saying, “but Zillow says”. So far, we Realtors know better than Zillow. But if those geniuses at Google get ahold of the site, watch out. There may indeed be an as-yet undiscovered algorithm that will render folks like me useless.

Dunellen Hall
When the Queen of Mean died last fall, I guessed that her 40-acre estate might fetch $60,000,0000. David Ogilvy has now placed it on the market for $125,000,000. I would never try to out-guess Mr. Ogilvy on these matters, but I did pick the Giants 21-17 over the Patriots last week. Not quite right, but closer than the experts. Am I on a roll? We’ll see in a year or two, I suppose.

Tree Guys
There are any number of excellent tree service companies working in town but we’ve used Hawthorne Brothers, out of Bedford Hills, for a long time and always received excellent service. Their front man, the fellow who meets with you and prescribes needed work, is Brian Johnson, a burly, bearded graduate of UVM’s Forestry School who spent years working with the U.S. Forestry Service in, I think Alaska. This man knows his trees, and is a pleasure to work with. Logging, ecology, books, philosophy, you name the topic, he’s informed on it. And he cares about trees. Hawthorne isn’t cheap – no tree company down here is – but, under Brian’s guidance, you’ll get the service you need with no unnecessary or harmful cutting added. (203) 531-1831, to reach them.

Are we losing our collective minds?
On primary day last week, the schools closed to protect young students from their parents. In years past, the kids would hold PTA bake sales and witness citizens in action, participating in Democracy. No longer, despite, to the best of my knowledge, not a single untoward incident in the past 100 years. We’ve ratcheted up our fear index so far these days that even simple acts like a local election are undoable. For the record, the only dangerous fellow I saw when voting at Riverside School was WW II hero (and grandfather) Chuck Standard, who gave up being dangerous in 1945.

Just in time for Valentine’s Day
At the suggestion of one of my readers, I thought I’d close with something nice to say about someone: in this case, “Lisa” from Porecelli’s Old Greenwich Food Mart, who scurries around the village at this time of year painting small red hearts on showroom windows, just to add a bit of festive color. Nice gesture so thanks, Lisa. Have a great day.

The wonders of living in a small town
A bunch of us neighbors want a 200 – yard sidewalk installed here in Riverside between Spring Street and Weston Hill Road, to protect pedestrians walking down a blind curve. A number of other neighbors object to the project and so Lindy Lilien, a doer of the highest order, put out a call for a walk up the hill in question at 8:20 in the morning. Despite less than 15 hours notice, Lindy got about 50 parents and their kids and two of our selectman, Peter Tesei and Lyn Lavery to show up – Peter even brought his 9-month-old daughter, Carolyn, as well as his wife – if the route was as dangerous as we claim, this was daring behavior (Peter Crumbine called in his regrets but no offense taken, since everyone has a life, and this walk was called on almost no notice). Two points: it’s terrific to live in a town where, when a problem is perceived, a call to the local government produces the top officials to come see what you’re talking about; and, because a small town means that you probably know the folks on the other side of an issue, one can call those people and find out what their beef is. In this case, I called the most vocal opponent, my friend George Scott and, while I wouldn’t presume to speak for the gentleman, it seems that he and his fellow opponents agree that the hill in question is indeed dangerous: they object to a wider project, promoted by other people, to install sidewalks on every stretch of Riverside’s streets. I told George that I would side with him in opposing such an ambitious, unnecessary plan and I think a truce has been made: a modest municipal project vs. an over-reaching one. Scott is still concerned with letting “the camel’s nose under the tent” but I think we can agree on this sidewalk. And, as I said, it’s great to live in a town where you can speak personally with your neighbors and politicians and, with luck, achieve a resolution.

Which brings us to Stanwich School
Still more friends involved here. I attended a public meeting hosted by the school and, while I sympathize with my friend and project opponent Andy Healy, whose property abuts the school, I think the school has the better of the argument. This project will not impact its neighbors. Another friend, Chris Von Kyserling (freed from his police escort now that Jim Lash has retired) spoke forcefully and well as to the merits of the development, pointing out that, as presently built, the hodge-podge of buildings dumps water on the surrounding properties, looks like hell, and is a detraction to the neighborhood. The new Stanwich School will be a huge improvement, in Chris’s opinion and mine.

