And a land sale in Conyers Farm—dummy

21 Upper Cross Road, 11 acres, $5.125 million. Our GMLS records show it as selling after just 13 days, for 100% of its asking price, but that's not the real picture. In fact, after paying $9 million for the lot in 2007, the owner put it back up for sale in 2013 at $10.5 million, a price that presumably was intended to recoup the money spent on site studies and architectural plans (or not—he may have spent nothing, and was under the mistaken impression that Conyers Farm land had increased since 2007), and has been on the market ever since, suffering the continuing indignity of successive price cuts, until he unloaded it at this final price.

I'll admit that it's cruel to call the buyer a dummy, and certainly he must have demonstrated financial acumen in the past to be able to afford to pay this much for land, but assuming he builds anything close to the Whadia design shown below, he's going to have sunk at least $10 million, probably more, into a neighborhood that's been losing value for the past ten years.

The rich are different from you and me—they have more money—and sinking this kind of money into a losing proposition may be perfectly acceptable to the buyer. "Plenty more where that came from" could be his thinking, and God bless him if it is. Just as lawyers adore clients with strong principles and deep pockets, we realtors love buyers with a firm idea of what they want and are willing to pay for it, regardless of cost.

But I at least would have cautioned him against it.