Ok, this is pathetic
After reading so much about OwlGore's energy-hogging mansion it occurred to me to look it up. That's it on top. Sheesh, it would barely pass muster in our fair Greenwich. This is a mansion? I sure hope there's a lot more house hidden around back because otherwise, the guy's practically living in a hovel - pretty discouraging for someone who's making millions on his latest racket. And, if this is considered a mansion, what is the rest of America living in? I've got to get out more.
On the other hand, the house on the bottom is, I kid you not, our current President's Texas ranch. I have no idea what it says about anything, but I do note that it's heated geothermically and uses far, far less energy than the Whopper's home, at least according to
this report
Update: "A random internet looker-upper" said...
There is more hidden around the back, for what it's worth (linked below). Apparently it's 10,000 square feet, which is probably a Tier II mansion in Greenwich (versus the elite monstrosities in the 15,000-35,000 range).

Here it is; enjoy.

Another reader poll
The cost of new construction poll is done; average cost seems to be between $300 and $400 sq.ft., which is also the range quoted me by my builder client who also cautioned that the proper answer is, "how much does a dress cost?" Depending on what you want, the costs can go anywhere.
But here's another: I occasionally see master bathrooms with great showers but no bathtub. I don't remember taking a bath in 40 years so I'm not concerned by the lack of one personally, but I have a sense that no tub would be a turn-off for those who like to soak. Is it?

Let them eat cake?
But not any fish served by Robert De Niro
Or we could all relax and heed the wisdom of Northern Ireland's Environmental Minister, who calls the whole man-made global fuss an hysterical pseudo-religion. I like that guy.

How to get rich in real estate
Become a Senator. According to this story, it worked for Joe Biden. Nice work if you can get it but as an author, I'm just as impressed to learn in the same article that Fighting Joe received $225,000 in advances for his autobiography last year. I'm sure it was a best seller, especially if it carried a jacket blurb by Neil Kinnock

Uh oh!
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were cooking their books
. Of course, with so many friends in Washington, I'm sure the chief thieves will be allowed to keep their millions and leave town, no doubt to be rehired somewhere else in the banking industry.

Answer: "Hey Y'all, watch this!"
Question is, what are a redneck's last words?



2007 - Antares expands into luxury residential housing

Vixen!
Won't Somebody Stop Her?
Damn - Palin didn't have an affair with her husband's ex-business partner. It's back to the blogs for my liberal friends.

(Great Grandfather Caldwell decides to leave for America)
Bloomberg reports that
Foreclosures are up. There's some encouraging news buried way down in the article: foreclosed houses are beginning to sell, indicating that the glut's being reduced (a local real estate columnist reports the increase in existing house sales in July as great news but declines to mention that 1/3 of those sales were bank-owned properties; you'd think he was being paid to be cheerful or something).

Hanna a bust?
In terms of high winds, probably so. Check out this great blog, Weather Nerd and all his links for a good picture of Hanna and, more worrisome for residents of the Florida Keys and the Gulf states, Hurricane Ike.
Rambling through the Internet, guys (for some reason, storm tracking seems to be a guy thing) blogging from the center of Hanna report a lot of rain but not much else and because of the storm's speed, even the rain is ending quickly. Of course, even 4" of rain could cause a mess up here - we'll find out tonight. In the meantime, keep your powder dry.

New York Times to condense paper

77 Sheephill
This house was listed back in January '07 for $1.995 million and still hasn't sold, despite a steady series of price cuts. It's now down to $1.695, perhaps where it should have started to begin with, but in this market, who knows what will happen?It's a good house, so its future will give a pretty good snapshot of this area of town's market. But regardless of how much the seller put into renovating this house, and it looks to be a substantial sum, he'll probably make out okay - he paid only $435,000 for it in 2001.

Freedom of the Press
Imagine that you had once worked as a real editor of a real newspaper, or that your father had founded a real newspaper and handed its reins over to you. Now imagine that you've ended your editing career with, or transformed your inheritance into, a light-weight vehicle for advertising and nothing more. Bummer, no?
With that in mind, I'm happy to announce that my former paper, The Greenwich Post, has bravely faced down the scorn and ire of its advertisers and will, beginning September 18th, begin running Susie Costaregni's gossip column, "The Dish", every week! The public be damned, we're going to print what must be told. Right on, guys.

Here's a taste of what the hard-hitting Dish will be serving up:

Greenwich residents Frank Gifford, the former NFL star and sports commentator, and Olympic gold medal swimmer Donna de Varona were seen having lunch at Valbella restaurant in Old Greenwich this past week; Regis Philbin and friends were spotted dining there Saturday, Jan. 20; and actor Jesse Bradford of "Swimfan" and "Flags of Our Fathers" fame ate there last week. And . . . at Valbella New York on West 13th Street, recent Golden Globe-winning actress and producer Salma Hayek of the popular sitcom "Ugly Betty" was seen having dinner.

