Day in the life...

Thursday - Saturday morning in Orlando to watch my son’s JV football game.  Their team organizes a trip down there every 2 years or so for a fun week of fun and football.  Then to Raleigh NC to visit my nephew then back home on Sunday to prep for the week ahead. My pickleball skillset has accelarated.

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My prep for the week includes continuing to complete a pre-closing checklist for the sale of $2m worth of Olivebridge, Ulster County NY real estate, homes 6 and 7 in our 9 home project.  The other two homes, and another 2 in Sullivan County are being built and completed on ‘spec’, without a buyer lined up or in this case, even without a buyer sought until the homes are complete.  It’s a boss move, keeping them secret, since it takes significant financial wherewithal, which we got.

I know of at least two ‘competitors’, or copy cats, or ‘imitation is the highest form of flattery’ projects, and I’m sure there are more, that are flaming out with lackluster or actually zero sales - one in Callicoon, and the other in Stone Ridge.  The Stone Ridge property I came very close to buying and it would have been a great project and checked a lot of my boxes - already subdivided, in a good town, good screening between houses - but some of the engineering hidden in the footnotes and small print were just too much of a variable for my tastes so I passed, but was non-plussed and had a serious FOMA case when this other group bought it.

But by not buying it, I was available for the next opportunity in Olivebridge, and that one worked out well for me.  As a business person, risk-taker, business owner, speculator - what you don’t do is as important as what you do do.  You quickly forget about the ones you pass on, but something can tickle the chords of recollection and you can remember that what you don’t pursue - be a piece of land, a deal, a person, a problem - is critical to long term survival.

I remember when I started Ashokan Acres, an article was being written about it and made it seem like a sure thing - I assured the writer it was anything but, and listed the failed or struggling projects I knew about, but if you’re not in the game, you don’t realize the struggle.  And since we have such a track record of getting it done and monetizing our efforts I guess it’s sort of assumed we will achieve the goals of the project - which I guess in a way is a bit of a sure bet at this point in my speculating career - but still - hat would be dangerous, since few people make it through a career in speculating without going bust - like the old adage that ‘there are only 2 types of motorcycle riders - those that have laid their bike down and skinned their legs up, and those that will.”  2 types of real estate speculators - those that have gone bust and those that will.

We got two million dollars of real estate closing in the next 2 weeks, and 4 homes being built buyer-less that will be for sale next year. Shifting gears, evaluating the Catskills housing landscape, filtering the information and delivering a prognosis like Ai wishes it could - 

Starting to sort out what 2025 will look like. What it won't look like is moving as fast as I can, building as much as our capacity will allow.