What The Market Wants

41 Dawn Harbor, $4,450,000, built in 1993, renovated 2014. Listing still says “active”, but the rumor mill says otherwise. Listing broker Ann Simpson.

There’s a tendency, don’t yew know, among us real estate experts (and that includes you “armchair” real estate experts), to exclaim, when something sells quickly, “Oh yes, well of course!”, as though the ease of the sale was a foregone conclusion.

The ugly truth is, sometimes we just don’t know why one property sells and another one doesn’t.

Having said all that, here’s one that really does seem easy to figure out:

41 Dawn Harbor Lane, Riverside, CT

The rumor is, this place had a mad, crazed bidding war over the weekend, with lots of contenders and, naturally, only one winner. That leaves a bunch of frustrated buyers, in the mid-$4 million range, casting about for an alternative!

Listing broker: Ann Simpson

Gideon’s Speech

 

UPDATE: I’ll admit I’m “blabbing” but in truth, there is some good real estate  information conveyed here, things I’ve learned over 30 years of listing and selling.If you’re ever going to sell some of your real estate, watch this video first. 

I forget, did I already post this video of me blabbing about real estate to the Retired Men’s Association of Greenwich? It was two years ago, but upon review I see that most of the stuff I say is still relatively accurate.

 

Holy crud, it’s 55 minutes! By all means, skip ahead!

Including But Not Limited To…

The view from 107 Meadow Road, $6.995M. No show till after broker open house on Thursday and guess what? All Thursday appointment times are already reserved. Sounds like plenty of demand to me!

UPDATE: It occurs to me that burdening the word “including” with “but not limited to” is like the hideous phrase, “close proximity”, that is, the adding of a completely unnecessary qualifier. Other examples would be “very unique”, “over exaggerate”, etc.

It’s the kind of annoying crud that litters our language these days, and as usual, lawyers get the blame. A modern group of lawyers, tasked with re-writing the greatest document ever created, the US Constitution, would quickly balloon it to   twenty thousand pages.

See that weasely, lawyerly phrase in my title? It’s used by lawyers because other lawyers (especially the ones permitted to parade around in black robes) like to play a little game of “we didn’t know what you meant”.

Long ago some judge probably ruled against someone, declaring that the word “including” was not clear enough, and from that point onward, lawyers never miss a chance to add “…but not limited to”.

People who hope to sound lawyerly now add this repulsive phrase to normal, non-legal documents, very tedious, don’t you agree?

Anyway, so getting back to the case of 107 Meadow Road, the $6,995,000 property and its astoundingly restrictive covenant (you can’t alter the exterior of the existing building in any way): will anyone buy it? The covenant is positively filled with “including but not limited to’s”, and the owner has fully empowered The Greenwich Land Trust to enforce its provisions, so if you plan to buy the property and have your team of lawyers overturn the restrictions, I think you will lose.

But do you really need to overturn the restrictions? I predict there will be plenty of buyers who’ll take it, restrictions and all. They will like this house and have no problem whatsoever being limited to interior improvements only. How do I know? Nantucket. They have exactly this kind of architectural restrictions on older buildings. Have you checked Nantucket prices lately? They’re rather high…

107 Meadow Road, listed by Monie Sullivan

 

P.S. Note the similarity in the view above to this one from 531 Indian Field Road, which sold a few years ago for $18,000,000, then $25,000,000 more recently!

The Future Of Tires

This thing is your new tire. Four of them will be magnetically attached to your car (not your present car, duh) and will allow you to go in any direction, including sideways. Watch the video!

Like me, you worry about the future of tires. “Surely”, you think to yourself, “car tires can be better than they are!”

You’re right, and now Goodyear has come up with it, and they’re really, really awesome.

Watch the video, or better yet….

Read the article.

The Grand Experiment

107 Meadow Road, just listed by broker Monie Sullivan, for $6.995M, but there’s a catch!

Oh Em Gee, was I not just talking about the preservation of older houses in Riverside?

No sooner does my post hit the streets (figuratively) than along comes this listing of 107 Meadow Road!  With 3.2 acres at the end of hyper-valuable Meadow Road, spectacular high views over Greenwich Cove, and priced at $6,995,000, my first reaction was it’s underpriced by about $5,000,000.

But then I noticed the “Declaration of Conservation Easement”…

A great lady, Donna Brace Ogilvie, owned this place, or maybe had “life use”? not positive. Anyway, she or someone before her, perhaps old Donald C. Brace himself,  put this amazing restrictive easement on the house and property.

How amazing is it? Get a load of this excerpt from the covenant:

“Only the existing residential dwelling, for single family use and occupancy, with all improvements related thereto, shall be maintained upon the Property…”

Click the link below to read the entire 8-page Easement, but the long & short of it is, you cannot change anything on the exterior of the existing house, and you cannot add any additional buildings.

Listing broker Monie Sullivan definitely had her hands full coming up with an asking price, but I think she’s nailed it. There’s no question the easement restrictions shaved millions off the value, but at $6.995M, I think more than one buyer will step up.

Here’s the actual easement language:

MeadowRdEasement

 

Alternative listing link, in the event the one above gets de-activated:

107 Meadow Road

 

The Test

19 Indian Head Road, $5.2M and an absolute bargain! Listing broker Heather Platt.

This place is the test, or maybe it’s the answer. Should you bother to renovate an older home, and will anyone buy it when you’re done?

19 Indian Head Road in Riverside came on the market eleven days ago for $5,200,000. It’s simply one of the best renovation/expansions I’ve seen and if it doesn’t get  a quick deal, I’ll be amazed and also alarmed.

Listing broker is Heather Platt, and I haven’t checked in with her lately, so it’s possible she already has a deal. I’ll find out tomorrow and update this post.

