2nd Quarter sales statistics

Nothing encouraging here. 154 single family homes sold in Greenwich in the second quarter of 2008 (134 of which were multi-list, the balance for sale by owner, I believe). This compares to 230 in the same quarter last year, 225 in 2006, 266 in 2005 and 296 in 2004. Average and median prices were $2.874 and $2.012 this year compared to $2.780 and $2.067 in 2007. If you really want to get depressed, my former employer, Greenwich Post, says just 84 single family homes sold in the second quarter. They credit Bob Fossum with those statistics and he's always right, so it's a puzzle but not great news for sellers in either case.

Speaking of The Post, I just learned that they downsized their real estate reporter, Jane Dove. I got fired for ticking off a couple of advertisers but Jane's demise was caused by budget cuts at the paper. Both firings raise the question, however, of how little content can you leave in a newspaper before your readers leave you?

Update: My friends at Shore & Country Real Estate have more data comparing the first half of 2008 to 2007. Same sort of stuff, but note their caution at the bottom of the page that many of the transactions reported as sold in 2008 were contracted for in a better market, 2007.

OwlGore buys a houseboat

One hundred feet long,powered by solar and bio-fuel (although, inconveniently, it's presently running on good old diesel and electricity and they don't sell bio-fuel on the lake where this behemoth is docked), and dig that jet ski! Pictures at the link above, but you don't really need further proof that this fat fraud has one agenda for himself and his friends and another for us, do you?


Maybe he'll use the thing to give rides to polar bears.

Waterfront redux

A commentator below asks why certain Old Greenwich waterfront properties are lingering, if these properties are so hot. I answered him in the comment section but here it is again:

It's true that there are five waterfront houses currently for sale in Old Greenwich, but I blame price for their availability more than anything else. Old Greenwich saw some very quick sales of better waterfront - better priced or better location or better condition - in the past two years. 19 Meadow Place, for instance, basically land, came on in April this year for $7.950 and sold immediately for $8.500. 35 Cove Road asked $8.2 and got $8.2 in 22 days. 200 Shore Road, new construction with an incredible view, asked $8,000,000 and went to contract almost immediately for what I'd guess was asking or close-to-asking price.

Etc. The houses that are lingering are doing so, I think, because the sellers paid too much attention to the prices other waterfront fetched and not enough attention to the particular drawbacks of their own land. Nothing that can't be remedied by a price cut. 164 Sore Road, for instance, came on at $8.4 but the sellers quickly realized they were too high, cut the price $500,000 and had it sold for $7.4 within 28 days of first listing it. That's a smart buyer - why prolong the agony? Besides, they pocketed a very nice sum.

And if you're looking for impressive sales of waterfront and are willing to look a bit past Old Greenwich into Riverside, Lowther Point sold this spring for $22,000,000. That one did take a few years to find its buyer, but the original price was er, "aggressive" and put many buyers off.

So I still like the stuff.

Zillow - Misperception of home value

Zillow reports (see link above) that the majority of Americans think that their house increased in value last year while the reality is, few did. This is very much like the reaction we agents get when, giving a price opinion, we show the seller a list of comparable house sale prices and are met with, "but my house is special". So is your wife, and so are your kids, but they're all a drag on the market. Get real (and yes, I'm just kidding about your wife and kids - I'm sure they're just adorable).

Blowing against the wind

If you Google "windmill opposition" as I did in the link above, you'll find 230,00 entries. Wherever these projects are proposed, opposition immediately swarms up to defeat them, whether in Bovina, New York, anywhere else in the Catskills, California, Nevada, or anywhere within sight of those eco-champions, the Kennedys. The same phenomenon can be observed for a power line transmission wires (893,000 hits)coal powered fuel plants (1,990,000)or nuclear energy (12,100,000) I'd guess that this fierce nimbyism will severely curtail the amount of energy generated from wind and certainly delay massive projects for at least a decade. So how are we going to run our economy? The best, or most revealing answer, comes from a European environmentalist - we don't - our western economy must be destroyed.

