Modern Furniture That’s Not Hideous

From French furniture company Roche Bobois. Possibly not something I would do in MY home, but…

A typical suburban real estate agent inspects a minimum of 10 houses per week, often it’s twice that number. That simple fact is the reason the job category “real estate agent” still exists. All that time and effort spent studying, analyzing, discussing with fellow brokers, and watching individual properties go through the sales process from start to finish, makes an agent a valuable person.

If you were foolish enough to ask a denizen of Manhattan “where’s the best fishing spot between Tod’s Point and Indian Harbor”, the Manhattanite wouldn’t have a clue. Similarly, people who merely watch real estate from the comfort of their office swivel chair can certainly have opinions about what a house is worth, but they are not useful opinions.

But where was I? Oh yes, modern furniture! So, with all that house-looking, we brokers encounter an awful lot of hideous glass and steel tables, steel chairs and bookcases (with no books), white shaggy couches, and of course, faux zebra throw rugs. Gets tiresome.

One sees more and more of THIS…

and less and less of THIS… (maybe that’s a good thing?)

It is therefore amazing that I have stumbled upon contemporary furniture that even I must admit ain’t bad looking. See if you agree: RocheBobois

(It’s a French furniture company, looks like the nearest showroom is on Manhattan’s upper west side, at 2040 Broadway)

 

Multiple Bids (in a slow market, go figure)

37 Tower Road, Riverside, original ask: $7.995M, eventual sell: $6.3M.
Co-List: Stacy Daccache, Cynthia DeRiemer
Sell: (Rye, NY broker)  Go to photos and check out the spectacular view.

Well, it’s happened again! As surely as night follows day (or is it the other way around), a house has come on the market with a, er, optimistic asking price, then got reduced and reduced and reduced again, and what happens? bidding war!

Of course, you never, ever get it back to that original asking price, but this example proves once again that, after multiple price reductions, most Greenwich properties start to resemble a bargain. If a seller has reduced multiple times, and you, you clever devil, have gotten them to agree to a price still lower, act fast, because someone invariably will notice what you noticed.

That’s what happend here.  A deal had apparently been struck, possibly around $6M? but suddenly, other buyers appeared, and drove the price up to $6.3M!

Tune in to my show, Wednesday mornings, 11:00-12:00 noon to hear more about this. On the radio 1490 AM or the web, www.WGCH.com

Fountain, right. Wilcox left

Again With The Bidding Wars

17 Roosevelt Avenue (corner of Irvine), Old Greenwich. Asked: $1.050M
Sold: $1.4M
List: Ann Simpson
Sell: Sheila Starr

17 Roosevelt only has .23 acres, but the existing house was shoved over into the corner, resulting in this (relatively) huge side yard.

Can there be a situation where you have a bidding war on a property but it doesn’t necessarily suggest a blazing hot market? Yes, in the case of 17 Roosevelt Avenue, a cute, charming little tear-down bungalow that, at $1,050,000, was about the cheapest thing you could buy in this neighborhood, the bidding war that erupted was not caused by an excited, possibly over-heated market.

In this case, the neighbor did it (they paid $1,400,000). And that is a very, very common story around town. Neighbors buy an adjoining property for various reasons, including as a defensive maneuver, to prevent builders from erecting a giant mansion looming over the backyard.

Needless to say, at $1,050,000, there were plenty of bidders, including some builders, but no one was going to pay as much as the neighbors! So this price, as in most cases of neighbor-purchase, is probably not all that useful as a comp for near-future appraisals.

I’ll talk more about this on tomorrow’s radio show, WGCH.com or 1490 AM radio, 11:00 AM – Noon (or listen later to the damned pod-cast!)

Fountain, on the right. Wilcox on the left (not politically!)