Lazy Meadows Real Estate - A Catskills Real Estate Choice

A few years ago, I founded Lazy Meadows Real Estate.  Its purpose was to mostly allow me to list my homes on the multiple listing service of the hudson valley, gaining exposure to the real estate community without turning complete control of the listing over to someone else (a broker), an exercise that proved frustrating and expensive.

The real estate company also allowed me to save several thousand dollars on each land purchase I  made/make, which is not insignificant.  I buy a lot of land, so saving (or paying myself) 3% of $750k a year adds up.

Almost as a side thought, a few clients called us up and asked us to list their homes, which made sense since we have such knowledge of the homes and a direct line of marketing communication with a large targeted client niche - who we have been marketing to effectively since 2002.

Turns out, we are pretty good at marketing these resales.  For the first 10 years, very few traded, since families tended to hold onto them, and let's be honest, we moved at a much slower pace, thus just not that many out there.

Now however, with 200 homes built, they trade.  I wouldn't say they trade a lot, and when they do come on the market, they tend to move quickly, but a few are typically on the market, or at least 1 or two.

It's neat to circle back and help these families sell their homes.  Clearly no ones knows the homes better than me, and buyers like to buy direct, even on a resale.

So Lazy Meadows is just this sort of little annuity that produces a steady stream on income with very few expenses, since most of the administration is covered in our daily Catskill Farms work.

And finally, after many years, I partnered with an excellent new Agent, Caroline Akt.  And she's killing it, working hard, and taking it very seriously, thus having a good deal of success.

My friend Bryan bought a house from me in 2009, sold it, then built one himself (I mean himself, he did a lot of the work himself), and when he wanted to sell it, he gave me the opportunity.  We put a deal together quick and the deal closed last week.

My good friend Matthew built a house with us 6+ years ago, and when his family's priorities pivoted away from weekend jaunts to the country, he enlisted us to help sell it.  Lickety Split, within a week or two, we produced a buyer.  Turns out that buyer was kicking the tires of a new build Catskill Farms, but was excited to be able to turnkey move in, furniture and all, and get livin'.

The question at the beginning was always would the interests of Catskill Farms sales conflict with the interests of the buyers of resales.  I never thought it would - 1, not enough CF resales around, and 2, people who want to build, do so to scratch an itch of design you don't get with a resale.

So, it has worked out all around.