And this:

Among the 300 friends, colleagues and dignitaries, including her favorite security guard, at the party were Randy Jones of the Village People; celebrity photographer James Edstrom; Fox News legal analyst Lis Wiehl and attorney Michael Sherman; MSNBC anchors Contessa Brewer, Alison Stewart and Chris Jansing; NBC anchor Carl Quintanilla; Lisa Bloom and Diane Dimond of Court TV; and actor Bobby Abid. Boyfriend and singer/songwriter Tomaczek Bednarek wrote a song for the occasion, "You Make the News."

Cosby isn't taking a break. This week, she hosted a two-hour radio show on Sirius satellite radio. She heads to her
alma mater, the University of South Carolina, next week to teach for a day. Then she travels to the Middle East,
where she will speak at a conference.

No need to worry about the future of this paper now, that's for sure.

Pricing (and building) to the neighborhood
This beautiful house on Loading Rock Road in Riverside was originally priced at $3.695 million in January and has now been reduced to $3.195. Why won't it sell? I suspect it's because the neighborhood won't support that price level. Pioneers sometimes do well -Dave Tilly, builder of beautiful homes,broke through the price barrier on Irvine Road in Old Greenwich - but they usually need an extraordinary feature to do so. If this house were directly on the Mianus, for instance, instead of across the street from it, I'm pretty sure it would have sold at its original price a long time ago. As it is, who knows?

95 Cognewaugh Road
The owners of this house paid $1.150 million for it in August 2003 and, after renovating it, tried to sell it 5 years later for $1.550. It sold yesterday for $1.245 which, while technically not a loss, sure isn't a home run. Moral is, buy your house as a place to live and possibly raise a family - any appreciation is a nice bonus. I used to say that five years ago, so I feel almost smug in these trying times.

44 Close Road
Built in 2003 for Tommy Hilfiger, neither he nor anyone else has ever lived in it and it's been on the market ever since. It started at $12.5 million, was raised to $13.995 million a year later in an attempt, I assume, to punish those buyers who were too stupid to buy it at the lower price and then gradually slipped down through the 12s and the 11s. Today it was reduced to $10.995 which might move it, or might not. It's a perfectly good house but unlike cheese, listings don't improve with age.

7 Dwight Lane
Here's the house on Dwight Lane that's being sold via court judgment later this month. If you enlarge the first photo you'll notice that the house, built in 1986, has suffered from malign neglect. The original builder was on site and the auctioneer says that the man will "fix everything" for $100,000. Considering that that would involve, at a minimum, new siding, new decks, new electrical, new pool and God knows what else, that sum sounds suspiciously optimistic to me.
As did the auctioneer himself, who told me that his only problem was that he "only has one of these to sell". I questioned him on that and he assured me that $2.5 million was only going to be the starting bid and that he already had numerous buyers chomping at the bit. If he does, they almost certainly aren't from Greenwich because I can't believe anyone familiar with our town and this street's location would share the auctioneer's fevered enthusiasm.
Of course, he could have been shucking and jiving me - you think?
The grounds are nice, though. By the way, I just remembered what else needs replacement: the tennis court.

View Larger Map

On second thought ...
A builder (I'm pretty sure it was a builder) paid $2.840 million for a building lot on 3 Quintard Ave (Old Greenwich) in July of this year. Today he's put it back on the market for $900K more. I understand why he might not want to proceed with a building project at this time but I'm at a loss to explain why the land is worth so much more now than it was six weeks ago. With that kind of creativity, you'd think this guy could have made a go of this project regardless of market conditions.

16 Ridge Brook
How about this one?
This house was listed April 15, 2008 for $6.950 million and immediately underwent seven price cuts until by June 30th it was priced at a mere $3.695 million. It then disappeared for two weeks and popped up in mid-July at a new, higher price: $3.995. Today that failed experiment was deleted and replaced by a new listing of $3.495. Make up your mind, will ya?

11 Winding Lane
Agents: Don't let this happen to you!
This house came on for sale last September at $9.975 and sat at that same price until July 2008 when the seller lopped $1.0 million off the top. Too late, I fear. There was an additional price drop of almost $300,000 two weeks ago, no doubt because the broker's listing was due to expire but expire it did and now it's with a new broker, but at the same last listing price of $8.695. The original listing agent is one of the most successful in town and her replacement is also excellent but I suspect neither was or will be enough to overcome what was obviously the wrong price.

Something for insurers and taxpayers to chew on
This site is always a helpful source of weather news, particularly Gulf hurricanes. It may be worth your while to scroll down his site for the discussion of wind shear, where you'll find this alarming quote: "Make no mistake about it, the levees didn't save New Orleans from a rare and powerful storm. Cuba and some slight wind shear did, ensuring that Gustav was barely a category 3 hurricane in the open Gulf of Mexico, as it was building its maximum storm surge."
By the way, hurricane Ike seems likely to be heading west, into the Gulf, but at least one model has it slamming full force into Miami. That's probably not going to happen with this storm but sooner, rather than later, some storm will and the results will be awesome: I've read predictions of $400 billion in damages. That would take care of the current housing glut down there, sure enough.

