A fool and his money

Give it a hearty guffaw

A reader sent along this link to new construction at 42 Stag Lane, listed at $9.285 million. It’s not listed on the Greenwich Multiple Listing Service and is instead running on some web-based sales site. That’s probably wise, because no Greenwich agent could show this place without laughing hysterically throughout the tour, and no ethical agent would let his client even be tempted.

Stag Lane isn’t a bad street at all, but it borders the Merritt Parkway and, especially for properties like this one on the Merritt side, there’s a noise issue. And it’s inconvenient: no easy Merritt access, which might otherwise be a plus for New York commuters, and it’s a long way to town.

More important, nothing on Stag has ever sold for anything close to this price. The highest price paid was for Rick Harris’s spec house at 26 Stag, which, after a very long stay on the market, finally sold for $4.250 in 2007, and even then, it resold in 2012 for $2.6 million.

In fact, with the exception of that brief fling at 26, there has never been a sale on Stag for $3 million; only three houses have sold in the $2s, and everything else in the $1s.

$9.285 Million? Wait for the foreclosure auction.

(UPDATE: as an aside, I note that Zillow “Zestimates” this structure’s value as $8,697,487. Gee, down to the dollar — how precise! Zillow’s algorithms may work in neighborhoods of identical streets and identical houses, but they’re totally useless in Greenwich — rely on them at your peril.)