First time as tragedy, second time as farce?

Travel around Greenwich and you can trace successive waves of building over the decades, thrown up by contractors as they sought cheaper land for their projects. Some of these expanded areas flourished, some did not, as the market retreated from the frontiers in times of weaker demand. There’s now a lot of activity in those “failed” areas, and it’s far beyond my abilities to say whether these new buyers represent a permanent revival or merely another wave of suckers, but the houses are selling.

Case in point, 27 Cobb Island, a gut-renovated project under the noise shadow of I-95, priced at $4.795 million and now under contract. Houses here did well when they were new in the 80s, then rapidly declined in value; 27 itself was bought out of foreclosure by its current owner, and others have fared about as well.

So will it have held its value ten years from now? Check back then.

Circa 2019