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.