For What It’s Worth

Bedtime reading (if you enjoy nightmares)Reader Craig Vorselen has sent me this link to a Crains New York article on layoffs in the financial industry and this equally cheerful one about foreclosures in NYC. If you don’t like reading phrases like”jobs are evaporating across the financial industry” and “there’s no one left for job seekers [...]

Amazing wonders in real estate pricingSo there are three houses currently for sale on Old Church Road, a great street very close to town.149 Old Church is an 1899 house, renovated in 2006, on 1.48 acres and assessed (70%) at $2.336 million. It started in April at $3.795 and has now dropped to $3.200. 5,920 [...]

What’s happening with Bentleys?By Amanda Von Stuckle
What with all this fooferall about house prices dropping a teensey bit I decided to vist my pal George Louderkin III, the wonderful salesman who sold me my first luxury car years ago when I cashed out of the internet boom. The man’s a saint, as you can see. [...]

O.K., The Greenwich market is down
Have you considered investing in Nigeria?But be careful, as the linked website warns,
Lagos Nigeria real estate market is a vast property market where a newcomer can get easily lost and cheated by scammers. Lagos Nigeria property scammers are everywhere. Lose your guard and you risk losing your hard-earned money.
Fortunately [...]

Denver Commercial Real Estate Exec:This could get ugly.But there’s this:“Santora added that Denver is one of the three strongest markets in the country, with the other two being Houston (because of its energy sector employment) and Washington, D.C.”
Hmm – wonder what they grow in Washington, D.C.?

The stock market’s up today, so farI suspect that our President isn’t the only one holding his breath.
UpdateBut the credit market, which powers the world’s economy, is a mess. I think we’re in trouble, Toto.

Offers I never finish reading
Or wouldn’t if I didn’t need material for this blog. I just received an invitation from a new real estate agency in town to meet someone named “Niurka” – no last name, which doesn’t make me comfortable – to learn “What moves your clients to action”, “Master your state of mind” [...]

This is for real
Children sing for Obama
If your video isn’t working, here’s the actual U-Tube description supplied by the film’s creators:
Sing for Change chronicles a recent Sunday afternoon, when 22 children, ages 5-12, gathered to sing original songs in the belief that their singing would lift up our communities for the coming election. Light, hope, [...]

Shuttered BanksI’ve just come back from counting the number of banks in town: 3,217 all of which are, as of yesterday, owned by just one large institution. Will it need all these branches? Will it decide that commerce dictates that it maintain 217 offices on Greenwich Avenue? Probably – this is Greenwich, after all, but [...]

47 Will Merry Lane
Is 80% the new 100?This house was listed a while ago (April, 2007) for $1.895 million. Today, 1 1/2 years later, it’s been reported as under contract. Last asking price (the actual agreed upon price is probably less) was $1.495. My expert readers will be sure to correct my math on this, [...]

Interesting, if trueOne of my clients tells me that he received a flyer in the mail advertising an auction of a very expensive house we looked at together last year. It’s a spec house whose price has been sinking like a stone so it wouldn’t surprise me but until I can confirm the particulars I [...]

Angry PeopleWhat scares me most about the current fuss is the anger I hear from so many people who should otherwise know better. These folks, fairly sophisticated Greenwich types who made nice livings as Wall Street prospered, are furious at the financial world and are determined to see people punished, regardless of whether that brings [...]

I’m not sure how much weight to give to these data
According to the Boston Globe,
the more money a Congressman received from the financial industry, the more likely he was to have voted for yesterday’s bailout bill. Supporters of the bill collected 57% more money, on average. My personal opinion of our government servants is [...]

The Wall Street Journal has a bunch of links to articles on What Happens Next. Interesting – go see.
And, courtesy of the same paper, here’s an article on the Case – Shiller Index of Housing Values. The index runs only through July 31, but I haven’t seen any dramatic improvement since that date, at [...]

Open House ReportNothing out there of note, in my opinion. A few retreads, a few new listings with sellers who are a tad optimistic – I’ll stop by in six months and see whether they’ve gotten the message, and that’s about it.
One ray of sunshine: Another agent I know reports that a buyer who had [...]

From Mark Steyn:” “As a general proposition, when told by unanimous elites that a particular course of action is urgent and necessary to avoid disaster, there’s a lot to be said for going fishing.”
Courtesy of Instapundit.com

A reader asks, “Hey Chris, during the good old days 2000-06, did you ever steer a prospective buyer away from a property that based on their income, you thought they couldn’t afford even though the bank was willing to lend it? Just curious if you think realtors should take some blame here.”
The answer is no. [...]

David Stockman at CVS!By Amanda Von Stuckle(Editor’s note: Amanda was going to take a long vacation, because her first day of blogging tired her out. The overwhelming positive response to her first appearance convinced us to bring her back at least one more time, just to satisfy those fans clamoring for more. Please keep [...]

Here’s a depressing way to end the evening.The Wall Street Journal is pessimistic after today’s vote. So am I.
Both he [Bernanke] and Paulson gave the politicians and Main Street too much credit. They have behaved too calmly, and too rationally for the nation to get the message.
Bernanke and Paulson should have made outrageous promises [...]

The Black KnightRemember him from Monty Python and the Holy Grail? I’m reminded of the poor fellow by this matter of Somolian pirates off the coast of Africa, They’re surrounded by ships and planes from five nations but the First Mate claims they’ll never surrender. “According to a broadcast on the BBC Somali service, [...]