Free Cardboard
Is there a typo on this card or have moving boxes really risen in cost so much that they can cost $3,000? I used to work summers for a moving company (a long time ago) and I think we moved entire houses for what this guy's boxes cost. Of course, his use of the term "house removal" suggests that he's a Brit, so perhaps someone just took advantage of him: "How much is that in pounds? Really? Jolly good!"

26 Taconic Road
A reader asked what happened to this house. The answer, it turns out, is "nothing". It came on in September 2006 at $7.45 million and slowly dropped in price to $5.980 before being withdrawn from the market June 28 of this year. It was a nice house but the yard was a bit dodgy and the beautiful porches extending on the east made many rooms too dark, at least for my clients' taste. The builder may be living in it himself now - I don't know - but I'm sure we'll see it back for sale one of these days.

It's my party and I'll cry if I want to
According to Drudge, Oprah is balking at inviting Sarah Palin onto her show. I'll admit that I've never watched Oprah but I'd have thought she'd be interested in a female VP nominee. Wrong again.

Here's an example of (builders') optimism
My friend Jonathan Wilcox took it upon himself to compare builders' claimed square footage with what town records show. I suppose that attics and basements do provide some sort of space but when some builders add those areas to their square footage calculations and others do not, it makes it difficult to compare apples to apples.

Click to enlarge

You think I'm pessimistic
A friend emailed me this story predicting a housing decline worse than the Great Depression. That's just nasty and, to make certain he ruined my morning, he also sent me this.

Wet Basements
If you're considering buying a house, this weekend looks like a good time to visit the subject property and inspect its basement. Hanna's on her way and the National Weather Service is predictingup to 7" of rain in our area. A storm like this will reveal drainage flaws far better than the most thorough home inspection and, conversely, if the place is dry on Sunday, you should be able to relax.

What Was I Thinking??!
Apropos of the post below, 29 Byfield Lane was listed April 15 of this year for $9.450 million. It dropped a wee bit, then was excised from our listings and returned June 24th at $6.350 million. Even a $3 million drop didn't work so today it's been cut again, to $6.298. Call me overly pessimistic, but if cutting it $3.145 million didn't do the trick, I'm dubious that a trim of $52,000 is going to help much. And again, what is a buyer to think when he sees a house drop by more than a third in two months? He might think, "that was a stupid price the first time." He might also think the market's in a free-fall.

Interestingly enough, the same broker's got another listing that can't seem to decide on the right price. 101 Dingletown, a 1964 house renovated four years ago, has jumped around since it was first listed in late June of this year. It started at $5.785, went up to $5.995 10 days later, climbed again, to $6.395 2 weeks after that (I'm not kidding), and dropped today to $5.798, or $13,000 more than when it started its journey. I've mentioned this before, but if your house isn't selling, the price direction you want to go in is down. Try it and see.

I don't know what this means, but I suppose it's not 'discouraging"

In Greenwich, we are continuing to see a shift in what price ranges homes are being purchased. In July, 72% of homes sold were below $3 million. Thirty percent of these homes sold between $2 million and $3 million or slightly above our median price of $1,825,000. Our market is appropriately adjusting to the economic changes that can further support its stability.

That's from the real estate column in today's edition of The Greenwich Post (no perma link available so you'll have to click through to find it). The writer in question works hard to keep up a happy face, week after week, so "appropriately adjusting to economic changes that can further support ... stability" must be her attempt to offset news even she feels compelled to disclose:

In Greenwich, single-family sales decreased 34.7% and condominiums decreased 5.1% in July as compared to this time last year. In June of this year, existing homes decreased 31.1% as opposed to condominiums that decreased 19.6% from a year ago.

It must have killed her to admit that.

Open house report
Well, nothing much out there today. I saw one new listing whose listing agent was asking for price opinions. I suspect I added no cheer by suggesting a price cut of $225,000 off its $1.995 price but hey - he asked; and he won't listen anyway, so no harm no foul.

But there's a problem with these over-priced listings that affects all of us: a friend tells of showing a house yesterday that had been marked down a full million dollars from its two million plus original price. Instead of seeing a bargain, his potential buyer was scared off, reasoning that if a house could "lose" a million dollars in value one week, what was to prevent it from losing another million next week?

What's being exposed in the present market is the unreality of pricing in this town. I know that sounds "too discouraging" for some of you readers, but when Back Country mansions start whacking $3-4 million from their asking price, over night, buyers can be forgiven if they conclude that there's no real substance behind some of these prices.

So they're waiting things out.

Tear down of next week? 7 Hearthstone Drive

This beautiful (to my eye) 1868 farmhouse, originally belonging to the Lockwood family, is presumably slated for destruction. There's no demolition sign posted yet but the lawn isn't being maintained and it recently sold for its land value, $1,315,000. What a shame. The owners tried selling it for $1,560,000 back in 2003-2004 but found no takers, a reflection of what's happening in Greenwich.

