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

The final weekend of the summer. Most of the Catskill Farms homeowners up for the weekend, stretching out and cooling it for an extra day this weekend. Barbeques, wood splitting, a little gardening and landscaping. My weekends start out at 5 or so on Friday, leaving work a little early. I was a NY Times guy for over 15 years, but about a 1/2 yr ago I began augmenting it with the the WSJ weekend edition - both, at least for the moment, are a lot of fun and a great compliment to the weekend, filling in those hours between golf, work, strategizing, and the inevitable honey do list. Lisa usually makes a good weekend dinner, even in these late months of pregnancy and serves it up hot to me, the breadwinner and man of the house. Lisa and I prefer and are more comfortable in the traditional roles of man and woman - me earning and bringing home the bacon, and she barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen. Just got some bad news - Lady Storm, the dog we adopted when her old owner passed along, has cancer and is slowly fading out on us. I mean, we knew this was going to be the drill since she was an old dog with bad legs and sordidly bad breath. But she's been good to us - low maintenence, fun to be with, awfully touchy about the cats playing with her tale - little ruby and big storm - reminds Lisa and me of the show Rob and Big. I'll post some pics of the two of them shortly. It'll be sad, but jeez leweez, I can't think of a better way to go out then being pampered by Lisa for the last 9 months of your life - much better than what was going to be her fate - slowly starving as neighbors forgot to feed her, or sent to the pound to fend for herself. Old Storm - a real good dog. It's been a great month of weather of here. Since the beginning of August nighttime temps around 45 and daytimes never exceeding a sunny 80. This is prime time Catskills - beautiful weather, no traffic, no noise - just the family, the house, the pets and a little well earned respite from all the overachieving I'm sure most 2nd homeowners do most days of their lives. Cheers - happy Labor Day and hasta luego Summertime.

Rob calls me up and says 'take your lady out'. I'd agree - 3 closings in 3 weeks - not like I often have the opporunity to quote ZZ Top but - "Top coat, top hat, I don't worry coz my wallet's fat. Black shades, white gloves, lookin' sharp and lookin' for love. They come runnin' just as fast as they can coz every girl grazy 'bout a sharp dressed man."

Cottage 8, our 2nd mini-house, has left home, and is striking out on its own with its new owners, Rob and Leah. Da Facts - 850 Sq ft above grade - 500 sq ft below grade - 3+ acres Started in April Finished in August No sweat, but a lot of glory. http://www.thecatskillfarms.com/location/product/33

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boom, boom, boom, boom - another one bites the dust. Cottage 7 facts - -Sold from blueprints in January -Started in April -Finished in August -1300 sq ft, 2 bedrooms, 1 1/2 baths Cottage 1 sold in June of '07, and since then the idea has blossomed into a great business. I remember when I started tinkering with the idea - and the conventional wisdom mantra was 'no one will ever buy a small 2 bedroom home." I guess there is something to be said about 'doing it my way." Anyway, Emily - who is spearheading our new and improved approach to marketing - is something of a photographer as well - and snapped a few finish photos of the house, on the day of closing. This house is tight - ain't no one who sells houses as completely finished, as clean, with grass growing - as Catskill Farms - as I said before 'you can't touch this'. Here's a link to the finished home - http://www.thecatskillfarms.com/location/product/38

4379 contracts signed over the last 5 years. $15m of money changing hands. 2469 lawsuit free days. I feel like Cal Ripken, keeping the streak alive. It takes a special customer not to be able to reach a compromise with Catskill Farms - because we know how to take a lot of abuse before pushing back. Today, we close on Cottage 7, and for all you 9 to 5'ers, that means we get a paycheck today. Depending on how many houses I sell in a year, that's how many times I get paid. So once every couple of months I get some money, and that's always a good thing. And then next week we close on Cottage 8, an 820 sq ft lofty cottage with a built out basement. This house is getting rave reviews, I mean really, people are flipping out over it - I think because of it's very intelligent use of space. We started framing Gayle 1100 sq ft 2 bedroom 2 bath house, started framing Dean's 1300 sq ft 2 bedroom 2 bath house, and we are backfilling Albert's house, and getting ready to pour the concrete slab for his barn. This weekend my old baseball coach is coming up to check us out. He runs one of the largest and oldest design/develop/build companies in southern PA, and he is duly impressed enough to come up and check us out. Maybe with an eye on helping us expand in to Woodstock, Rhineback, New Paltz, Stone Ridge and Marbletown. I played baseball for the longest time, from the ages 7-20, and we had a kick ass team that year after year took home the gold. And I wouldn't be surprised if those sports lesson don't continually help us compete hard and gracefully. A woman spear-heading our marketing just came, very concerned about the previous blog post and the harm she perceived it will do to her efforts. I told her 1, I don't accept excuses so work around it. Anyway, the emails have been coming in 4 to 1 congratulating me for standing my ground. I think people who have accomplished anything understand tough decisions. And if they don't, I can always go back to waiting tables or mowing lawns. It's amazing and discouraging we can exceed all expectations, finish projects on time, on budget with the highest quality, and still find we are unable to meet expectations. Really, the only answer is to sometimes let customers who want to be unreasonable deal with the local talent pool if only so I can add some perspective to how easy I've made it for them. http://catskillfarms.blogspot.com/2009/05/hugh-gran-farmhouse-9-followup.html