By Mark Pruner
The Biggest, the Smallest and the Longest DOM
THE BAD NEWS: 2023 INVENTORY DROPS UNDER 100 LISTINGS
Remember that tacky cat poster of the kitten struggling to hang on to the rope with the caption “Hang in There”. That’s been our inventory for the last couple of weeks. Inventory was hanging in there above 100 single family listings, but just barely. On the shortest day of the year, our little inventory kitten’s last tiny claw slipped, and our inventory dropped to 99 listings. On this date in 2022, we had 149 listings and in the same week in 2019, we had 471 listings.
Given that we only had 5 new home listings in the last week, as Cesar Rabellino’s data shows on the accompanying page, and we had 22 single home sales for a net loss of 17 listings in just the last week, we are not likely to see inventory reach triple digits this year and maybe not in the first month of 2024. However, Greenwich has the reputation as being the home of smart money. If you are thinking of selling in 2024, January may actually be a good month to list a home (barring a couple of Nor’easters that keep listers home.)
MORE BAD NEWS: 2023 SALES DROP TO RECESSION LEVELS
In 2019, we only had 526 sales, the worst number of sales except for the recession years of 2008 and 2009. It looks like 2023 will hang in there and we are likely to barely beat 2019. We only need 9 more sales, which is likely to happen.
However, 2019 and 2023 are very different years. It’s hard to believe that 2019 was only 4 years ago. Back then Greenwich was having a tough time. People wanted to sell their large houses on several acres and move south. Not many folks wanted to move in and those did preferred new houses, something we never have a lot of. As a result, sales slumped, and inventory piled up.
Flash forward 4 years to 2023, hundreds more people want to move to Greenwich than we have inventory to sell to them. In 2023, over half our houses sold for full list price or over list price. People who wanted to sell their house, were waiting for something to come on the market so that they would have a place to buy. Four years ago, people weren’t listing their houses, because they didn’t like what the few buyers who were out there were offering to pay. Today, the buyers are usually paying full list over more.
THE GOOD NEWS: GREENWICH HIGH-END SALES DO VERY WELL IN 2023.
With a week left in 2023 we have sold 96 houses for over $5 million. This is just 3 houses short of the 99 houses that sold for over $5 million in 2022. . It’s going to be touch and go to see whether 2023 comes in better than 2022. With 14 contracts for houses listed over $5 million we should get to 99 sales and maybe even 100 or more sales. We could finish 2nd, 3rd or 4th best year in the last 24 years.
Number of Sales and Total Value
The two big years for over $5M were 2021, which broke just about every record in the book and 2007, the peak of the bubble years. In 2021, we had 135 sales for over $5 million and in 2007 we had 100 sales over $5 million.
We will clearly come in second in the total value of high-end houses sold. So far, the total value of high-end sales in 2023 is $868 million, which beats the 2007 sales volume of $786 million by $83 million. It also beats last year by $180 million.
For those that have been following the market, you’ll know that one sale pushed the total value of sales in 2023 ahead of 2007 and way ahead of 2022. That sale was 499 Indian Field Road which set a new all-time record for a house sale in Connecticut, breaking its own 2014 record. That waterfront property is 50 acres in a 2-acre zone. In 2014, it sold for $120.0 million and 9 years later it sold for $138.8 million. Cross your fingers, it is not subdivided.
2023 RECORDS
NB: These records are set out by school district which is a good way to separate the town into relatively compact neighborhoods. The records below are for each school district. Many school districts in “first” place have multiple other sales that exceed the “second” school district. For example, 17 of the 23 houses with the largest houses by square footage that sold this year are in backcountry, but who wants to see a whole list of those houses? (Some of my neighbors do, so if you want to see that list email me.)
I. Highest Sale – (by school districts with over $10 Million Sales)
1. Julian Curtiss – 499 Indian Field Rd – $138,830,000
2. Parkway – 18 Close Road – $30,000,000
3. Riverside – 18 Pilot Rock Lane – $14,650,000
4. North Street – 16 Deer Park Drive – $13,500,000
5. Glenville – 10 Rapids Lane – $10,495,000
6. Pending sales over $10 million – 3 contracts waiting to close at $15.9M, $15.0M and $10.5M
It was good to see Glenville school district come in as the 5th school district for highest sales. The other districts are waterfront, backcountry, Riverside, and mid-country, but we have some very nice houses throughout the town.
