Don't mistake an initial opening price for actual value

Case in point, 24 Maher Avenue, which has been on the market since May, 2017, and which today dropped its price to $1.499 million. That doesn’t strike me as a bad price, if you’re willing to walk up three flights to the master bedroom and can ignore the “sold as is” warning in the listing. But unfortunately for the buyer, she paid $1.850 for it in 2009, and priced it at $2.345 when she started off on this adventure two years ago.

Why the disconnect between value and price paid? Well, in 2008, the then-owner put it up for sale at the preposterous price of $3.175 (David Ogilvy is not the only agent in town with a tendency to overprice his listings), and so paying $1.850 for it in 2009 probably looked like a bargain to this owner. She was wrong.

This impending loss may seem like small potatoes to other Greenwich sellers who are writing off millions on their own misguided purchases, but, after transaction costs, there’s probably a $500,000 loss coming here, and for normal folks, that ‘s real pain.