So the next time Mr. Obama says that our economy must be transformed, you might ask, "transformed how?". Nancy Pelosi isn't concerned. As she recently stated, "this whole wind power thing is a hoax - it will take ten years for wind power to make any appreciable contribution to our energy needs and we need a solution now. That's what the Democrats have come up with: we're going to release 10% of our Strategic Oil reserve right now, right away. That will give the country a four-day supply of fuel, which will allow AlGore, Barack and me to gas up our jetsand get the hell out of here to Bali. The rest of you chumps can just freeze in the dark. See ya!"

Thanks, Nancy

Waterfront is still King

B.K. Bates recently listed a Belle Haven waterfront property for sale at $15,750,000. The property was listed on July 23rd but the first broker open house wasn't scheduled until early September, no doubt because BK wanted to give her fellow agents time to return from vacation. She herself was clearly not taking it easy because yesterday she reported that she had a contract on the place - both sides of the deal which is nice work if you can get it.

I didn't see this place before it went but, at 1.6 acres and its construction date of 1933 I hope I'll be forgiven if I suggest that this represents a very healthy price for waterfront building lots. It might be renovated (which was last done in 1980) but, given the relatively large size of the lot and the age of the building, it might easily be destined for the dustbin of history. Regardless, it's nice to know that not everyone has lost their pocket change.

What is it about Byram?

Greenwich Time reports today (link above) that the Byram Library expansion project is behind schedule and, worse, has soared from a $2.7 million budget to $4.8, a figure which is presumably still climbing. How in Hell do you miss a cost estimate by this much? I can only guess that the same folks who have dealt so well with our Hamilton Avenue and Glenville schools turned their attention to storing books, but maybe they should retire. "Only" $1.3 million of Greenwich taxpayer money is sunk in this mire, but it's still appalling. Sheesh!

Lawyers and Real Estate

One area of disagreement my instructor and I had yesterday was the proper role of lawyers in real estate transactions. She, like most agents I know, hates lawyers and thinks they should be eliminated from the entire process, as they are in California and many other states. I think that, given my instructor's own estimation that 97% of all agents don't know what they're doing, why would anyone entrust a $3,000,000 transaction, "the most important investment decision you'll make in your life" if you believe the flacks from the National Association of Realtors (I don't, but never mind, to anyone except a trained, experienced real estate lawyer? I heard more misinformation about real estate law yesterday than I usually encounter all year. "Time is of the essence is just a standard term," for instance. Wrong! And, as I pointed out to no effect, if you don't know the legal implications of a term, don't write it into a contract. Buyers and sellers in Greenwich are spared the doubtful assistance of well meaning but ignorant wanna be lawyer/real estate agents because we don't use binders and all transactions are done via contracts prepared by attorneys. Yes, there are some lawyers in town who know as little about real estate law as the agent who sold the house, and there are some out sized egos around ready to screw up deals by imposing ridiculous terms and conditions solely because they can, but a good attorney, together with his or her paralegal, will protect your interests and ensure a seamless, smooth transaction far better than most agents. No, I longer practice real estate law but I remember when I did and I certainly can appreciate watching a good one at work today. Money well spent, I think.

Sales Meetings for Real Estate Agents

I usually avoid these things like the plague because, in my experience, the instructor usually tries to impart neat tricks that are supposed to bamboozle the customer and get them to buy what they don't want and don't need. The whole concept reminds me of why I hang onto my cars for ten years - I hate, absolutely hate, enduring the agony of dealing with an uneducated car salesman practicing Cheap Tricks 101, like "what will your neighbors think when they see this new car in your driveway?" I don't care what my neighbors think and I don't need to visualize owning the car, no matter what you were taught. Give me a good price and let me out of here.

But yesterday's meeting was refreshingly different. The instructor,a woman with 35 years experience, emphasized treating people decently and well, developing a rational schedule to select, view and eliminate houses for showing and bringing value to the transaction by knowing real estate - inventory, neighborhoods, the cost of improvements - cold. I'm not sure I learned all that much because I already try to employ those skills to the best of my ability but I left feeling much better about the firm I'm associated with and the training it's imparting to its agents. The best agents, by the way, are often exactly this type, regardless of where they park their shingle. The instructor claimed that 97% of all real estate is sold by 3% of all agents and suggested that that meant that 97% of all agents don't know what the hell they're doing. I think she was a bit harsh there, but I won't disagree that there are a lot of licensed agents who don't put much effort into keeping up with this business. Perhaps they're too busy writing blogs about non-real estate related matters!

no blogging til this evening

stuck in a sales meeting. If I learn any new tricks about deceiving customers I'll post them this evening.

