Happy New Year 2026
Damn, the new year is starting out with an unexpected BANG. Not only did we book a fair amount of business in the last quarter of 2025 which we will start and finish in 2026, the last week of 2025 heading into 2026 also brought 2 or 3 new deals on homes we have under construction which will pre-emptively juice 2026. So with the deals booked, and now the new deals moving forward, 2 things are true - 1, the entire year of 2026 becomes viewable and plannable as each peg of certainty becomes fodder for strategic planning, and 2, we have the team in place to take care of business. I have yet to accidently write '2025'.
Another thing that is true that all the hard work we did on the driveway, clearing and foundation end of things is not for naught, but is much diminished because the weather, the weather the weather. Wowza. Couple that with the holidays and December instead of gangbusters was more like a nothing-burger. We still got a lot done, but it wasn’t new stuff, out of the ground stuff. That presents challenges because everything gets crammed together. The trick will be to use breaks in the weather to make the progress we can so we don’t get everything waiting till spring creating real bottlenecks.
One thing that is always true, if it’s bad and challenging for us, it’s bad and challenging for others, and since we are better than most, more vetted than most, it’s a competitive advantage. Although tempering that competitive advantage is we typically have a lot more going on than most.
Our house on 30 acres in Kerhonkson is moving along very nicely, with the exterior tied up tight and the interiors cranking along. This house should be ready for sale to coincide with the Catskill’s spring. Will be interesting to see the price we settle on since it is one of a kind in terms of house size, location, land parcel size, views. Really has everything. I remember last year at this time I had two great houses for sale, and was nervous and sold them quickly for lower than I expected prices just because I incorrectly thought the market would slow. I’m going to try and not do that this time around, and that’s the beauty of paragraph #1, when you start to get some certainty, then you don’t need to be in a rush to off load spec homes. I'm having a lot of fun designing the below -
Interior of a lake house we are building -
As you recall I bought a lot of land in the Fall of 2025 - 7 pieces if I remember correctly, which cost me $600k+ when they would have historically cost $350k. So, the next turn of the speculative wheel has begun, and we should have the results by fall of 2026.
It’s amazing what you can do in this business when you have time and money and expertise and experience.
Some St Pete's building paints and murals.
Currently, it appears we are going to have 4 or 5 pay as you go clients with our ‘your land our homes’ model - meaning they leverage and tweak an original home we have and they own the underlying home, meaning all the improvements they own, and they pay us in a traditional fashion as we make progress. This flip to this type of cash-flow friendly process doesn’t come with a lot of downsides for us.
What it also does is allow me to build out my spec homes (homes without pre-arranged buyers) with less stress, since we have a nice split of booked business and spec business. So it looks like we might build 10 homes this year, which frankly is a lot.
I spent some time in St Petes over Christmas, actually flew down there the day of Christmas. Lovely place and started to get the vibe down there, and I like it. Nice weather, well, is just nice. And perhaps because we just got smothered with an early and full month of mehhhh weather, it might have seemed even more relatively nice than typical. Pickleball, hiking, biking, swimming, working out. It’s not a bad scene or the worst way to whittle away the day.
AI, ChatGPT - Wow, amazing stuff.
I'm a Court Appointed Special Advocate for kids caught up in family court and I've been watching over these three since we plucked them out of dire circumstances 3 years ago - they seem to be thriving.
But, unfortunately, what their new mom will find out is that no matter how challenging the young years are, the older years are a lot more complex. A lot more.
Washington Post writes about Happier Lives in Smaller Homes.
and