$1.295 million for a majestic 4br/3ba
The other day I saw this interesting article - it was a list of places where the median income topped $500,000. One of those places was this:
Big incomes, bigger houses | 3 | CNNMoney.com
Greenwich, Connecticut
Price: $1.295 million
Beds: 4
Baths: 3Description: The granite-strewn, wooded hillsides of southwestern Connecticut provide the proper setting for many of the enchanting stone houses found there. This modified Cape Cod evokes memories of the English countryside with its gray stone walls and pale blue shutters.
The 75-year-old house was renovated in 2003. The living room has a fireplace, and French doors from the formal dining room open up to the garden.
The adjusted gross income for Greenwich was a heady $567,560 in 2004, a figure that undoubtedly has spiked upward since. The town is a magnet for Wall Street investment bankers and New England hedge fund operators.
Now isn’t that incredibly absurd? Income is $567,560 yet a place like that goes for just $1.295 million? It’s a clear reflection of how awfully boring and in the middle of nowhere and unspecial and making more land that Greenwich, Connecticut must be.
Let’s take a look this week at what $1.295 million (or so) gets you in the Bay Area. And remember, income means nothing. Debt is income baby!
Let’s party like it’s 2005!
January 28th, 2008 at 6:15 am
That’s because in Greenwich they don’t have Price-Never-Drops Insurance included for free like they do in the Bay Area. Don’t you know anything?
January 28th, 2008 at 8:08 am
Also, Greenwich is on the East Coast, which means that Chinese executives would have to fly another six hours to visit their investment property.
January 28th, 2008 at 9:45 am
What a bunch of pikers. Out in the BA, people manage to overspend that much and the median income is 1/10th that much. Don’t they know Real Estate Always Goes Up(tm)?
January 28th, 2008 at 11:54 am
Notice that actual rich people who know about money and have skin in the game won’t pay more than 2.5 times income for shelter. They understand the difference between one’s primary residence (a liability) and actual income earning investments. Back when the US had a real middle class, middle class people also understood this.
January 28th, 2008 at 2:07 pm
2.5 times eh? And I’ve said, a house in the BA should cost 3X income so with an income of $50k, that means $150k.
I can understand the actual rich wanting to keep it below 2.5X though because it makes sense, and because at their income it will still buy a decent place.
The old middle class in the US had been through the Depression, and knew two things: Don’t stay in debt, and Don’t trust banks. So they’d try to keep their “note” as small as they could get away with, then do their best to pay it down, and this generally while saving a good 10% or so for savings, for the next Crash, you know.
Too bad, the next Crash has arrived, but it’s arrived too late, these people are retired or in nursing homes, and this one’s going to blindside us just as the last one blindsided the “Lost Generation” of the 1920s.
January 29th, 2008 at 5:19 am
[...] Monday, we showed you what a $1.295 million dollar house looks like in Greenwich, CT where the income regularly tops $500k. Let’s look a house in that [...]
January 29th, 2008 at 5:27 pm
Check out house #10.
Zip: 94957
Ross, California
Price: $3.295 million
Beds: 4
Baths: 3.5
Ross is definitely in the Real Bay Area! Beverly Hills is too (#8).
January 31st, 2008 at 5:39 am
[...] Monday, we showed you what a $1.295 million dollar house looks like in Greenwich, CT where the income regularly tops $500k. Let’s look a house in that [...]
February 1st, 2008 at 5:59 am
[...] Monday, we showed you what a $1.295 million dollar house looks like in Greenwich, CT where the income regularly tops $500k. Let’s look a house in that [...]
February 6th, 2008 at 11:12 am
You picked the most unrepresentative house that Greenwich has to offer for those dollars. Its in a lousy neighborhood, the property is falling down.
Median house prices in Greenwich this year approach $2.67 million, with most new houses coming on line in excess of 15,000 SF
February 6th, 2008 at 11:31 am
But the fact that you can even buy a house that looks like that, with that much property, is amazing. You can’t get stuff like that in the Bay Area, in gun/stabbing riddled neighborhoods.