Contract, Burning Tree

63 Burning Tree Road, asking $3.595 million. Just 54 days on market, which suggests it's going for something close to that asking price (and which should, I hope, reinforce my regular lecture here about the importance of listing your house early in the year if you want to capture the spring market). 

It's a really nice house, right on Frye "Lake" — many, many years ago, my father told me that any body of water you could see across was a pond, not a lake, but then added, "unless you're a real estate agent, in which case everything's a lake". He taught me that lesson in about 1965, and it's as true today as it was then.

I liked this house very much back in 2008, but laughed at its opening price of $3.695, and that laughter was merited: it finally sold in 2010 for $2.475. But these sellers  did extensive improvements, and now its price seems (more) reasonable.

The only quibble I have is the owners' insistence that its light fixtures are excluded. For heaven's sake, for $3.5  million, let go of your wall sconces and chandeliers, won't you? Back when my law practice included residential real estate, one of the main sticking points in negotiations was who got the friggin' curtains. If I was representing the seller and we "won", I often followed up a year or so later and asked my clients what they'd done with those disputed window treatments. Invariably, the answer was "Oh, we found out that they didn't fit in our new home, so they're in the attic". 

Let it go.

Once again, "The Chair" saves the day