Week 136: In No Rush
The email said time was of the essence. Then it proposed six months from listing to a signed contract. Time was of the essence, apparently, but so were the art and the antiques, and whether the house showed better with or without them.Earlier that week, he asked the question that matters when speed is part […]
Week 135: Maslow’s Hierarchy of New Canaan Needs (and where our new ordinance fits)
Abraham Maslow was an American psychologist who, in 1943, proposed a theory of human motivation that became known as the hierarchy of needs. The familiar version starts with basic physiological needs, then safety, belonging, esteem and, finally, self-actualization — the point at which we can concern ourselves with becoming the best version of ourselves. […]
Week 134: Too Few Houses, Too Few Buyers
For more than a decade, the housing argument has been simple. America did not build enough homes. Millennials formed households faster than builders supplied them. Inventory fell, prices rose and the solution appeared obvious: build more.A new white paper from the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) asks whether that explanation is approaching its expiration date.The authors […]
Week 133: Second Quarter Market Report for Fairfield County and I Answer the Question ‘Why?’
Douglas Elliman’s second-quarter report gives us a clean midyear reading of the Fairfield County market, using SmartMLS data and Greenwich MLS data where it is more accurate. It records 1,677 single-family sales, 618 condo sales, and striking differences in price, speed, and volume across the county.The numbers tell us what happened. The useful question is, WHY? Why […]
Week 132: What Is a Meadow Worth?
The New Canaan Beautification League is coming Thursday to look at my meadow. That timing is useful because it forces me to explain what they are coming to see.It is not a finished meadow. It is not even yet a conventionally beautiful meadow. It is Year One of what I expect to be a […]
Week 131: The House Sold, The Furniture Didn’t
George Carlin had a famous routine about stuff. A house, he said, is just a place to keep it. You leave the house to get more stuff. Then you need a bigger house. Then some of the stuff goes into storage, which means there is an entire industry built around watching your stuff when […]
Week 130:The Paradox of the Empty Market Fierce competition should result in rising prices in Riverside and Cos Cob John Engel’s Real Estate Column for the New Canaan Sentinel
Fairfield County’s most expensive markets are not all moving in the same direction. Some are producing aggressive price appreciation with buyers paying well over ask. Others have almost no inventory and still cannot generate meaningful price gains. The difference matters because scarcity alone does not make a market hot. It just means fewer homes are […]
Week 129: Darien’s New Villages: Who Are They For? John Engel’s Real Estate Column for the New Canaan Sentinel
Darien is one of the smallest towns on Connecticut’s Gold Coast: about 13 square miles, roughly 21,500 residents, two Metro-North stations, and some of the highest single-family home prices in Connecticut. Over the last decade, the town has been building a different kind of housing market, concentrated in apartments, mixed-use villages, and train-served redevelopment.The acceleration […]
Week 128: The May Divergence. John Engel’s Real Estate Column for the New Canaan Sentinel
We looked at the May market reports for 12 towns. Low inventory is not the same as a hot market. A town can have two months of supply and still have sellers cutting prices, homes sitting, and buyers walking. May showed exactly that split across Fairfield County. The Hotness Index scores each market on four components against absolute […]
Week 127: Stamford’s Rental Boom and the Condo Consequence. John Engel’s Real Estate Column for the New Canaan Sentinel
My grandfather grew up on Franklin Street in Stamford. His father published the Stamford Advocate. My grandfather taught in the Stamford public schools. That block is now part of the UConn Stamford expansion.My parents left for New York. They came back when it was time to raise children, bought a single-family house, and suffered through […]
