If you must fire your agent, at least admit that your asking price was too high, and fire that price, too

There are lots of “new” listings being posted these days, but most of them are just new listings by new brokers with the same, or close to, the same price. Trust me on this; it’s the price that’s been wrong, not your agent. In the age of the Internet, where every potential buyer has full access to prices, property characteristics, school, etc., it’s not a failure of marketing that’s keeping buyers away from your property, it’s your price. Keep you agent, drop your price.

One property owner who at least did half of that is the would-be seller of 28 Oak Street, that neighborhood behind the car dealerships on West Putnam Avenue. He fired his most-excellent agent, though he hired one equally as good, but most important, dropped his price from its 2017 high of $4.249 to $3.295 million.

My personal tastes run against this house because of its Westchester design and its location in an execrable part of town, but that’s just me; someone’s bound to like it — after all, this owner thought enough of it to pay $2.9 for it when it was new in 2006 — and there will surely be more “someones” looking in the low threes than there are in the low fours.

So, look to your price, before you blame your agent

At what cost waterfront?

344 Shore Road, of the Belle Haven Peninsula but not in it (beware when listings describe a house as in the Belle Haven “area”), new construction, hit the market today at $12.5 million. It holds a commanding view of our Grass Island sewage plant, dog park, and municipal marina, but also boasts of a “deep water” dock. My admittedly-limited knowledge of that backwater piece of Greenwich Harbor has me thinking that there’s, maybe, 2’ of water at low tide, which would be sufficient to float a trimaran or smallish powerboat, but not much else. But I could be wrong, so I’d advise checking with our Harbor Master Ian Macmillan before paying a premium for our limited deep water harborage.

Great Expectations, dashed

421 Stanwich Road is back on the active list, now priced at $4.950 million, which is, conveniently, the amount of its mortgage.

A Jordan Saper creation, it sold new in 2000 for $4.7 million, and was up for sale between 2008 and 2010 for $8.250, which would have been a puzzling price had the listing agent not been Tamar Lurie, but Tamar’s always brought a droll sense of whimsy to her pricing.

Town’s appraised it at $6.069 million, so knock another million-and-a-half off our Grand List. At least.

Recruiting app screens out Negroes, Jews, Muslims and woman; anything wrong with that?

Justice!

Oops! Had that wrong: it only screens out males

The Women in Bizz feature … excludes men from a user's pool of potential connections. The idea is to help a traditionally underrepresented workforce connect and build support systems outside the office.

"Representation is critically important for women, especially in traditionally male dominated industries," CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd said in a statement to CNBC. "We're helping women connect with other women to show them what's possible and give them resources as they build their careers." 

Bumble Bizz, launched in late 2017, is often used by recruiters or hiring managers to find new talent. Limiting the potential pool could help women compete for jobs in male-dominated industries.

"We hope women embrace the opportunity to help foster each others' development and ask for the time they may not be getting in the work place," the company said in a statement.

Not that it wasn't stillborn from the start, but Starbuck's Howard Schultz just finished off his campaign for the presidency

The mob has already descended, of course.

No wonder Occasional Cortex is beloved by the elite — she's just like them, even though poorer, for now

Two ends of the same animal

The environmental hypocrisy of Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez

The NYP is all over this fraudulent bit of fluff, detailing her lies about where she’s living, paying her boyfriend with campaign funds, using the very same plastic bags she claims are going to end the world in 12 years, etc., and here’s a small, telling fact:

Since declaring her candidacy in May 2017, Ocasio-Cortez’s campaign heavily relied on those combustible-engine cars — even though a subway station was just 138 feet from her Elmhurst campaign office.

She listed 1,049 transactions for Uber, Lyft, Juno and other car services, federal filings show. The campaign had 505 Uber expenses alone.

In all, Ocasio-Cortez spent $29,365.70 on those emissions-spewing vehicles, along with car and van rentals — even though her Queens HQ was a one-minute walk to the 7 train.

The campaign shelled out only $8,335.41 on 52 MetroCard transactions.

Ironically, the Uber-loving politician took a tough public stand against the conveyance after a New York City taxi driver committed suicide in February 2018.

“Yellow cab drivers are in financial ruin due to the unregulated expansion of Uber,” she tweeted on March 21. “What was a living wage job now pays under minimum.”

Her campaign billed only seven rides in yellow cabs in a year and a half, federal filings show.

Havemeyer contract

66 Halsey Drive, new construction, asking $2.425 million. I’ve been spending a lot of time away from town for awhile, and despite frequent visits back, I seem to have developed sticker shock, because of what I’ve been seeing in the multi-million-range in other areas of the country, and how much house a couple of million dollars can command elsewhere.

But, I have to remind myself, what a dollar fetches somewhere else is irrelevant, and the Greenwich market is what it is. And this is what it is.

Riverside continues to plug along at the $3 million range

106 Lockwood Road, a spec house once marketed at $3.895 in 2016, has sold for $3 million Decent, but not exceptional build quality, design pulled from a build-it-book, on a third of an acre on a busy street. In short, a typical product for this market.

But the stuff keeps selling, so hooray.

Full circle

The owners of 646 Riversville Road paid $2 million for this house on five acres in 2000, and as far back as 2007 tried reselling it as land for $4.995 million. It’s been on and off the market since then, between rentals, and today it’s back, asking $2.150.

Even that may not do it.

And a waterfront sale in Old Greenwich

12 Indian Drive, $11 million. Sold for $14.1 in 2012, and listed this time, in 2016 at $15.995, but what’s a $3 million loss when you’ve enjoyed six years of waterfront living?

I’m only being half-facetious. My daughter Sarah’s best friend grew up in the equally-beautiful, though older home next door, and Sarah herself might almost have been part of the family, considering how much time she spent there. That friend’s father once told me that, when his family lived around the corner on Ledge Road in the ‘90s, a wave came up from the sea and surged through number 8 Indian Drive, forcing the owner to move out for six months. He didn’t care, and snapped it up when it was placed on sale: “price you pay for living on the water”, he said. That family has been very happy there, and I have always envied their fantastic views and deep-water dock, but I’ve never had the wherewithal to risk the expense of living in the Hyatt for half a year while my residence was restored.

But I would if I could.