II. Lowest Sales Price (by school district with sales under $750,000)
1. New Lebanon – 134 Byram Rd – $500,000
2. Cos Cob – 66 Valley Rd – $547,000
3. Glenville – 11 Almira Dr – $565,000
4. North Mianus – 9 Maple St – $570,000
5. Hamilton Avenue – 22 Gerry St – $575,000
6. Dundee – 17 Maple Dr – $717,500
7. Parkway – 409 Riversville Rd – $750,000
As you might expect two of our lowest priced sales were in New Lebanon (Byram/Pemberwick) and Hamilton Ave (Chickahominy) our two most affordable neighborhoods. Surprisingly, two lowest priced sales were in Parkway and Dundee. Parkway has some non-confirming lots that easily pre-date zoning and 409 Riverville, North of the Post Road, is in a 4-acre zone, but the lot was only 0.22 acres. (Personally, I don’t think we should call these lot non-conforming, since regulations created decades and even centuries after they were created made them “non-conforming”. I think these lots should be called “historic”.)
A couple of things to note; no house in Greenwich has sold for $499,000 or less this year, not even a 1 bedroom, 1 bath house on 0.11 acres. We have a lot of people that would love to live here, but just can’t afford it. The other thing is that none of our lowest priced houses are in move-in condition, so these sales prices do not reflect the buyer’s total first year costs.
III. Biggest House (in each school district with a house over 10,000 s.f.)
1. Parkway – 28 Brynwood Ln – 16,800 sf
2. Glenville – 125 Pecksland Rd – 14532 sf
3. Julian Curtiss – 499 Indian Field Rd – 13,519 sf
4. North Street – 26 Beechcroft Rd – 11,254 sf
Everyone knows if you want a house with a lot of indoor space, Parkway district is the place to go. This year that was in the Parkway district, but south of Merritt Parkway. Glenville district had a beautiful house that been on and off the market since 2016. It finally sold for $7.75M after starting at $11.95M in 2016.
Mid-country had a sale of a 11,254 sf house in the North Street district, but this was 23rd largest sale in Greenwich, but it’s important to keep our readers from all neighborhoods interested and get people in mid-country to continue reading.)
IV. Smallest House (in each school district with a house over 10,000 s.f.)
1. North Mianus – 9 Maple St. – 739 sf
2. Dundee – 17 Maple Dr – 852 sf
3. Glenville – 15 Lucy St – 852 sf
4. New Lebanon – 134 Byram Rd – 890 sf
5. Cos Cob – 25 Circle Dr – 955 sf
6. Hamilton Ave – 42 Byram Terrace – 960 sf
What people think of as starter homes are getting bigger and bigger, but we still have homes under 1,000 s.f. that sold this year. OK, there were only 5 homes that sold this year, which were less than 1,000 s.f. Interestingly, 3 of those 5 homes are in Riverside, while none are in Old Greenwich. The smallest home you could buy in Old Greenwich was 20 square feet over 1,000 s.f.
V. Inventory
A. Lowest – 99 listings – 3rd week of December
B. Highest – 170 listings – 1st week of May
Every week this year since the second week of May we set a new record for lowest inventory of all time. If you look at the line of weekly inventory since May of this year, it never crosses the weekly inventory line for 2022 which was already a record low, only to have it broken this year.
VI. Days on Market
1. Old Greenwich – 20 Innis Lane – 1,702 DOM (4.7 years)
2. North Street – 80 Doubling Rd – 1,702 DOM
3. Parkway – 160 John St – 1,301 DOM
When you are in a tight market, one thing that happens is that houses that have been sitting for over a year find buyers. This year we had two houses sell that had been on the market for more than 4.7 years. Of course, in 2021, when there were even more active buyers, we had a house sell that had been on for 5.2 years. (I’ve always wondered what it’s like to keep a house ready to show year after year, waiting for that special buyer, that bonds with your house at the price you want.)
VII. Acres
1. Largest – 499 Indian Field Rd – 50.0 acres
2. Smallest – 3 Bolling Pl – .06 acres
Our smallest lot sale matched 2021’s smallest lot at 0.06 acres. In fact, at with a lot of 2,600 s.f the lot is smaller than our average size house’s interior. Then again, I’d take a house with some land over most NYC apartments. 🙂
VIII. OLP vs SP
A. Most over list – 3 Finney Knoll – 55% over list price
B. Most under list – 591 Riversville Rd – 62% below original list price
This year was very competitive with 52% of houses going for list or over list price. The record was not in Old Greenwich and not in June, traditionally our busiest month, but in the Cos Cob district and was listed in January at $725,000. It was a bank owned property that sold in March for $1,125,000. There is a local saying that you can’t ever price a house in Greenwich too low and this is the perfect illustration of that.
So, for next year it all depends on inventory.
Mark Pruner is a principal in the Greenwich Streets Team at Compass Connecticut. He can be reached at 203-817-2871 or mark.pruner@compass.com.
