The trouble with giving general estimates of market decline is that you often come across glaring exceptions. We brokers feel pretty confident as we postulate “The Greenwich market is down overall 22.5% since 2007” or some similar figure.
Then, along comes 1 Ernel Drive (link shows the three recent listings for the property).
Ernel Drive is off Sound Beach Avenue Extension, just a block away from the restaurant Valbella. This particular Ernel Drive property happens to have sold three times in the last five years. Here’s how it went:
2006 $889,500.
2010 $827,500.
2011 $815,000.
This is a nice house with a stone front, very well maintained/updated, close to schools, stores, you name it. It has 1,522 square feet plus another 1,015 in the lower level. So how much has it declined in those six years since 2006? A “whopping” 8.37%.
1 Ernel Drive: Shall we judge the market by this example?
Greenwich Bored And Razed 
Similar examples..
272 Riverside ave. $3.85mil(Jan08)/$3.735mil(Dec10)/$3.7mil(Apr12)
35 Dawn Harbor $3.1mil(Oct07)/$2.95mil(Oct11)
272 Riverside Ave. never sold in 2010
Gid: Isn’t that really a function of the fact that price decline swings are likely to be in lower and more narrow ranges on lower cost properties than in high priced properties?
They’ve also done a lot of work on the house judging from the pics. I think if you take that into account the property is indeed down quite a bit from 2006.
they claim extensive “updating” occurred, so I don’t know how much they had to sink into the place between 2010 and 2011.
Some additional color .. I was the original owner who sold in 2006 … we intially had attempted to sell the house ourselves at $ 889,000 … we did two open houses and had 78 people attend, but no offers.
As we had purchased another house in town we didnt want to hold two mrtgages etc so signed on with agent who of course suggested we reduce price .( I have an issue with this as its potentially $25000 out of my pocket and $400 out of agents – yeah i know even best agent cant sell an overprice home ) . which we did to $860 000 ( as I recall ) … broker open house was Tues .. we did another open house and had 4 – 5 offers … we went to sealed bids and house sold $ 500 above our original asking price with a two night stay at Delamar, as buyer was at time taking over as manager at the hotel . From what i understand they were relocated and more or less had to sell back in 2010 after renting the house out for a year ….
Even when we bought in 1992, the house was considered entry lvl for Greenwich and aside from being a nice looking home you are, as well, in the Dundee school district …latest owner seems to have “dormer-ed” out the back .. the original owner when the house was constructed was the builder who built all the homes on the street …Ernie Manetti …interestingly enough, street was named Ernel …as in Ernie and Elenor, his wife !
didn’t they not gone dun’ teech statistics in real estate agent skool?
Anonymous:
Never mind “real estate skool”, I want you to demand your money back from that comedy school you attended.
Gid, isnt it about time to post a new self portrait, teaser photo of your car or your watch?
Just a friendly reminder.
Gideon: Even though I am sure I’ll get another response from “Oh Shut Up” to shut up and go away, I offer the below for your consideration.
blog/blôg/ Noun: A website on which an individual or group of users record opinions, information, etc. on a regular basis.
Anon:
No, no, you’re right. And we won’t pay attention to (very loyal fan) “Oh Shut Up”; blogging is done DAILY, and, as Libertarian Advocate likes to say, I’m definitely slacking off!
I just hung up with a customer after talking for 42 minutes about stuff to look at next week, and this was the time of day I had reserved for blogging, dammit. But no excuse!
Okay, I guess. It doesn’t even have to be daily, but more than once a quarter would be nice.
Do you ever wish you were selling RE in the city? I saw this on the Curbed website (one of my favorite blogs, no offense!). Say, how MANY Jags can you buy with the commission from a $30m sale?
http://ny.curbed.com/archives/2012/07/08/30m_ph_in_jennifer_anistons_old_building_on_the_market.php
Anon:
Wow, nice little pad that Jennifer Aniston had! So, what does a $30M sale get for the broker?
Let’s assume a 5% commission…
$30,000,000 X 5% = $1.5M.
Selling broker gets half that, so $750,000. Then has to split with office, so let’s assume 70/30, so selling broker’s share is $525,000.
But wait! Selling broker then pays out AT LEAST 31% of that to Uncle Barack and Uncle Andrew (Cuomo), so that brings you down to $362,250. Enough for a Jaguar? I guess, but it would be better to sell $40M+ before buying fancy-schmancy cars.
if the market is “only down 8%” why do brokers and home owners for that matter, continue to price 20-30% above the prices from 2006?