The week, part III

One more thing about last week; we had 10 closings. It’s all well and good to talk about accepted offers, contracts, etc., but what did the property actually, eventually sell for?  Click on that link and see.

P.S.  One of those ten closings was a 3-unit multifamily building on .37 acres at 263 Milbank Avenue  (corner of Milbank and Havemeyer Place) that ended up fetching $2.125M.

18 Byram Dock Street (off Byram Shore Road), direct waterfront, dumpy little house on .23 acres, just closed for $2.2M. Dumpy or not, this looked like a hell of a nice place to live. Bruce Barker, listed. Heather Platt, sold.

The week, April 23-27, part II

In addition to those 21 “executed contracts”, we also had 25 “accepted offers” last week. These are ok numbers, still not great, and there is still a stunning lack of movement in the $5M+ category, but all-in-all, for most people, if you really want to sell your real estate in this market, you can.

Here's a nice little Greenwich "starter home" with no updating: 175 Lake Avenue, came on last month for $849,000, now has a deal. It is among the group of 25 that went to contract last week.

Greenwich Real Estate Results For The Week: April 23-27

Ok, this is looking somewhat better; 21 executed contracts (one of them is a Dolphin Cove property, but, like the Palmer Hill condos, I consider them to be “almost” Greenwich).

Keep in mind, a few of these never showed up in the “accepted offer” category at all.  Listing brokers, for a variety of reasons, will sometimes sit on the news until all contract contingencies have been met, at which point the contracts become “fully executed”.

Hmmm...looks suspiciously like the Bahamas, but no, it's just good ol' Stamford, CT waterfront. This was the cover photo for 118 Dolphin Cove Quay, which now has a deal. Built in 1971, updated in....well, it wasn't updated, hence the prominent beach photo!

Some brokers and clients are extremely worried about having no other potential buyer to turn to in the event the contracted-with buyer manages to slip away, so they keep quiet about the accepted offer, keep showing the property, and wait for the contingencies to expire.  Get it?

 

Before weather was political

The average temperature in Connecticut is 50 degrees. That’s probably been true for at least the last 100,000 years. Last month was warmer than usual, so this month is cooler, that is how Connecticut’s average temperature remains consistent. Observations like that used to be called “common sense”, but now, weather is political. When we have an unusually warm March, we’re told it’s because of man’s activities, all that pollution we’re causing; your car, your air-conditioner, your aerosol spray can.

Well, tonight it’s going to drop to 37 degrees here in Greenwich and that will be ok. I didn’t cause it to happen, neither did you, it’s just….. weather. We’ll survive.

Snow in April? Maybe, maybe not, but either way, it's nothing to worry about.

Reader “Shoeless” wonders about Lejeune Court, Old Greenwich, CT

“Lejeune Court”, like most of the streets in Old Greenwich’s Havemeyer Park, has a World War Two-connected name. Some of the other streets are named after the distinguished generals and admirals who won the war for us, guys like Nimitz, MacArthur, Halsey, Marshall, and Arnold. I like that.

God knows, builders can’t always be trusted to name streets properly. I won’t name some of the dopier street names in town, but suffice it to say, it’s just pure luck we don’t have Moe Drive, Larry Avenue, and Curley Boulevard.

So anyway, 5 Lejeune Court has a deal, no word yet on sale price. The last time it sold was in March, 2007, when it fetched $1,600,000. This time, it came on for $1,580,000.

Listing broker: Barbara Zaccagnini

Selling broker: Amy Zeeve

5 Lejeune Court: Came on in February at $1.580M, no price reductions, now under contract.

The above link shows 5 Lejeune plus four other recent sales on the street.

Deal!

Tomorrow, I will report “accepted offer-contracts” (meaning there are still a couple of contingencies) for my listing at 8 Long View Avenue in Riverside. This will be my fourth sale so I’m doing one per month, which is fine. Would I rather do just one deal for $40M and call it a year? Don’t be silly, where’s the fun in that?*

Listing broker: Me

Selling broker: Jeff Jackson

* Ok, yes, yes I would rather.

8 Long View Ave: Starts at $3.595M, reduced once, to $3.450M. Began March 8th, had about 24 showings, now a deal.

For the week: April 16-20

Here’re the week’s results and frankly, they’re weak results! Where the &%#@ are the big sales?  Except for some major waterfront properties, it looks like there’s no longer a market above $5,000,000.  Amazing.

38 Meadow Wood Drive, in the Belle Haven section, is among this week's executed contracts. Started at $6.8M in 2008, finally came down to $4.7M and...DEAL.

15 sales

11 executed contracts

19 accepted offers

Brunswick jazz, hot music/cool night

I pay around 31%

A family member (not the blogger) is obsessed with the idea that only suckers and dummkopfs actually pay huge taxes.  If only, says this family member, I would take advantage of “loop-holes” and “deductions”, I wouldn’t be sending hundreds of thousands of dollars to greedy politicians in Washington and Hartford.

Amazingly, it’s not just me that’s unaware of these secret tax dodges.  As I’ve written recently, according to State Senator Scott Frantz, Greenwich residents alone sent about 1.3 billion (yes, billion) dollars to Hartford in 2011, and about 10.5 billion to Washington.

So even our clever hedge-fund-operating locals haven’t figured out a way to lower their taxes.  Did Messrs. Cohen, Lampert, Jones, et al pay a lower rate than me?  If their primary form of income was capital gains, then yes.  But unlike me, each one of those guys probably shelled out around 60 to 100 million dollars to the feds, 5 to 10 million to CT.  That’s plenty. That’s enough!

The guy in the suit's probably supposed to be a "greedy businessman" but the real greed? That's in Washington and Hartford. They want more every year.

I like ’em fast

The condo building at 680 Steamboat Road; ever heard of it? Of course not, but we brokers pay attention to these things.  It’s one of those nondescript, white brick apartment buildings they used to build around here in the early 1960’s, you know, with a half-hearted “mansard roof”, that kind of thing.

Anyway, this baby was built right smack on Greenwich Harbor, a couple of buildings down from the Indian Harbor Yacht Club, at the end of Steamboat Road, so the views are perfect and it’s walkable to train, restaurants, gun-clubs, you name it.

Broker BK Bates brought on “unit 8” (I think that’s how many there are, total) last week for $4,200,000, about double what the last one went for.  The result?  Accepted offer, signed contract announced today.  Nice, real sweet.  It would be swell if it always worked like this.

Click on that link back there to see this unit and all the other recent sales in the building.

(Oops, link now works, shows five listings)

680 Steamboat Road, unit 8 (top floor), this is just one of the views from the wrap-around windows. Note broker Bates wisely shows view, not building.