Blog Brothers At The Bowl (Bulldogs!)

Harvard 34, Yale 7…oh well.

Estate of Malcolm Pray Hits The Market

566 Round Hill Road, a real classic, just like the owner! (Riverside School graduate, by the way)

566 Round Hill Road came on today, at $12,995,000.

The last party I attended here was the one that followed Malcolm Pray’s funeral, back on September 21st, and, as was always the case, it was a blast. Typical Malcolm style, right up till the end.

This Round Hill Road property is located just after 558 Round Hill Road, a listing I shared with broker Amy Balducci. Both lots are nearly identically sized (8.04 vs. 8.03 acres). We got $3,500,000 for that, selling as “land” w/tear-down, but that was for largely raw land, akin to a fallow farm. Pray’s is a magnificent estate with pool, tennis court, multiple garage and other out-buildings. From the pictures, it almost looks like a fancy private golf club, don’t it?

Weekend Report!

10 Roberta Lane gets close to its asking price of $3,100,000, closing today at $3,050,000, new street record! List: Heather Platt.  Sell: Renee Gallagher.

Ok, sorry, slacking off again, dammit. As a consolation, here’s two week’s worth of activity!

For the 2-week period Monday, November 4th – Friday, November 15th:

29 closings, including these two land listings

32 executed contracts, including these three land listings

29 accepted offers- no link till they’re signed (but that’s a whole lot for this time o’ year, dude)

Amusing Spoof Of Bond Film Casino Royale

Very, very funny video, lasts about 3 minutes, go on, watch it…

Be sure to skip the opening ad and then watch this short, very funny video,

How Casino Royale Should Have Ended

(This sort of sarcasm must drive screen writers crazy)

Greenway Island Becomes… A Bargain?

Greenway Island, Stamford, CT, last priced at $12.8M, newly re-listed at $8.995M.  Now will ya look?

Wow, there’s nothing like a ten million dollar price reduction to freshen up a listing!

140 Wallacks Drive, as I wrote recently, came on the market way back when, at the rather princely sum of $18,900,000. Various listings, with various prices, and various brokers, all came and went. Now it is back on with a new broker and a new price, $8,995,000, zounds!

So is it a “bargain”? I’m not sure, and that’s exactly why, when a client wants to buy outside of Greenwich, I refer them to a local expert. Anyway, if you’re about to buy waterfront anywhere near this price range, you owe it to yourself to go look at this one.

List: Charlotte Felt

Greenwich Real Estate Is Up 18.75% Since 2010

73 Club Road, a land sale, fetched $8M in 2010.

My, but that sounds confident, does’t it? 18.75….such a precise sounding number, very impressive.

So, where did I get it? From these two sales:

73 Club Road, 12/2010

73 Club Road, 11/2013

It’s exceedingly rare to get a true “apples-to-apples” comparison in the field of real estate. Typically we deal with houses, and houses can be changed in small, but significant ways each time you get a new owner. Something as trivial as pretty wallpaper, clean windows, and better looking furniture can add hundreds of thousands to the price of a Greenwich home, and that higher sales price is then falsely attributed to a “market rise”.

Yet here, at 73 Club Road, Riverside, we have a rare opportunity to compare two sales of the same property, three years apart, where nothing was changed. It’s the same 2.62 acre waterfront parcel (in the 1-acre zone), the same 1950’s tear-down house, same view, same neighbors.

The result? $8,000,000 back in 2010, $9,500,000 yesterday. Ipso fatso*, Greenwich prices “must” be up 18.75%! Case closed.

* Otherwise intelligent people sometimes screw up words and phrases. “Ipso facto”, is amusingly corrupted as above, “statue” of limitations, is another. And let’s not overlook “supposably”.

73 Club Road, still a land sale, fetched $9.5M in 2013.

Spoiler Alert

The very evil Thomas Barrow. His long-knife murders of the entire Crawley family becomes the catalyst for England’s awakening to the need for serious macheté control.

Like me, you can hardly wait for Downton Abbey to resume in January. Here’s an early report of the first episode:

Scheming footman Thomas Barrow, played excellently by Rob James-Collier, murders the whole Crawley family (Lord Grantham, etc.) in their sleep. Subsequent episodes deal with the ensuing murder trial, and the takeover of the estate by IRA mercenaries.

Believe me?

For Sale In Greenwich: $3M-$4M

12 East Point Lane, Old Greenwich waterfront tear-down, $3.825M.

88 listings in this price range. Sounds fairly straightforward, doesn’t it? Ah, but there are nuances….”wheels within wheels”, as humor writer P.G. Wodehouse liked to say.

Among these 88 listings, you are likely to find:

• $4,000,000 listings that have just come on the market that will eventually sell for $3,000,000.

• $3,000,000 listings that have been on a year+, and started at $4M.

• $3,500,000 listings that started at $5M, sat around for 18 months, and are now looking like bargains.

• $4,000,000 listings that are actually worth $4M (rare)

• $3,000,000 listings that are actually worth $3M (see above)

• And the rest of the properties, which are at different points in their market “life cycle”.

How does the average buyer tell which is which? They engage the services of a broker!

There’s An Owl On My Doorstep

A great-horned owl is hanging around outside the house, surely a good omen…

Ok, not the doorstep, exactly, but there really are two noisy owls talking it up right now in the trees in front of the house. You may never have heard a real owl call, and people often mistake the more timid sound of the mourning dove for owls. Believe me, when it’s an owl, you’ll know it. The sound is loud, deep, mysterious, and no doubt deeply disturbing to mice and squirrels who happen to stay up late.

Click on this link to hear exactly what I’m hearing outside right now: great-horned owl.

(But it’s much louder and spookier, outside on a cold November evening)

Weekend Report

Lyon Farm, unit 312, asks $1.375M, sells $1.325M. Lyon Farm is selling well again. List: Joanne Edwards & Lee Prince. Sell:  Lilian Fong

Last week, we had…

11 closings, which includes these two multi-families

13 executed contracts, including this land listing (tear-down, actually)

12 accepted offers (no link for these)