Demolition
A proposal soon to be introduced to the RTM will increase the delay in demolitions of 60-year-old buildings from 60 to 180 days. This is stupid. I hate it when developers tear down historic houses – see, eg, my comments re: Dennis Hatch, who demolished an 1852 Italianate home on Riversville Road – but, generally, a 60 year-old house is functionally obsolete and holds no value in today’s market. A six-month waiting period will NOT preserve the house – we have no ordinance that would achieve that – but it will affect the cost of housing. If a builder has to pay interest on, say, $1,500,000 for six months, either the price of his new project will increase or you, the seller, will receive less: simple economics. My advice to anyone who owns an older house is that, if this rule passes, apply immediately for a demolition permit. It’s good for several years and if you can offer your house with a pre-approved demolition permit, you’ll get more money for your house.

You Know your house is over-priced when…
Saw a beautiful new house the other day that was, to my mind, over-priced by $2,000,000. As I left, the lawn guy, a friend of mine, asked me what it was listed at. I told him and he paused, reflected, and said, “Gee, I figured it for $2,000,000 less than that.” I’m taking him with me on my next price opinion.

Buyer broker suits
A pending law suit in California pits a buyer against her broker, claiming that the broker failed to inform her that she was over-paying for the house. Because anything that starts in California eventually reaches us here in the east, I assume that we will soon be seeing such suits here. No one cared when brokers engaged in “mere puffery” when house prices were raising but now that they’re falling (if not in Greenwich, yet), watch for more of this fun. All of which emphasizes the importance of signing those “broker/buyer” agreements we agents are required to foist on you by Connecticut law. The old rule of agency dictated that agents represented the seller, exclusively, even if we never met the seller and worked exclusively with the buyer. Now, agency law has been changed so that we can have a fiduciary relationship with you. Which means you can sue us for not giving you the very best, most accurate information on the value of a house. This should keep lawyers busy for decades. By the way, you should know that Wall Street resists this trend. There, your stock broker can sell you any amount of worthless garbage and, when you complain, you’ll be told that, just like real estate agents of yore, she was engaging in “mere puffery” and you, you dolt, were foolish to listen to her in the first place. It’s why I love the free enterprise system so much.

New forum for shareholder meetings?
The Greenwich Association of Realtors, for some inexplicable reason, chose to hold their annual meeting at the Glenville Civic center which has almost no parking and a non-functioning PA system. I left after a few minutes since I was unable to hear anything but I was struck by the idea that this would be an ideal place for you corporate chieftains with pesky shareholders to schedule your own meetings. Some moron exceeded his trading authority and lost seven billion dollars? Lose a few billion in the sub-prime market? Got a bit of a budget deficit coming up? Here’s the place to announce it – no one will hear, even if they can find a parking space to attend. I’m not certain of how one goes about reserving this space but call my association and I’m sure they’ll give you the details. Cheap, too.

Realtorese
There’s a house on the market in Old Greenwich whose advertising boasts that it abuts “town property”. True enough, but if that term brings to mind a town park, think again. The property in question actually hosts our local sewage pumping station. I admire the listing agent’s creativity, but, while the prospect of a neighboring park might bring a first time visit, I suspect that any would-be buyer will be a bit cheesed off when he sees what he’s next to. I once ran an ad for a house right on the Merit Parkway claiming that it was “convenient to transportation”, but I was kidding. This guy isn’t, I don’t think.

Riverside
Jane Brash (Coldwell Banker) has just listed 9 Willow Road for $2,595,000. Five very large bedrooms in a tastefully re-done house, on a great street. Not much of a yard, I suppose, but sufficient for its purpose and, again, a great location. Unless the market has really turned belly-up, this house should sell before this column sees print. If so, all credit to Jane for pricing it so intelligently. It remains my contention that there’s nothing wrong with this market that a good price won’t cure.