I've often wondered why Greenwich buyers show so little interest in antique homes. In many towns - look at Guilford or Westport, for instance, older homes are treasured but not so here. Even growing up, I noticed a dearth of old houses, even though the town was settled in 1640. What's different about Greenwich that causes its residents to disdain our heritage? I have no idea, but I do know that in the years I've been doing this gig, I've had exactly one buyer who specifically asked to see old houses. That's discouraging.

Tear Down of the Week - 384 Sound Beach Avenue

This is (soon to be was) a very nice house with, as I recall, a pool dominating the small back yard. It sold via bidding war (asking price, $1.795, selling price, $1.873 million) in August 2004 (which we now refer to as "the good old days"), a price that I would have thought precluded it being torn down. Obviously, I was wrong.

I'm off to see new listings on the open house tour and will report on any bargains that turn up. Unfortunately, even in this market sellers tend to still price their new listings at unrealistic levels but I'm always ready to be pleasantly surprised.

Emails from Realtors I never finish reading
"YOU OWE IT TO YOUR CLIENTS TO PRESENT THEM THIS WONDERFUL OPPORTUNITY ..."

I hate ALL CAPS and I prefer to decide for myself what my responsibilities are to my clients (and I don't sell in Stamford).

Straight from "The Grim Reaper Gazette"(Okay, I guess it's actually Bloomberg)GMAC Mortgage shuts down

``This gives you a full flavor of how terrible the mortgage market is,'' said Mirko Mikelic, senior portfolio manager at Fifth Third Asset Management in Grand Rapids, Michigan. ``The past year has been horrible and it doesn't look like there is any improvement on the horizon with continuing declines in home values and rising delinquencies.''

Did you hear the happy news about Greenwich house sales?

Don't worry, be happy!
A reader has posted the following comment:

Chris - one would hope that someone in the real estate industry (such as yourself), would at least try to promote an optimistic point of view. It's in the best interest of all of us, including the buyers.

I'd be happy to oblige, if only someone would point out something to be optimistic about. Sales are down 38%, values are dropping, buyers are sitting on the sideline, what can I say? Are there glimpses of cheer? Sure - there's a house sale pending in the eastern part of town due to close in a few weeks at $8 million plus that should blow the socks off any recent comparable sale on its street. When it does, you'll hear about it here. But otherwise, I'm pretty much stuck reporting on how things are, and things ain't rosy. I try to point out bargains when I spot them, and I've mentioned several times that there are bargains available but I'm not interested in painting a false picture of a healthy market, regardless of how that might serve sellers or even this particular realtor. There are a couple of other columnists in town who seem to have a brighter outlook so if you're looking for happy news, check their papers.
Of course, if I were a buyer who over-paid because of a supposed expert's opinion that things were looking up I'd be pretty ticked when things turned out otherwise.

136 Cat Rock Rd revisited

I mentioned yesterday that this renovated house finally went to contract last week at somewhere south of its last asking price of $1.995 million, down from an initial asking price of $3.4 back in January 2006. What I failed to point out was that the builders/sellers bought the place way back in November, 2003 for $1.4 million and spent the intervening years adding on, building a new septic field, etc. That's a long time and a lot of sunken money for such a paltry return. Watch out where you "invest".

Real friends don't let friend's letters go unanswered

Dear XXX - thank you for sharing the alarming news that Ms. Palin supports oil drilling and hunting mooses. I shall of course never ever vote for such a person and I intend to sell my rifles and contribute the proceeds to Mr. Obama as some small token of remorse.

Along those lines, and in view of your deep concern over global warming, I have decided that, rather than pay you back for the gasoline we consumed boating to Montauk this past week I will instead purchase a carbon offset from an Indian company that grows biomass for alternative energy projects. It will only cost me a few rupees but I'm sure that you'll agree that it's better to spend a few pennies saving our earth than encouraging the profligate use of our precious resources and the spewing of carbon out your 90-foot yacht's tailpipes.

Yours in peace, love and understanding,
Chris.

From The Volokh Conspiracy, everything the New York Times knew about war, peace and Iraq:

Surge of Ignorance The only real question about the planned "surge" in Iraq — which is better described as a Vietnam-style escalation — is whether its proponents are cynical or delusional. -- Paul Krugman, NYT, 1/8/07

There is nothing ahead but even greater disaster in Iraq. -- NYT Editorial, 1/11/07

What anyone in Congress with half a brain knows is that the surge was sabotaged before it began. -- Frank Rich, NYT, 2/11/07

Keeping troops in Iraq has steadily increased the risk of a bloodbath. The best way to reduce that risk is, I think, to announce a timetable for withdrawal and to begin a different kind of surge: of diplomacy. -- Nicholas Kristof, NYT, 2/13/07

W. could have applied that to Iraq, where he has always done only enough to fail, including with the Surge -- Maureen Dowd, NYT, 2/17/07

