35 Club Road: About to sell? Rumor has it, this rare Doron Sabag/Dynar Wadia collaboration has a deal in the $8M’s and will, like the last time, be sold “off market” (but with brokers on both sides).
My Club Road sources insist this place not only has a deal, but is about to close. For how much? I’m hearing $8M+. The sharpest among you will immediately recall it fetched $8.675M back in September, 2008. This happens to be the property all of us experts liked to point to and say “Ah, there was the good old days, we’ll never see prices like that again.”
As usual, “the market”, you know, those actual humans with checkbooks who buy stuff to live in and actually, truly, determine what something is worth?, the market refuses to listen to experts.
I’ve harped on this before, and I shall do so again…it is impossible to name a precise percentage amount that the Greenwich market has declined since its high-point back in…hmmm…well, when was the high-point? Fall 2008, let’s go with that. Certain sections of town “appear” to be down significantly, yet we have so many glaring exceptions:
Here are 8 recent examples of properties that recently sold for “too much”, or so some experts would have us believe.
Greenwich Bored And Razed 
Plethora of examples : 10 Normandy $4.99million, 32 Carriglea $4.0million, 5 Indian Point $5.3million, 12 Rocky Point $3.52million that went up from 2007 price of $3.4million…
Hard to argue the market tanked everywhere
Do you really think the peak was the fall of 2008? That is not consistent with the rest of the country, although I do appreciate that Greenwich is “special” in many ways!
shoeless:
As you suggest, Greenwich did indeed “resist” the nation-wide real estate decline that probably began as early as late 2006. Did we keep rising right up to late 2008? There’s evidence of it, but by then, we’d seen the collapse of Bear Stearns and Lehman, and the writing was very much on the wall, so…how about Spring 2008? Shall we call that our most recent top?
Did you ever find out who bought 70 Meadow?
Anonymous:
Pretty sure it was builder Tom O’Malley who bought that 3-lot parcel at 70 Meadwo Road in Riverside.
Let’s do the math…
Paid: $6.350M for three lots.
Per lot cost: $2,116,666.
Total land size: 2.10 acres (91,476 sq ft)
Each lot will be: 30,492 sq ft
Zone: R-20
FAR: .225
Maximum size for each house: 6,860 sq ft
Builder’s cost: $300 per foot? = $2,058,000.
Cost of each new house: $2,058,000 + 2,116,666 = $4,174,666.
Can he get $5M+ for each house to make all this worthwhile? If Mitt’s the next president, yes. If it’s Barry’s 2nd term, there’ll be trouble in River City.
Thanks for answering. I guess he’s an optimistic guy, best of luck to him. 🙂
What is so good about Club Road?
It just seems one of the nice streets in RS.
Gid,
I found a nominal house price chart, which I would be willing to afford you perhaps a peak in prices as late as the spring of 07, but by early 08, a significant amount of damage had already been done.
Shoeless:
Hmmm, yes, I like the looks of that chart, thanks. I think Greenwich felt the effects later because, well, it’s Greenwich and all that that implies. It appears we are recovering ahead of the rest, which confirms the saying, “Greenwich: Last to feel the recession, first to recover.” (No doubt true of lots of wealthy towns)
Calculated Risk is a terrific blog, it’s too bad the comments have gone to shirt since Tanta passed away, the comments used to be almost as valuable as the economic data Bill provides.
Tanta vive.
Tanta vive, indeed.
shoeless:
I don’t get it…(but I do know “tanta vive” means “so many lives”)
Chiming in on shoeless’s comment and link. She was a hugely talented writer and wit, she could explain things so that complete novices and dimwits like me could begin to understand a lot of the background of the bubble and the coming mortgage/banking crises and she did it before most knew what was coming.
http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2007/07/compleat-ubernerd.html
I wish she was still here, I’d love to know her thoughts on all of the machinations that have gone on since 2008.
Tanta was a mortgage broker who described the entire buildup and prophetically nailed the eventual unwind the mortgage bubble in excruciating detail before passing away in late 2008:
http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/p/doris-tanta-dungey.html