Oh No! People Are Buying Real Estate Again!

15 Winding Lane closes today at $5.250M, only 11 days on the market! (last sold 2013 at $4,558,315).
List: Joy Kim Metalios
Sell: Deborah B Huffard

Friends, I’ve horrible news for fence-sitters: Other people are stepping up and buying Greenwich real estate. Today’s “hotsheet” shows at least EIGHT deals, either closed, pending, or contingent contract. Prices range from a mid-country mansion at $5,250,000, down to a cute little Old Greenwich shack at $1,299,000. That’s a broad swath.

Also good news is the fact that the two most expensive ones on this list both sold three years ago for quite a bit less and the owners put money into them and now they’re getting the money back, amazing!

“What about the ten million dollar back-country palaces, what of them?”, I hear you jaded, cynical types ask. That category is, I will admit, still flagging, but their day will come, lads, their day will come!

450 North Street, asking $4.995M, under contract. Last sold 2013 at $3.675M.

180 Shore Road, OG, closes at $3.8M.

14 Long View Avenue, Riverside, closes at $3.352M.

76 Shore Road (tear-down), asks $2.295M, closes today at $2.502M, bidding war!

35 Old Wagon, Havemeyer Park, OG, asks $2.495M, now under contract (this will break the street price record).

27 Tait Road, OG, asks $1.995M, 30 days later, under contract.

10 Lockwood Drive, OG, starts at $1.3995, quickly lowers to $1.299M, now has deal. Total time on market: 48 hours. Oops, correction: total time on market 365 days!

 

 

 

The Market Has Changed

73 Sterling Road, Asked (eventually): $2.750M. Got: $3.2M (last-minute bidding war!) List: Julianne Ward  Sell: James S Higgins. Note: the English buyers intend to totally renovate.

If you were to slap your hand on my shoulder* and say, “Gid, how’s the market?”, I would answer, “Fine”, because lots of properties are selling. But there’s something troubling about this market and it is this: lately there are fewer and fewer buyers who want a beautifully renovated older house.

Back in 2009, when no one was buying anything, I figured the market would eventually return, and it did. What’s going on now is different. There is a market, people are buying, but what they mostly want to do is tear down and build new.

Even almost new houses are being neglected. And before you get complacent about your brand new house, that market is starting to look over-supplied, too, as buyers look but don’t bid if it is their perception the property is over-priced.

So, if you’re on the market now, you have a choice, you can be a seller or a sitter. If you wish to sell, keep cutting that price till the fish begin to bite. You might even get a last-minute bidding-war.

But since this is Greenwich, CT and most sellers don’t really need to sell, there will continue to be a lot of sitting properties.

 

 

• never, ever do this

The Market’s Up! No Wait, It’s Down

See, here’s why this business is tough, at least, the business of trying to figure out market direction. These two properties have both sold twice in the last year, one went up in price, the other went down. One’s “close to town”, one is way back-country, does that explain it? Are back-country Greenwich properties still dropping, is that what we must conclude?

I, for one, am not sure.

504 Indian Field Road, just inside the gates of Mead Point, sat on the market for a few years, finally sold Feb 2015 for $2,501,000. Now it has sold again, no changes made, for $3,000,000. List/Sell: Jill Kelly.

528 Riversville Road, nice tear-down on 4 acres, got $2,000,000 Jan. 2015. Came back on a few months later at $1.950M, later reduced to $1,690,000, now has contract. List: Jeff Jackson.