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SERVING THE COMMUNITY SINCE 1877
By Lisa Chamoff
Staff Writer
A couple of years ago,
Jose Cortes and his, wife
Maria Ayala, started to
consider moving from
their Scarsdale, N.Y.,
home, where they had
lived since the mid-1990s.
Their two children were
away at school, and the
couple was looking to es-
cape New York state’s
high taxes.
But discouraged by es-
calatingprices,Cortesand
Ayala’s search ended be-
foreitevenreallybegan.
Now, with the real estate market
leveling off, the couple recently
started a house hunt in Green-
wich, where many of their
friends live.
Sales of homes be-
tween $1.5 million and $2
million, where Cortes
and Ayala’s price range
falls, were down nearly
60 percent in the first
seven months of 2009, and
they have decided now
is a good time to buy.
“Back then, every-
thing was so expensive
that it didn’t make
sense for us to move,”
Cortes said. “Right now,
Prudential Connecticut Realty agent Julianne Ward answers questions about a house on Nimitz Place for client Jose Cortes, who, along with his
wife, is looking at homes to buy in Greenwich.
Helen Neafsey/Staff photographer
STAFF GRAPHIC
Stanwich Road
Bible Street
Cat Rock
Road
Clover Place
Fairway
Lane
Rustic View
Road Valley
Road
Cognewaugh
Road
Sheephill
Road
River
Road
Summit Ridge
Road
Palmer
Hill
Road
North
Ridge
Road7 MONTGOMERY LANE
Central Greenwich
$1.79 million
3,000 square feet
41 HILLCREST
PARK ROAD
Old Greenwich
$1.7 million
3,152 square feet
4 NIMITZ PLACE
Havemeyer Park, Old Greenwich
$1.77 million
3,400 square feet
House shopping in Greenwich
Jose Cortes and his wife are looking to buy a home in Greenwich.
On a recent rainy day, Cortes, sans his wife, and Prudential Connecticut
Realty agent Julianne Ward scouted a few homes around town to see
if any fit the bill. Here’s a look at the house stops on their hunt:
Advice..............................................PULSE
Area News..............................................A3
BUSINESS...................................... C1-6
CLASSIFIED.................................D1-10
Comics.............................................PULSE
Crossword........................................PULSE
Lottery....................................................B5
Editorial Page.......................................A10
Movie Listings..................................PULSE
Nation & World......................................A12
Obituaries...............................................A8
SPORTS.........................................B1-8
Television.........................................PULSE
Weather..................................................B8
Copyright 2009, Southern Connecticut NEWSPAPERS INC.
VOL. LXXII NO. 264, 5 SECTIONS
partly cloudy
HIGH
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LOW
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Index Weather
In the market: An insider’s look at a Greenwich home search
The
series
TODAY: Buyer
SEPT. 13: Agent
SEPT. 20: Seller
On the
hunt
Real estate is a numbers-heavy game. The market is up or
down this percentage, the average home price is that
amount, one house has this number of bedrooms, another
has this many square feet. But at its core, real estate is
about people, what they need, what they want and how
they live. So Greenwich Time looked beyond the data to
find out how local lives are being affected by the real
estate market. We checked with people in the three
major areas of the market — buyers, agents and sellers.
Each group has different perspectives and unique goals.
But they all have at least one thing in common. They’re...
part 1 of a three-part series
buyers sellersagents
Town
paid for
Himes’
forum
By Neil Vigdor
Staff Writer
Greenwich, Norwalk and Bridge-
port employed the equivalent of a
small militia — police officers on
horses, a blue wall of bouncers check-
ing names at the door and detectives
embedded among demonstrators —
to keep the peace this past week dur-
ing a trio of highly volatile health
care forums convened by U.S. Rep.
Jim Himes, D-4.
Now the bills for that blanket of
protection for the freshman congress-
man, who was roundly booed and
heckled at times for his support of a
government-run medical insurance
program, are starting to arrive at the
door of taxpayers.
Although the town hall meetings
were organized by Himes’ office, the
municipalities themselves will be re-
sponsible for shouldering the costs of
staging the events, from police over-
time to the salaries of building custodi-
ans who worked at each venue.
“I think democracy is not free in
multiple dimensions,” Himes said. “In-
dividual congressional offices don’t
have the budgets to (reimburse for)
that. It’s just a practical impossibility.”
A promise
to always
remember
By Frank Juliano
STAFF WRITER
Eight years after the terrorist at-
tacks, the area’s 9/11 memorials are a
source of comfort for residents, a place
to reflect and pray, and tangible evi-
dence of the promise not to forget
those who died that day.
“I see people who work at the court-
house sitting there, eating their lunch,’’
Joseph Della Monica Jr. said of Mil-
ford’s black granite memorial. “The se-
niors who live across the street have
told me that they appreciate having it
there, and the mayor now includes it in
his City Hall tour. It gives the kids a
perspective on history.’’
The twisted, charred hunk of metal
that came from the World Trade Center
in New York City always elicits a reac-
tion from people seeing the memorial
Municipal governments
shoulder the cost of
health care meetings
See TOWN on A6
See ON on A6
9/11 memorials are
touchstone of hope
for victims’ families
See 9/11 MEMORIALS on A6