The senator supported a war that didn't need to be fought and is a cheerleader for a surge that won't work. -- Maureen Dowd, NYT, 2/24/07

Now the ''surge'' that was supposed to show results by summer is creeping inexorably into an open-ended escalation, even as Moktada al-Sadr's militia ominously melts away, just as Iraq's army did after the invasion in 2003, lying in wait to spring a Tet-like surprise. -- Frank Rich, NYT, 3/11/07

Victory is no longer an option in Iraq, if it ever was. The only rational objective left is to responsibly organize America’s inevitable exit. That is exactly what Mr. Bush is not doing and what the House and Senate bills try to do. -- NYT Editorial, 3/29/07

There is no possible triumph in Iraq and very little hope left. -- NYT Editorial, 4/12/07

... the empty hope of the "surge" ... -- Frank Rich, NYT, 4/22/07

Three months into Mr. Bush’s troop escalation, there is no real security in Baghdad and no measurable progress toward reconciliation, while American public support for this folly has all but run out. -- NYT Editorial, 5/11/07

Now the Bush administration finds itself at that same hour of shame. It knows the surge is not working. -- Maureen Down, NYT, 5/27/07

Mr. Bush does have a choice and a clear obligation to re-evaluate strategy when everything, but his own illusions, tells him that it is failing. -- NYT Editorial, 7/25/07

The smart money, then, knows that the surge has failed, that the war is lost, and that Iraq is going the way of Yugoslavia. -- Paul Krugman, NYT, 9/14/07

U.S. Hands Off Pacified Anbar, Once Heart of Iraq Insurgency. -- NYT, 9/1/08

Testing the Water (again)
The land at 264 Riverside Avenue was originally going to hold a fairly large house priced at $4.390 million. That didn't work out so the builder tried selling the land itself for $1.995 and (after, rumor has it, rejecting an offer or two that might have been close to that) sold it off last Fall for $1.350. Now a new builder is trying again, offering a "6,400 sq.ft." house "set among parklike grounds" for, again, $4.390 million. It could work, although I note that, 0.33 acres hardly conjures up images of "park-like grounds" to me, and the applicable FAR limits the above-ground house to 4,528 sq.ft., so there's a big chunk of basement presumably being included here. The builder/designer has done excellent work in the past so this promises to be a nice house regardless of its size and, with a planned completion date of Spring 2009, perhaps the market will have recovered enough to support its price. Riverside has always been a strong market and houses in this price range on this street have sold before so there's room for optimism. There's also room for skepticism, which I suppose is the point of this post.

Here's a whack upside the head
Courtesy of John Cooke, some self-explanatory sales statistics.
Click to enlarge

The only sales increase is at the bottom of the market which is no doubt due to prices falling rather than any sudden surge of interest. The only average price increase can be found above $5 million but that's probably due to new construction pushing things up. With a 38% decrease in volume, it's reasonable (to me) to expect a decline in this range later this year.

Where's that dunce cap now?
Greenwich Time reports, but not on line, that the Antares boys have ceded control of their Stamford redevelopment project to their Norwalk partner. Just two weeks ago Joe Beninati, co-founder of Antares, denied to The New Yorker's Nick Paumgarten that any such thing was possible. Things have obviously changed and Beninati professes to be delighted: "This frees Jim and me up for future acquisitions in the land assemblage [business]". That freedom is rapidly expanding, with the failure of their Putnam Green condo conversion project, the collapse of their Taconic Road residential spec development and the fire sale price supposedly fetched by their 35,000 sq. ft. disaster on Langhorne Lane. Just wait until their own houses around the corner from that mess are foreclosed - they'll have even more spare time to work their magic.

(From the New Yorker article)"By June, a developer from Norwalk named Carl Kuehner and his firm Building and Land Technology had joined the project. People around town wondered whether Antares had lost control of Harbor Point, but Beninati dismissed this: 'Carl’s going to lead the vertical development. He’s a superstar. It’s like trading for a Derek Jeter. We’re not about ego.' (A spokesman for Lubert-Adler said that the firm would have no comment.)"
Oops.

Update:
Greenwich Time has now posted the article

I don't see nuttin'
25 Birchwood started at $4.188 million back in May, 2007 and didn't sell, even though its price was eventually dropped to $3.685 million. It was withdrawn from the market last month but it reappeared today, now asking $3.995 million.

136 Cat Rock has a somewhat cheerier story, I suppose. Originally listed in January 2006 for $3,750 million it dropped to $1.995 last January and finally went to contract last week for what I presume was a deep discount from its final asking price.

My advice, as always; try to price it right to begin with and if it doesn't move, drop your price severely. Don't increase it - buyers aren't that dumb.

Another moment of
brilliance
21 Topping Road, 27 acres in the Back Country just east of the Helmsley place, has been offered for sale since August 2003 for $37.5 million. No one seemed impressed with that price so the sellers have switched brokers and brought it back on the market for $49.5 million. If that doesn't work, perhaps they'll raise it to $125 million so they can be just like Leona (her place hasn't sold either).