But holy [cow]! What if it hasn’t sold? What would that mean for the idea of preserving older houses? Because right now, Riverside’s got a slightly swollen inventory of beautifully renovated (or at least, preserved, in one case) antique homes, all with high ceilings, all in great locations, and there they sit, unloved.

Meanwhile, a spec house next door goes up, gets staged, and sells. Not good news for the oldies.

Just a few examples:

Every one of these Riverside beauties is spectacularly renovated (and/or preserved), yet there they sit. But show the market a shiny new spec house, with no character, no charm, no history, and bing! it’s gone in 60 seconds.

 

Obama Nominates Black Conservative To Supreme Court

Justice Janice Rogers Brown

Taking friend and foe alike completely by surprise, the President announced this afternoon at a White House press conference that he was nominating D.C. Court of Appeals Judge Janice Rogers Brown to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court caused by the death of Judge Antonin Scalia.

“To replace a true Constitutional scholar with yet another stooge that will rubber-stamp any expansion of government I can dream up is unfair to at least half the US population so, dammit, I’m just not going to do it.” the President told a packed room of reporters.

“Judge Brown has, to my way of thinking, a quaint, even antiquated view that the Constitution actually has meaning and importance. Obviously she and I completely disagree on this, but her voice, her point of view, deserves to be heard on the Supreme Court, so today I nominate her to that position, and I expect a quick confirmation from my friends in the Senate.”

Concluding his remarks, the President refused to take any questions from reporters and instead, ran around the room yelling “February Fool’s Day! February Fool’s Day!” until Secret Service personnel wrestled him to the ground. He was later admitted to George Washington University Hospital for observation. No further details available.

 

 

 

90 Club Road, Riverside, CT

90 Club Road, view looking west towards the harbor. Here’s a link to the short aerial video.

I listed 90 Club Road last week for $7,000,000. It is 1.36 acres in the one-acre zone. There is a perfectly nice house on the property, quite livable by my standards but, like almost everything else that has sold in and around Club Road lately, it’s a likely “land” sale.

I grew up on the adjacent Gilliam Lane and back then, all of us certainly appreciated Club Road but no one would have imagined this level of popularity!

For context, here are the prices of recent house sales on Club Road and vicinity, all within five properties of my new listing, all immediately torn down:

73 Club Road     $9,500,000.

95 Club Road     $6,755,000.

74 Club Road     $6,565,000.

45 Gilliam Lane: $6,250,000.

100 Club Road:  $4,250,000.

42 Gilliam Lane: $3,760,000.

58 Club Road:    $3,500,000.

My listing at 32 Gilliam Lane, on .69 acres, also a likely tear-down, now has a deal in the low $2M’s.

At the top of the street, 11 Club Road, a spectacular Victorian, sold for $6,025,000 and (hooray!) was not torn down but instead underwent a year-long renovation.

11 Club Road, a beautiful 1893 Victorian, sells for $6.025M.

The highest price paid on Club Road for a finished house was 35 Club Road, which got $8,675,000 when it was new, and $8,450,000 the next time around.

What’s the street’s potential? I think most brokers would agree that the new Shope Reno-designed, Sound Beach Partners-built mansion at 73 Club Road would easily get $20,000,000 if it were put on the market.

 

 

 

Reader Comments, Love ‘Em/Hate ‘Em

In response to my post about condo sales off Steamboat Road, I received the following comment from a reader (and fellow blogger, no less!)

Years ago we looked at some high end in-town condos (“Arbor Rose” something?) and while very pretty, I was APPALLED at the Elaine-Benes-style dance that residents had to perform, jockeying for parking. Heaven forbid you entertain – and I watched the UPS truck TRY and turn around – talk about back up beeping. I get the concept of these condos (although I am diametrically opposed to any development having a NAME), but for my $5m I’d rather not be told my Jaguar is in the way of your Maserati and would I kindly move it or else….. Perfectly reasonable comment, do you not agree? But it required a bit of editing, in my opinion, and frankly I’m still not happy with that reference to Elaine Benes. Is the Seinfeld character Elaine Benes that well known? Is she the Ralph Kramden of a younger generation? Not sure. Anyway, I committed, first, the unpardonable sin of editing, then compounded the offense by forgetting to press the “approve” button. So what did the [fellow blogger] do? the [fellow blogger] runs over to my brother’s blog and complains! Here’s the [fellow blogger’s] complaint: Never met the guy so I can’t retort but it was like my comment wasn’t good enough for his readers so he edited it – adding words, hyphenating words, then, after some thought, he decided the entire tone of the comment didn’t suit his sensibilities. Okay, his blog, his choice, but then why edit my words? Why not just assign my comment to the trash bin? I never edit someone’s comment (except when it’s obvious there’s a typo). I repeat, very farquatious. There is no such word as farquatious so I certainly would have edited that right outta there, had I the option. But never mind, isn’t it a bit rich, a fellow blogger complaining on still another blog, about not getting a comment published on my blog? Silly, dopey, and…silly.

The Cheapest House In Greenwich

107 Halstead Avenue (way, w-a-a-ay west, mere inches from the Port Chester line, fetches $340,000!

Too late, this baby has sold! Still, it amazes me you can get an actual house in this town for well under $400,000. And it’s not like this one got snapped up.

Nope, it came on for $419,000 back in July, got one big price reduction in November, down to $350,000, made a deal in January, and has now closed at the bargain price of $340,000.

I suppose out-of-towners would smirk at my use of the word “bargain” for this charming little dump on .18 acres, but gosh-darned it, it sounds cheap, doesn’t it??

Listed by: James O’Brien

Sold by:  Richard Breglia

Alternative link to 107 Halstead Avenue

(Listing office Raveis)