Price reductions

16 Boulder Brook Road, which sold new in November, 2007 for $5.395 million, came back on the market in July, 2016, at $5.395, and, still unsold, dropped its price today to $4.995 million. Considering the money put into improvements since that 2007 purchase, the owners must be disappointed.

Still, those of us in the business back in 2007 thought that $5.4 sale price was extravagant (or I did, anyway), and it screwed up the comparative values on the street. One of our local builders, a financial idiot who can build a very decent house, when he has a mind to — results vary — was inspired by the sale of 16 and paid $2 million for 9 Boulder Brook, tore it down, and built a new house, which he brought to market in 2008 at $6.475. When it didn't sell, rather than see that as a warning sign, he raised its price to $7.325. He sold it just before his creditors closed in for $4.4 million. Admittedly, 2009 was a different market than pre-crash 2007, but I'd have been happy to warn him of the irrational exuberance displayed by the buyer of 16 Boulder Brook, even at what proved to be the height of the market. He didn't ask, and I suppose I took a certain cheap schadenfreude in his loss, but there you have it: I'm that sort of guy.

And I don't mean to be mean, but I see that the same builder of No. 9 Boulder Brook is in the same position at 291 Stanwich Road, which was today marked down to $4.395 million from its 2014 price of $6.695, but in this case, he still owns it. He paid $2 million for the land, with tear-down, in 2013, on an asking price of $1.625, and has been trying to sell the house he built on that property for the past four years. Again: good builder, bad businessman.

291 Stanwich Road