House Sales Down in Land of Rich and Famous
SoCal MLS
Home sales in posh Greenwich, home to CEOs of major businesses and celebrities including Regis Philbin and Mel Gibson, dropped 77 percent in February compared with a year ago, according to a new report by Bloomberg.
It’s a telling sign of the times when houses along Connecticut’s gold coast can't sell.
Home sales in posh Greenwich, home to CEOs of major businesses and celebrities including Regis Philbin and Mel Gibson, dropped 77 percent in February compared with a year ago, according to a new report by Bloomberg.
In February 2008, 75 homes were sold. Last month, only 17 homes sold.
Brokers said sales of houses priced between $2 million and $3 million fell 80 percent. In fact, the median sales price declined 2 percent to $1.7 million.
Only one home priced above $5 million was sold in February compared with eight the year before, John Cooke, a broker for Prudential Connecticut who compiled sales data, told Bloomberg.
This all comes as Wall Street firms cut jobs and buyers pulled back from multi-million dollar purchases.
The median household income in Greenwich is $117,857, more than twice the national average, Bloomberg reports. The town of about 61,000 is referred to by some as a bedroom community for Wall Street. It’s about a one-hour drive away.
“Greenwich, despite its imputed affluence, is still a part of the world, and like every place else, it suffers from buyers and sellers not agreeing on the value of illiquid assets -- one of those being real estate,” Roger Pearson, a Greenwich real estate lawyer and former mayor of the town, told Bloomberg.
Posted Wednesday, Jul 29, 2009 - 9:46 AM EST
