Our Towns
Hints of Fear in the Land of Mansions
By PETER APPLEBOME
GREENWICH, Conn.
You could have a pretty good time checking out the merchandise if you’re looking for a place to hang your hat in Greenwich: Mel Gibson’s manse on 75 acres with the walk-in fireplace and the two-handed Scottish claymore sword hanging above the mantel (asking price $39 million); Leona Helmsley’s 40 acres, which just went on the market for $125 million; the stunning 10-acre property overlooking Long Island Sound being sold, most likely, as a $34 million teardown.
But this might not be the first place you would come to take the temperature of the real estate market, Greenwich being the typical housing market much the way Maria Sharapova is the typical eHarmony.com Internet date.
On the other hand, who knows? The rich may be different, but judging from the chatter of real estate agents touring open houses on Tuesday, maybe not all that different as the house-selling season staggers off to an uncertain start.
When the subprime bubble became a problem for the housing market, people here yawned. Who in Greenwich has a subprime loan? If they’re yawning now, though, it’s only because they’re sitting around bored as megahomes sit on the market like beached yachts.
All of which is another reminder of just how far the contagion has spread. And it is serious grist for Chris Fountain, who fills one of those niches that would have to be invented if it didn’t exist: real estate blogger of Greenwich.
There’s always real estate to talk about in Greenwich — witness a report in The Greenwich Time this week that neighbors are upset about a proposed 30,000-square-foot house (Turkish bath, Finnish bath, gym, theater, wine cellar, etc.; not everyone is hurting) deemed too big even for Greenwich.
“Real estate is to Greenwich what wheat is to Kansas,” said Mr. Fountain, a recovering lawyer and sometime author who has been selling real estate since 2002 and writing about it since 2003 (he has a column in The Greenwich Post, a local weekly, along with the blog, greenwichrealestate.blogspot.com ). “It’s a blood sport in Greenwich. When I get stopped in the supermarket, you never know if people want to say hello or punch you in the nose.”
As he said on his blog the other day, real-estate brokers do not like it when their peers pass on any bad news, but, “Our selling clients certainly can figure out what’s going on, because their houses aren’t selling, so who are we supposed to be keeping in the dark?” He cited figures showing that as of the end of February, the number of sales in Greenwich was down 39 percent compared with last year.
The Greenwich market probably peaked in the fourth quarter of 2005 and has been slowing since, but this is the first time there’s a whiff of panic in the air.
After sampling the quiche and crudités at the lunch buffet in the empty kitchen of one of the new houses in the Golden Triangle area of Greenwich’s mid-country, the brokers wandered around with the air of picky estate appraisers.
Yes, it had the basics: 6 bedrooms, 7 ½ baths (it is practically illegal in Greenwich to build houses in which the future investment bankers of America don’t have their own bathrooms), master suite in the master wing, pool, spa. But at north of $10 million, in this market, well, maybe the closets were a tad small, the fixtures kind of ordinary, the mix-and-match exterior of stone and clapboard generic enough to be best described as neo-neo.
Mr. Fountain figured it would eventually sell for $7 million. Someone else said $7.5. The high estimate was $8, but she was talked down to $7.5 as well.
“It’s going to be an interesting market,” said one.
“It is an interesting market,” said a second.
“It’s going to be a challenging market,” said a third, and the escalation stopped there.
At the very top, the market seems to be holding up, because those buyers (unless they happened to work for Bear Stearns) tend to have enough stock to make anything work. It’s more the meat-and-potatoes houses in the $2 million to $4 million level that have really been hit, as lenders demand 30 percent or more as a down payment instead of the 20 percent in days gone by.
(And, truth to tell, even in Greenwich there is public housing, modest cottages that now cost six figures, and plenty of ordinary people living in houses they could never afford to buy.)
Of course, there are already winners. Mr. Fountain cited a deal in which he represented the buyer. The house was listed for $11.5 million, fell to $8.5 and finally sold for $6.9 million. (Hint: If you’re shopping, don’t offer $125 million for the Helmsley place).
Mr. Fountain lives in a house his grandmother bought for $17,000 in 1957 that is now a $2 million or $2.5 million teardown. “Right in the dumpster,” he said.
He figures everyone got spoiled, in Greenwich like nowhere else, but people have to realize that for now, at least, the music has stopped. He figures there’s a bottom somewhere, but it’s not necessarily around the corner, and, in Greenwich, at least, that’s not necessarily the end of the world.
“I once worked on the defense of a young man wrongfully convicted of rape and sentenced to 18 years in prison,” he said. “That’s something to lose sleep over, for years. Someone doesn’t buy a house? Hey, there are plenty more out there.”