Famous Last Words
Joe Beninati, one of two co-founders of Antares Development Group (or whatever they call themselves) is quoted in the New Yorker article I mentioned earlier as being delighted to be renting to hedge fund companies in Greenwich and is remarkably sanguine about his continuing prospects of renting out office space at $150 a foot. Speaking of his tenants he says, “rent is as insignificant to these guys as the lunch bill.”
He may be right but I've heard those same rosy sentiments about Greenwichites' indifference to cost before, usually just before the latest group of pigeons goes broke and no one else is willing to step in to take their place. I'm not accusing Mr. Beninati of being stupid or anything, but I did notice, in reading the New Yorker article, that he and his partner met while each was doing "post-graduate work" at Choate. I thought that sort of educational detour was reserved for football players who flunked their SATs.

I didn't say it, Barrons did.
Realogy, parent company of Coldwell Banker and Sotheby's, continues to scare the financial press. In Barron's words, Look out Below!

Update 8/02/08
Bloomberg isn't impressed with their prospects either. "87% chance of default on their bonds" doesn't sound encouraging.

7 Dwight Lane
Thanks to research by reader Cos Cobber,this IRS auction property story gets more interesting. The full misadventures of a fallen, crooked hedge funder can be found here.The IRS auction page, linked to below and repeated here shows pictures. Judging from the cluttered interior, the resident wasn't all that cooperative with the IRS appraiser, and I suspect exterior maintenance has been neglected too - the SEC froze this guy's assets way back in 2003. If so, it's more likely to be a land sale rather than the five acres and a live in house that I earlier speculated would be a good buy at $2.5 million. Number 10 Dwight, a pure land sale (plus the cost of removing the existing house, like this sale) didn't move in 8 years at $2.9 million, and there's no reason to believe this one is worth $2.5.

The IRS ad states $2.5 million as the minimum price. If no one buys at that price, I assume that the IRS will take title and try to sell it again under its own name. Now that might produce an interesting value.

Update, 8/02/08
Today's Greenwich Time has an article on the sale (beat them to the punch, eh?). It's not available on line but if you check your neighbor's recycling bin ....
One little flaw in the article: it states that the property is worth $4.3 million "according to town tax records", and leaves it at that. If you pay anything like that sum for this property, you deserve to be the next investor in the soon-to-be-former owner's hedge fund.

Hurricane Hype?
Not really. Here's a thoughtful discussion of the issue. I'm a bit of a storm buff so I tend to read about what's happening during storms, regardless of their proximity. By early yesterday evening it was pretty certain that Gustav was not going to slam into New Orleans and had not regained the momentum it lost passing over Cuba but televison news never reported that. If I can read current information, why can't these reporters? Ratings, of course.
Here's my favorite blogger, law professor Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit.com on the subject:

Better safe than sorry, but watching the TV folks doing the usual standup-in-the-wind routine this morning I just thought how stale that shtick has become. Stay in the studio and just tell us what's happening. We've all seen newscasters with the wind in their hair now.

One itsy bitsy bit of politics.

Upon returning and checking my email I was struck by the number of missives from my "liberal" friends who have been sent absolutely around the bend by this Palin VP announcement. Greenwich Diva, run by a (black, female) friend of mine, has been forwarding every misogynist, sexist piece of trash she and her Kos friends can dig up - one day it accuses the poor Governor of lying about the parentage of the latest addition to her family and trying to hide her own daughter's pregnancy, the next it's accusations that Palin is an unfit mother who caused the poor infant's Down Syndrome by neglecting prenatal care. I've now read attacks on her figure, her hairstyle and even her support of gay rights (the latter, interestingly enough, purports to be from a conservative organization but web sleuthers tracked it back to
defendobama.com).

I love liberals, especially those who are my friends, but why is it that they so readily resort to the very tactics they - inaccurately - accuse conservatives of using? Posting pictures of a 16-year-old girl that "prove" she was pregnant while her mother was not (the picture turned out to have been taken 2 years before the actual birth, but why let that get in the way of a good story?), dismissing a female candidate because of her hairstyle and taste in glasses, calling her a bimbo (see Maureen Dowd - I won't) and bashing gays, which I assume is supposed to work up conservatives, all just show that sexist, stereotypical hate lies just beneath the surface of these folks. Scratch them slightly and it all wells up. I don't pretend to know the female mind but if my pals on the left keep this up, they just might drive some women voters away from the Obama camp in disgust

I'm back from the great fishing expedition and so here are a few items that cropped up while I was gone.
Reader Cos Cobber alerts me to an ad in yesterday's NYT announcing an IRS foreclosure auction on Dwight Lane. I haven't dug that issue from the recyling bin so I can't confirm the address but No. 10 Dwight Lane, 5 + acres with a tired house, was listed for sale for years at $2.95 million. If that's the property, it would provide a very nice building lot. I wasn't shocked at its asking price but it didn't sell for that (it didn't sell at all) and there might be a bargain available here, depending on how much the IRS wants in taxes. If it's not #10 we're talking about, my apologies in advance. UPDATE: found ad - it's 7 Dwight Lane, not 10. Don't know the property but will check it out. Auction scheduled for September 28th at noon. Open house September 5 and 6, 11am -3pm.
Another update:
Here's the IRS Auction Page with photos. Minimum bid $2,500,000. For 5 acres and a live-in house, good deal.

