Catskills - Sullivan County - Ulster County Real Estate -- Catskill Farms Journal

For those of you not from or familiar with Sullivan County, you may not be aware of how that county was put on the front lines of the debate over hydraulic fracturing.  How every town board meeting, editorial page and newpaper issue was dominated by the issue and its specifics for years.  It was really like living history (and to a history buff, it was kind of cool).  And you want to talk about aggravated harassment, -jesus, follow the creation, evolution and tactics of the anti-fracking movement - the whole idea was to harass public officials into submission and intimidate anyone else out of the discussion.

But I digress.

So, I'm on the beach, Miami Beach to be exact, and I open up the Sunday Business section to page 7, and the Header screams out "The Birth of an Energy Boom", and it goes on to say -

"One could argue that, except for the Internet, the most important technological advance of the last decades has been hydraulic fracturing, widely known as fracking.  Practically overnight, it seems, this drilling technique has produced so much oil and gas beneath American soil that we are that the brink of something once thought unattainable: true energy independence."

Considering the Times for years led the bandwagon of hysterical extremism against this domestic energy harvesting, it's been fascinating to watch its business pages evolve into subtle and not so subtle support for domestic gas exploration.

For me, as someone who from day one was suspect of the carpetbaggers landing in our small towns with tales of horror and catastrophe, the evolution of this grey lady's reporting has been welcome indeed.

And the fact that the whole country has adopted some measure of fracking and gas harvesting except New York says all one needs to say about this economically downtrodden, population-losing, politically paralyzed state.

At least France agrees with New York. (low blow I know).

(my writing desk)

So, as you may have noticed over the years, the blog for me is not only a tool to communicate and market, but it's also a tool to figure stuff out when it goes off track - since it is public and as I work my way through my rationale and reasoning I'm forced to discard easy self-rationalization and easy one-sided conclusions, since lord knows my comment box and email would blow up with alternate points of view to consider.  The truth takes time, and takes effort.  And writing is an introspective process.

And since probably the most important attribute a business person can have is the ability to 'get to the bottom' of an issue, quickly, concisely, and accurately - misdiagnosis is perilous,-  and in the difference between accurate situational analysis and inaccurate analysis lies the difference between success and failure - With resources always scarce, drone-like accuracy in problem solving is paramount.

Anyways. not the point of my post - my point is to add to what I said a few days back about protecting our clients from the war that is buying land, designing/building homes etc...  I think I may have said what I wanted to say in vague and literally language when really it couldn't be more simple -

Our business model revolves around 1 thing - protecting our clients from the retarded, self-defeating, nose-off-your-face spiteing, counterproductive, moronic, for no-good-reason, asinine, disloyal, alien-like actions of a fair amount of people we deal with in order to get these homes built in - for the most part- economically-distressed areas.  For the most part, we surround ourselves with the A team, but that does not in any way lessen the focus of our antenna on identifying and outmaneuvering the next desperate act of of self-defeating, project-distraction.

Basically, we've seen it so much that while some times it has the ability to still shock (like the recent Jeff Meola treachery), most times we are seeing it come long before the person actually even has the angry logic fully formulated in their heads.

So I guess that's my point - we communicate well with our clients, - be it the good, the bad or the ugly. So whether it's a good, bad, or frustrating conversation - at least there is comfort to be had knowing that we are jousting with the same language, in the same universe.

That is not true as we filter the project plans down through the ranks.  And being introduced to that new universe is a lot easier to deal with when you are ordering firewood than when you are spending $300k on a new house.

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3:13am Friday.

Well, if any of you know the Josh Rouse song Moving On, you could hum it now.

Although it's been fun (not really actually), I know a lot of our clients read this damn blog and that's why it's pretty strategic in what I cover - though it may seem like I'm shooting wildly from the hip, that would belie the fact this blog medium has served as my one-two punch of Catskill Farms' envied marketing effort, the other being the website.  This blog was started almost exactly 5 years ago, with nearly 700 posts, I believe.  It has consistently covered the good the bad and the not so good and the really good.  So obviously, it's content and subject matter is thought out to a degree.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that its time to refocus on the art of building homes and leave my legal drama behind because the last thing I want is for the 7 homes we are currently building (and their respective future homeowners) to be overshadowed by my drama, since this is about them, not about me.  I just happen to be one the players, as well as the writer of this blog, so I have some editorial sway.

And that gets to my point (at least one of them) - this company was started in 2003 because I saw an opportunity - clear and simple - to provide a better, easier, less stressful process and product for families, partners and individuals wanting to move upstate, or buy a home up here.  Before Catskill Farms, the high expectations and high demands that our clients used to achieve the success in their lives had to be discarded, put aside, dumbed down in order to do something upstate.  After Catskill Farms, those attributes that attributed to their success could be used with us to collaborate on something great.  No more torture, no more life-changing lessons in upstate casualness that really doesn't seem that cute when you have a couple of hundred grand on the line.

Our business model was about maximizing the upside, and minimizing the downside, -for our clients. And by minimizing the downside, I mean having us here at Catskill Farms fight all the battles with the subcontractors, the vendors, the realtors - we pitch the battle, we filter the pain.  And the whole idea was to provide a good experience.  It was that simple - we wanted to provide a good experience.  Granted, it took several years before our business goal and our real life efforts married up, but it happened, and now it's commonplace.

People always wonder why Catskill Farms succeeds so wildly, when it's owner is commonly often described as an ass.  To my business mind, it's because we are focused on the client, to a degree that is actually unfathomable to most of our competitors - I don't mean focused in a lovey dovey huggy type of way (although when it is that way its always nice) - I mean focused in a 'we are going to get you in this awesome home as fast a humanly possible and nothing is going to get in our way and we are going to live up to our word precisely".

The sustained seriousness of our approach is uncommon.  And people pay good money to be part of it. And we respect that respect.

All for now.  Off to Miami Beach.

(this caterpillars long row to hoe here at the Ashokan Reservoir reminded me of my business journey - what a long way we've come.)

Beaches.  Babes.  Sunsets.  Palm Trees.  Sun tans.  Niceness.  Bicycles.  Basketball.  Late Evening Tennis.  Air conditioning.  Ocean.  Bay.  Ocean Drive.  Italian pub.  15th floor.  Sunshine. Beaches.  Babes.  Sunsets.  Palm Trees.  Sun tans.  Niceness.  Bicycles.  Basketball.  Late Evening Tennis.  Air conditioning.  Ocean.  Bay.  Ocean Drive.  Italian pub.  15th floor.  Sunshine. Beaches.  Babes.  Sunsets.  Palm Trees.  Sun tans.  Niceness.  Bicycles.  Basketball.  Late Evening Tennis.  Air conditioning.  Ocean.  Bay.  Ocean Drive.  Italian pub.  15th floor.  Sunshine.