Greenwich Adult Day Care
This great organization recently offered a tour of its new facility, the old pump house on the Mianus River. What a transformation. The building, which I haven’t seen since I used to jump off its roof into the Mianus, has been completely renovated and now offers terrific views of the river and the dam, fenced-in terraces, recreation rooms, a cafeteria and even a beauty salon for its clients. As I understand the operation, caregivers of the elderly can arrange for their parent, say, to be picked up at home and brought here during the week to be cared for and entertained, thereby providing a break for the caregiver. Nice concept and a beautiful new location. Many of my friends, including Greg (de la Fontaine) Islan and John Cooper are on the GADC board – nice work that is probably rarely recognized.

Small Stores
The imminent closing of the Cos Cob Food Mart has caused me to rethink the value of local businesses. We can all order over the internet these days, but at what cost? I recently bought a HD TV from Sean Mecsery, of Cos Cob TV, in business since 1945, and received a great product and great advice at a price not much, if at all, higher than a big box store. If something goes wrong, I can go directly to the owner and set things set right (Sean’s number is 869-2277.

On the same subject, to my great regret, I unloosed on Just Books in Old Greenwich last October, blaming them for not carrying my latest work when Perrot Library did. I was wrong to do so. There is no one who supports authors more than Jenny Lawton and her staff at Just Books, what with author book signings, in-store displays, readings, etc. . My peevishness did a grave disservice both to her and her store. These are the kind of operations we should be supporting, not denigrating, unless we want to move to a new world where all retail is conducted over the internet and our local downtowns are filled with nothing but sterile chain stores designed to draw shoppers from (horrors!) Westchester County and beyond. There used to be a slogan, “support your local sheriff”. We should expand that to include the small business proprietors who make this town so special.

But maybe not real estate developers
Latest real estate hot sheet discloses that Antares is bailing out of its residential development on Cherry Blossom Lane, way up on Taconic near the Bedford border. Asking price is about what they paid for the lots four years ago, and, in my opinion, they’ll be lucky to get anything close to that. At the time of the original sale, I wondered what line of goods they’d been fed to persuade them to buy such over-priced land in such an inconvenient location and apparently Antares had the same thoughts, as they have broken with their original agent and retained someone new to represent them, Ouch.

Small Houses?
I saw a very unusual house the other day in Old Greenwich. It’s a reproduction of a Victorian and its colorful design will appeal to some, but certainly not all, buyers. Inside, it’s obvious that the builder devoted an enormous amount of care in crafting the trimwork, and the detailing is terrific. So I liked it, but I wonder whether Old Greenwich is the right place for this house. To me, Old Greenwich involves children, usually lots of them, and this house lacks any real space for the little darlings to scatter their toys around and hang out, out of earshot of their parents. That’s not to say that this house won’t appeal to empty-nesters, but I suspect that its layout will limit the number of potential buyers. In a similar vein, I wonder what Detroit is going to do with the new gas mileage standards recently imposed by Congress. It would seem that we’re going to end up with a fleet of small, economical cars that will suit folks like me just fine but will be entirely inadequate for families with four kids with car seats. What will they drive? It may be a moot point because, if some of the other proposals being floated around Washington get enacted, we’ll soon have house-size limitations that will convince new parents to stop at one child anyway. Who says China has anything on us?

The Market lives
Last Thursday a 5 acre parcel, with a 1937 house, came on in Deerfield Park at an asking price of $12,000,000. Word is that Brad Hvolbeck had a seller signed up by 11:00 AM the next day. That kind of speed would seem to preclude building inspections and all the other stuff that normally encompasses a sale, and suggests, to me, anyway, that there are buyers out there ready willing and able to spring for the right house at the right price, regardless of the price level. So no, the market isn’t dead, it’s just filled with buyers waiting for what they want, at a price they’re comfortable with. I’m not suggesting that you should be comfortable with a $12,000,000 price, but you might want to work with your agent to present offers within your budget. If you’re turned down, be comforted with the knowledge that there are plenty of other houses that may very well suit your needs.