35 Price reductions last week, neatly matching 35 new listings. The only price reduction of note may be 48 Parsonage Road, new construction that's sat unsold for $7.85 million, now reduced to $7.195. That might do the trick, who knows?

Under "new" we actually have another price reduction, it's just been brought back on at a lower price. 44 Grahampton didn't sell at $6.995 million so they've chopped $1.0 million and change ($5.950 million) and they're trying again.

On the other hand, 2 Parsonage didn't sell at $3.684 (?) million so it's been relisted with another broker and jacked up its price to $4.425. Go figure.

895 Lake Avenue, a nice contemporary that was once part of that complex a crook (Frankel?) maintained (one of his chippies hanged herself there, he fled to Europe with diamonds, was caught and convicted and that's about all I recall) sold for $3.1 million, down a bit (quite a bit, when you figure in commissions and taxes) from its 2006 purchase price of $3.187.

Word from agents who did stick around last week is that they were busy showing houses to potential buyers so that's encouraging, but just 3 houses went to contract last week - if that doesn't improve in the next two weeks, we're in trouble.

What is it about the "Dinnertime Bandit"
that inspires headline writers to go goofy? Greenwich Time had cops "relishing in" the poor guy's defeat, The Greenwich Citizen crows, "Dinnertime Bandit convicted, those responsible exult". I suppose I'd exult too if I'd committed a series of crimes and a jury found someone else responsible, but should one of our local papers share in their glee?

More effective than bribing the maitre d'
The man pictured above, "Eddy", was our fishing guide for a few days this week and Thursday night we invited Ed and his wife Paula to join us for a farewell dinner at Harvest, reputed to be Montauk's best restaurant. Great idea but when we arrived we learned that there was an hour-and-a-half wait for an outside table and inside? Forget it. We turned away, wondering whether Tony's Pancake House was open for dinner, when Paula spotted the restaurant's hostess and hailed her. She explained our party of five's dilemma, the hostess disappeared inside for a minute and returned to announce in a loud voice for the benefit of the soon-to-be disappointed diners ahead of us, "I found your reservation - it was filed under 'Eddy'." Sure.

Okay, I felt a little guilty brushing past the hoi polloi clustered at the entrance but Eddy and Paula are regulars all year 'round (inside they were greeted by every worker, from bus boy to waiters) and heck, I've always wondered what it was like to have the velvet rope opened for my dining party. Turns out, it's just grand. Food was excellent, by the way and, compared to Greenwich, a relative bargain.

Back to work (after the weekend)
The tuna and shark population remains unchanged, despite our best efforts, but a few striped bass are on their way to becoming dinners. That's Sean Mathews holding a bass (Sean's the one wearing sunglasses). Need the best roofer in Fairfield County? Sean's your man.

Gone Fishing

Back Friday - please check in then. Thanks!

So you're thinking of buying a house
Okay, perhaps you aren't, but maybe you should be. As I mention below, there are a lot of houses out there that have been on the market for a long time. Some of them have come down enough to represent decent values (for instance, a house on lower Lake Avenue originally listed in June, 2006 at $1.585 million is now asking $1.099 million. Offer $995 and grab it), others still have some room to drop but their owners might be willing to listen to, and accept, a low price - I know of one that has been on for 18 months and has dropped from $3.5 million to $2.9 million. I'd want to see it at, say $2.45 before I called it a good deal, but maybe ....

In any event, this is a good time to pull the records (or have your realtor pull the records) and examine houses that have lingered through a falling market. Look above your price range - a $2.7 house might actually be a $1.8 house and if $2's your limit and the house suits your need, try it. Do some drive-bys, narrow down your search further by actually entering the house and, if you come up with a handful of picks, rank them in order of preference and put in a bid on one. If that doesn't work, move on to the next, and so on. It may all be an exercise in futility but you could end up with the house you want, for a very good price.

A letter from Nigeria
You loved their emails - relative lost in horrible plane crash, secret fund that can only be removed from the country with your assistance, please send all private banking information most hastily - now there's another chance to quintzupple your money in that wonderful country: real estate!. read the whole thing, of course, before you invest, but here's just a teaser:

A new report has predicted more buoyant time for operators in the real estate sector and urged investors seeking bountiful returns to look in that direction.

The report coming from the nation’s foremost credit rating and research agency, Agusto & Co, the report ranked real estate as one of the fastest growing sectors in the country.

