Sales are taking off

38 Aiken Road

Too many for this lazy scribe to compile on a holiday Friday, but the past two days have seen a slew of sales, pendings and contracts, with many of the “pendings” going to that status within just a few days of initial listing. Others are much older listings that had been mellowing on the active list for months, even years, and have suddenly found buyers.

Mind you, the feeding frenzy hasn’t reached such a pitch yet that some house sellers aren’t still losing money. 38 Aiken Road, for instance, reported as pending, was asking $3.8 million; the owners paid $6.9 for it in 2002, and have been trying to sell it since 2015, when they began at $6.950. Still, at least their wait is finally over.

For what it’s worth, the same frenzy is happening in Maine. inventory down, average sale prices soaring. Pal Nancy put her condo up for sale today and her agent told her to expect it to have found a buyer by Sunday night. Who knows about Greenwich, but I wonder about the longevity of Maine’s buying splurge: the state’s unemployment rate jumped to 11% this month, worse since the Great Depression, and that’s not counting all the people who will never be hired this summer because of the total destruction of the tourism industry by the state’s governess. I think Nancy’s getting out at the peak.