The New York Times thaws on global warming

Yesterday Thomas Friedman conceded (see link above) that maybe, just maybe, global warming is a phenomenon caused by non-human events. He wasn't convinced, of course,that we should stop worrying because, hey, "you never know", but that admission represents a large hole in the "mankind's doomed the planet" hype. His concluding words:

That project is already causing a stir in the climate community. In an article just published in the journal Science Express, Dahl-Jensen’s team wrote about how it had discovered from the ice cores that the atmospheric circulation in the Northern Hemisphere over Greenland “changed abruptly” just as the last ice age ended around 11,700 years ago.

It seems to have been driven by a sudden change in monsoons in the tropics. The change was so abrupt that it warmed the Northern Hemisphere over Greenland by 10 degrees Celsius in just 50 years — a dramatic increase.

“It shows that our climate system has the ability to make very abrupt changes all by itself,” said Dahl-Jensen.

Some climate-change deniers would say that this proves that mankind is not important in changing the climate. Climate change experts, like Dahl-Jensen, say it’s not so simple: The climate is always changing, sometimes very abruptly, so the last thing that mankind should be doing is adding its own forcing actions — like pumping unprecedented amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Because you never know — you never know — what will tip the balance and send us hurdling into another abrupt change ... and into another era.

Last week, the Times' official worrywart, Paul Krugman acknowledged that we can't be sure how bad the effects [if any -ed] of global warming might be, but do we want to take the chance?.

This is all heartening news to some of us. Al Gore claimed that "the dispute is over". People like me were called Holocaust deniers and worse. Now, it seems, that judgement may have been a bit premature. Better yet, I'm now justified in postponing yet again my first viewing of "An Inconvenient Truth".

More price reductions

Probably not enough to move them, but there were nine price reductions today and the real estate board's still open for business. 18 Thunder Mountain Road doesn't strictly qualify as a price reduction but it was offered for sale with a to-be-constructed house for $5,800,000 way back in 2002. It never sold, the house was never built and today the land itself reappeared, asking $2,500,000 for a 2+ acre lot. I like that 4 acres I mention below for $1.6 more than this one.

249 Bedford Road does has a house on it and it's been for sale since it was built in 2005. Three years later it still sits empty and effective today, is asking $5,200,000, a drop from its original price of $5,885,000. I think they should have started at its present price three years ago.

There's another house around the corner from Bedford that will never, ever sell for anything close to either its original price or its current reduced price. Fear of being hauled before a grievance board prevents me from identifying it, but it certainly provides a neat example of willful ignorance of market conditions.

Alert! Not about real estate!

Don't click on the link above if you're only interested in real estate news. But if an eloquent essay on the danger Obama presents to this country and its economy might strike your fancy, I recommend this piece by Ms. Kyle-Anne Shiver.

New Gasoline ripoff

I just filled up at my local station which advertises, in huge numbers, "$4.39" for regular grade. When I looked at my receipt, I realized I'd been charged $4.49 per gallon. I'd fallen victim to what our state democrats (see link above) touted as a taxpayer bonanza, a bill, effective July 1st, allowing gas stations to whack their customers an extra 10 cents for putting their purchase on a credit card (and who carries enough cash to fund a fill-up at today's prices?. Now, if you browse through the link above, you'll see that the Dems also pat themselves on the back for "saving home owners from additional property taxes" by extending the conveyance tax on real estate sales, so it shouldn't surprise you that they see a ten cent sop to their gasoline retail constituents as a boon to us suckers who buy the stuff on plastic. But I dislike the deception employed by this particular retailer. who lured me in with one price and stuck me with a higher one. I once praised this particular Old Greenwich station as being a reliable source of honest repair work. I've been repaid by twice being sold unnecessary and over-priced repairs and now this. The heck with them. The Sunoco station in Stamford (on the Post Road near Shaeffer Rug) sells gas for $4.29 regardless of how you pay for it. From now on,I'll just mosey on up the street.

Update: I just walked over to take a picture of their sign for this blog and I see that the cash/credit differential is posted - my fault for not noticing. I'm still not going to pay them a dime extra per gallon, especially in light of their repair practices.