It quoted the firm’s Analyst-in-Charge, Mr. Dolapo Oni, as saying, “The real estate market is one of the most viable alternatives to investing in the stock market that can give comparable returns.”

It also said, “Real estate tends to mostly appreciate. Prices of land and property rarely fall. In the last one-year alone, prices have appreciated in some areas of Lagos by over 200 per cent. On the average across all observed locations, prices appreciated by over 30 per cent.

“As such, investors are guaranteed to a large extent that their capital will appreciate significantly, if they invest in the right real estate properties.”

"Guaranteed to a large extent"? Who can resist that kind of opportunity? Please send your banking information directly to me - I'll pass it on.

Does the Back Country get a pass in the Police Blotter?

Greenwich Divaposes this question today because, while the blog's author knows of several instances of domestic abuse, with arrests, among her neighbors, she never sees the incidents reported in our fair paper. My experience has been the same; I know of drug busts and horrendous abuse cases yet they don't seem to see publishing daylight (except for George C. Scott and his wife - the Greenwich Time loved reporting on their spats when the unhappy couple lived in town).

So do our police keep certain incidents from the blotter or does the Greenwich Time protect wealthy criminals? Or neither - are people like the Diva and I just missing the news. One thing I'm sure of: bad things occur all over town, even in wealthy households.

The World's Smallest Violin
Our local daily reports that a young boy named Conor Holliday "has broken his ribs, wrist, ankle, shattered a bone in his left foot and fractured the Lisfranc joint in his foot - all in the name of the adrenaline rush that is skateboarding." Mr. Holliday now complains that he dislikes paying a $10 fee to use the town's skateboarding park, which costs taxpayers $40,000 annually to operate, and threatens to take his business elsewhere.

My question is, who's been paying this idiot's medical bills? If he's a ward of the state, then it's our tax dollars being used to patch him up and send him out to do it again. If it's private insurance, then it's our rising premiums achieving the same thing. Either way, maybe his parents should concede the obvious - the kid can't skate - and take away his board so he doesn't hurt himself, or our wallets, again. Failing that, make the kid pay the damn admission fee. Hrrmph!

They're back!

Okay, they may not be as welcome as the swallows of Capistrano (when I Googled that term to check spelling I was asked, "did you mean swallows of cappuccino?" - er, no)) but buyers are finally stirring, poking around after the storm to see what's still here. Before you sellers get your hopes up, you might want to know that the buyers I've been talking to are ready to buy and have cash but they're not planning on paying full asking price - quite the contrary. Their general consensus, if I can extrapolate from a small sample, is that the market is flattening out and probably will start recovering in the Spring, so perhaps now's a good time to buy. I won't disagree.

I'm also hearing rumors of a couple of very large pending deals that, if they come to fruition, should cheer up spec builders considerably. So don't despair but do be prepared to hear offers well below what you've been counting on. As of today there are 37 single family homes actively listed since at least August 2007 (and that's not counting listings that have expired and withdrawn with the intention of returning to the market in a few weeks). So if you won't listen to a low offer, there's probably somebody else out there who will.

Tiny Bubbles

Busted ones, anyway. Today's NY Times has a good article on the housing bust in California. We're not anything close to that bad here (in the area the Times writes about, 85% of the houses bought within the past three years are worth less than is owed on them) but there are lessons to be learned, especially the folly of blind optimism that assumes a never ending supply of young millionaires capable and willing to spend $5 million and more for a new house.

And if you missed yesterday's paper, check out Joe Nocera's column, also in the Times, on how Fannie Mae went off course, while enriching its officers. Nothing in here that the WSJ wasn't warning about a decade ago but it provides an ugly view of what happens when politicians and (other) crooks collude.

33 Crescent Road, Riverside

This new construction (my listing, so take comments with a grain of salt) sold last week for $3.175 million (asking price, $3.195). That should make the neighbors on Crescent happy because the builder, Greenwich Construction, has now sold two new houses on the street for more than $3 million - the other, 29 Crescent, was a bit larger and sold for around $3.4 million.

These both replaced older, much smaller homes and it's tempting to mourn the loss but, as listing agent for both, I can report that there was no - zero, nada-interest in either of the existing properties by end users. The market demands new, and bigger houses. We can complain but, when you go to sell your own house, perhaps you should feel grateful that there are still builders around willing to risk their money on speculative projects. If you don't feel that warm appreciation, don't worry - there are fewer spec builders every day so you may well have a chance to pass along your house to a deserving, if impoverished young family who will cherish your home as you did. And pay what you did, too.

$7.2 Million?
I recently gave a price opinion for some property in central Greenwich. My advice was rejected, which is fine, but the figure I gave was considered too low, I suspect because there's another new house nearby asking $7.2 million. Now, asking is not getting, but I'm pretty sure the seller of the house I advised on hasn't quite grasped this concept.

So here's a picture of what's available on Ridge Avenue for $7.2 million. I'll be curious to see how it does. If it sells for somewhere near that price then I'll be proved wrong, again. But I might be looking pretty smart a year or so from now.