Comedy That’s Funny

I’ve been asked to host Community Answers “Comedy Night @ The Cole” once again, on Friday night, September 19th, at Greenwich Library’s Cole Auditorium. Show starts around 8:15 (or 6:30 if you opt for the “cocktails and dinner). Here’s the link: http://www.communityanswers.org/comedy-night-2014/

Besides me and my “Greenwich observations”, you get three NYC comedians who regularly appear at the best comedy club in the city, The Gotham (nationwide, as well). They’re really, really funny, as in TALENTED funny, they don’t do the repulsive schlock you normally associate with stand-up comedy, ok?

This is a chance to have a New York comedy experience without hauling your butt into the city. If you want to stop for dinner (and martinis) first, you’ve got a bunch of great restaurants mere steps away, including Barcelona, Blackstones Steakhouse, and Tengda Asian Bistro, so do it!

(Comedian Andy Pitz)

Greenwich’s New Police Cruiser: Creepy Uniformity?

The new Greenwich Police vehicles will look like this:

Black & white, just like everyone else’s.

The color’s fine, I guess, but have you noticed that all the towns around us have adopted the same look? Are we perhaps inching towards some sort of “National Police Force”? I’d prefer that we don’t.

Love When This Happens

1 Grove Lane, asked $3,445,000, got $3,290,000.

This is a fairly common scenario most listing brokers can identify with: You put a property on the market “priced to sell”, yet along comes a buyer who low-balls anyway.

Being a diligent broker, you naturally then provide the buyer’s broker with copies of all the recent  comparable sales from which your thoughtfully calculated asking price was derived. But the buyers, maybe even their broker, say nope, you’re off by hundreds of thousands. They re-visit the house, bring their builder, their architect, their father-in-law, everyone agrees, it’s overpriced. They even quote Chris Fountain! Finally, they raise their bid a small amount, but that’s it, “take it or leave it, you’d be a fool not to take this offer”.

You and your sellers say no, and they go away. Days go by, maybe a month, more showings occur, but no offers. A hint of doubt starts to build inside you. You begin to wonder if maybe those damn low-ballers were right! Could it be? But you’ve got the comps! Your price is justified, dammit!

Then, salvation. A new buyer comes along. They love the house, they get it. Their opening bid is higher than the last folk’s “highest and best”. As you’re negotiating, still another buyer shows up, and they get it, too. So you make the deal easily, maybe no bidding war, but the existence of a competing bid adds the useful urgency that keeps deals moving along.

All that happened at 1 Grove Lane, and it happened at loads of other properties in this year’s weather-delayed Spring market. So what’s the moral of the story? Do you hold out for that “right buyer”? I’d say yes, if you’re really confident of your asking price, and you’ve had, say, 10 or fewer showings. But 20 showings? 30? And nothing but low offers or worse, no offers? Then the above scenario is not going to happen. Lower the [gosh-darned] price!