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

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

Lucas Richard Petersheim - that's the name of our baby boy to be born in just a few short weeks. Lisa's mom came up with her boating boyfriend Frank and did the mother/daughter trip to 'babies r us', and came home with a seat contraption, a 'diaper genie', and changing pad and a bunch of other unfamiliar items, that I suppose shortly will be very familiar. I'm not a big 'poop' fan, - don't like cleaning up after my dog or cat, but I guess that will change shortly also. Last week our friend Amy threw a party for us. Here is Kai, Darryl and Cheri's boy, holding court with James K and Zach, giving us some paper airplane pointers.

Cupcakes.

Me in the garden with the new generation.

The moon, after a few drinks.

Elilah, daughter of Joe and Viv, who own Global Home in Jeffersonville. This kid won 'cutest kid' awarded by Cookie Magazine.

Me, on the badminton court, striking a pose.

Zach, just about ready to get smashed upon, with the croquet set in the fore.

Lisa digging in, eating for 2, Vivian in white, Toby in jeans,

Cheri and Kai.

The boys (wow, talk about man boobs!)

Amy and her friend Lisa and Amy's chicken.

A birdhouse.

Amy's house. This 100 yr old farmhouse was the inspiration for Farmhouse 8,9 and 10.

Me, double-fisting after the badminton game.

Pregnant Lisa with Hanna and her mother. Hanna is one of her students at the Homestead School, a local montsori school.

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