How far will COVID-fever spread?
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Come in, she said, I’ll give you shelter from the flu
3 Gaston Farm
Speaking with a reader today, I learned that some agents are predicting a revival of the northwest corner market, a neighborhood that, never popular, has been moribund since at least 2007, on the theory that NYC folk are abandoning the city and want lots of room around them as protection against the ravages of Kung Flu. I call bullshit, at least so far as them relocating to our northwest is concerned.
The market has certainly shifted in the past 20 years, away from the back country and into the more crowded confines of Riverside and Old Greenwich. That shift occurred, I’d say, because young families decided they wanted homes in theoretical (theoretical only, because they end up driving their kids there anyway) walking distance to schools, and a lifestyle that doesn’t evoke memories of Little House on the Prairie. COVID may have sent more of those families to the suburbs — that seems to be happening, though the duration of the boomlet is still uncertain, but demand for a quarter-acre in Riverside doesn’t necessarily mean an increased demand for 7-acres in our far north. Why would it? If the safe social distancing is 3’ or 6’ or whatever the CDC decides on a given day, does a 700’ wooded buffer protect any better than 150’ of fescue? Doubtful.
Just as an example, and I’m not singling out this particular property, because there are many others, 3 Gaston Farms Road cut its price today to $2.175 million. It’s been serching for a buyer since 2017, when it set off at $3.050. While its lack of appeal is due at least in part to its 1988 construction, a period not known as a peak of the architectural arts, the primary difficulty is its location, nestled against the Banksville border. That’s about as far from the currently favored small neighborhood feel as one can get and still be in Greenwich, and Riverside’s not moving north.
Maybe — maybe — the present panic will uncover a buying pool different from our current one and a heretofore unknown type of New York buyer will appear: some city sophisticate who’s too cool for the suburbs, yearns for Montana, but doesn’t want to give up easy access to Whole Foods, and his type will snap up all our unwanted inventory in Greenwich’s Yukon Territory. I don’t think that’s going to happen.
Mind you, I personally like our northern corners and would happily live in either one, east or west. Prices up there, never robust, have dropped by as much as half from 2005’s, so you can find lot of house for not a huge amount of money. I’d be wary, however, of betting irreplaceable savings on the hunch that the flu is going to stabilize prices up there and arrest their decline. It might, but it’s a gamble, and a realtor who tells you otherwise is, in my opinion, wrong at best and blowing smoke up your nether region at worst.
For what will probably be a contrary opinion, and it’s never a bad thing to get a second opinion, my perenially optimistic brother Gideon and his sidekick Jonathan Wilcox will, I believe, be discussing this topic tomorrow at 10-11 on their weekly WGCH radio show. Call in and disagree, or, better, dump on Gid’s older brother; he’d like that.
