And some positive real estate news

9 Andrews Road

9 Andrews Road is pending - asking price $5.995 million.

That's what the owners paid for it new in 2006, which was pretty much the height of the market, so good for them. Nice house, good street, why not?

99 Sterling Road

99 Sterling Road, up in our northwest, is also under contract. Asking price started in September at $3.450 million but the owners quickly dropped down to $2.250, and that proved smart, because they found a buyer. I do admire realistic owners.

46 Dewart Road

46 Dewart Road, an 1850 barn, transformed, was asking $4.9 million and got it, or close enough. A number of agents who saw this house back in 2012 loved it, including myself, but we feared that the next owner would tear it down for its land value. Instead, they paid $3.1 for it, redid a lot of the dated features that needed it, and seem to be making out quite well for their efforts. That's nice to see. 

23 Angus Lane

23 Angus Lane, $2.6 million, has a contract after just 16 days. Not my type of house, but that's as irrelevant as my taste in pickup trucks. More house, by far, than you'd get in our eastern neighborhoods, and if this location suits a buyer's needs, great.

5 Meadow Wood Drive - no no no

Over on the Belle Haven peninsula, jammed up against I-95, Steve Archino's got JP Morgan's foreclosed property at 5 Meadow Wood Drive listed at $1,208,500. Sold "as is" with, as Steve notes, "bathroom and kitchen fixtures removed" (unpaid subcontractors often sneak in after dark to recover at least part of their losses), this house has offered a view of a slow motion train wreck since its builder first brought it to market in 2007 at $7.950 million. Leaving aside his unfortunate timing, this bland - okay, awful - house was never going to fetch anything close to that sum. I think I guessed $2.5, but I was dubious about even that price.

You might be able to salvage what's here, but why bother? $950 for land? Maybe, though I'd pass.