The Breath of Gods?

I love wind energy. We all love wind energy, I'm sure. But the New York Times really loves wind energy and says so right here (link above) in what is supposed to be a news report. Does the following text sound like objective reporting, the kind that was once taught, I presume, in journalism school? To me, it reads like the sophomoric work of a dewy eyed high school student.

Though painted gray, the turbines stand out against the evening backdrop of battleship-colored thunderclouds and bear an almost celestial whiteness when day’s light is right. Airplane pilots can spot them from far away, and rarely does a bird make their unfortunate acquaintance.

The sound of 8.5-ton blades, three to a turbine, turning and turning, only enhances their almost supernatural presence. Standing at the base of a turbine’s stalk, you hear a whistling whoosh — whuh ... whuh ... whuh — as steady summer winds come like the breath of gods to toy with pinwheel amusements.

Or this:

Nebraska Public, for example, will buy the energy created by two wind farms being built by private developers 140 miles east of here, and will replace those two turbines up in Springview by next year. It hopes that within a decade or so, 10 percent of its energy will be produced by clean, free, plentiful wind.

It's all very nice, but I wish the reporter had picked up on a few things that might make this marvelous project a bit less viable in the east. First, Nebraska bought 11,000 acres surrounding the turbines to prevent future development from blocking the wind - try doing that in Connecticut or anywhere that's in view of teddy Kennedy's compound. Second, and unlike conditions here on the east coast, there were transmission lines already in place, capable of carrying the generated electricity to where it's needed. Out here, we refuse to let anything be built, windmills or transmission lines (or pipelines, power plants or LNG plants). Perhaps, when we suffer our next brown-out, the New York Times will send us a reporter to sing us back to sleep.

Exxon's Profit Margin

10%, as we've noted before, and discussed in today's Wall Street Journal (link above). And here's someone else who isn't impressed with our mainstream media's coverage of this issue.

Bargains?

I'm beginning to see some and I'm hearing about a few huge price reductions that aren't yet publicized, so there may be some sense returning to the market. Until now, the buyers were skittish and many sellers were content to sit things out - not a situation conducive to moving real estate. I'll tell you where I'm seeing reasonable prices but only after I finish trying to sell them to my own clients; I do have to make a living, you know. Check back in at the end of the week. By that time, "they snooze, they lose".

In the meantime, you may want to read this column in The New York Times on the glut in single bedroom condos-turns out, first time buyers can't get financing, which is what's hurting sales of our lower-priced inventory here in Greenwich. Take note of the frustrated seller quoted as saying "I wish we'd negotiated more with the first buyer". He didn't, lost the deal and a year later is still sitting on a property he doesn't want to own. There's a lesson in this.

Ban it!

Some state representative is pushing for a one year moratorium on artificial turf playing fields until the State of Connecticut conducts a study on their safety. Never mind that there have been dozens of studies performed by other states and several branches of the federal government, we won't be safe unless we spend this state's taxpayers' money to see for ourselves. The hysteria on this issue has reached Greenwich, too, via Selectwoman Lin Lavery but as far as I know, our kids are still playing on the stuff, no thanks to her.

Nalgene water bottles

It's all reminiscent of the recent fervor that resulted in the world-wide banning of Nalgene bottles - the best invention for hiking ever made (with the possible exception of lightweight LED headlamps). The old bottles stunk of plastic and often leaked. Nalgene bottles were unbreakable and imparted no taste or odor to the water they contained. But someone, somewhere (Canada, actually) decided, in the face of every other study that said otherwise, that the chemical these bottles were made from might harm infants and presto! We're back to cupping our hands in streams and dribbling on our chests. But chemicals are bad, man - they aren't organic.

It's their Birthday!

The U.S. Department of Energy was established on this day in 1977 by The Great Rabbit Hunter, Jimmy Carter. It soaks up $25,000,000,000 (that's billion) a year now, and it's working every bit as well as our Department of Education.

Antares lays an egg

Despite Antares's best efforts, including a phony PR visit by A Rod last summer to this 35,000 square foot instant white elephant (picture in link, above) the partnership's mansion project is in complete disarray. How'd you like to be the chump who paid $10,000,000 for your house one month and watch the identical house next door sell for six just five weeks later?