Bruins’ Boss On The Move
The Boston Bruins’ general manager Peter Chiarelli is leaving town.
No, he’s not quitting the team, and he hasn’t been fired. He just signed a multi-year contract extension in June, but due to team policy, the terms of that deal weren’t disclosed.
Whatever those terms may have been, they were enough to allow Chiarelli and his family to pick up and sell their house in Sudbury so they could move into some new digs down the road in Lexington.
Chiarelli sold his home at 57 Cutler Farm Road in Sudbury for $997,850 on July 7. Chiarelli and his wife, Alicia, bought the eight-room, 5,665-square-foot house in August 2006 for $1,110,000.
A day after selling his Sudbury home the GM, who has been with the Bruins since 2006, bought a 13-room, 8,138-square-foot mansion in a new development, at 3 Martingale Road in Lexington. The price tag: $1,500,000.
Things are looking up for the Chiarelli family, it seems, and likely for the Lexington Minuteman hockey program as well – Chiarelli has two school-aged children, and Lexington’s school system is one of the best in the state.
Chiarelli is no dummy: he graduated from Harvard in 1987 with a degree in economics, while playing four years on the varsity hockey squad (he was team captain in his senior year).
So now with the home front taken care of, he can put that Harvard degree to work and figure out how to squeeze free agent center Phil Kessel under the salary cap.
We Admit Nothing, But Please Take Our Money
It’s not news that education is big business in this country. Given the spotlight illuminating American business in the last year (ahem, Mr. Madoff), The Teller supposes we shouldn’t be surprised by the news that some schools conduct theirs in some very shady ways.
Well, according to Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley, Boston’s own Emerson College is definitely one on the naughty list.
Apparently the local liberal arts college steered students toward lenders with less than favorable terms, and in return staffers received some pretty sweet kickbacks.
Between 2004 and 2007, the school and its "preferred" lender pals, Citizens Bank and Chase, scammed students out of hundreds of thousands of dollars. In return, the student loan staff received free vacations, meals and event tickets.
Now, students who received loans through the school are eligible for paybacks up to $833, with the school giving out $780,000 in reparations. This hits close to home for the Teller: one of our editors will receive more than $500 for being steered wrong (yes, our editors shockingly have college educations, although it is difficult to tell).
Of course, Emerson College admits no wrongdoing in the agreement, according to Andy Tiedemann, the school’s spokesperson. Why should it? We’re sure they’re just giving out this money out of the goodness of their hearts. In fact, that was the school’s plan all along: stockpile money without the students’ knowledge, and then pay it out at a future date. Think of it as Emerson’s own little stimulus check. We all remember how well that worked under President George W. Bush, right?
Maybe This Auction Thing Ain’t So Bad
Earlier this month Flynn / Boston Realty Advisors auctioned off a beachfront home in Oak Bluffs on Martha’s Vineyard for $3.9 million.
The property, which sits on 2.5 acres at 24 Temahigan Ave. in Oak Bluffs, has a private beach, 100-foot dock, a spa, two fireplaces – basically the whole nine yards.
So what’s the big deal? When it was auctioned off, it sold at more than $1 million more than the appraised value, which was $2.78 million! Aren’t most homes sold at auction usually sold for less than their value? Aren’t auctions supposed to be good deals?
"Once again, it illustrates the recent trend of high-end luxury vacation homes becoming more susceptible to foreclosure," said Dan Flynn, chief auctioneer and principal of Flynn / Boston Realty Advisors. "We’re selling real estate in a climate where properties otherwise might not sell."
Well, OK then. The Teller thinks maybe everything should be sold at auction. Or maybe the Teller thinks we should take Flynn’s advice on selling real estate with a few grains of salt, despite the recent success. He is, after all, selling something.
