Ranch 60 Sold
A new Ranch just Sold on Friday. Ranch 60
Neat 2000 sq ft Ranch, with views, woods, pasture, and a little stream. The land up at the Crest in North Branch is like the gift that keeps giving - it's a truly unique piece of land with some out of this world attributes in the view and land experience column. Of course, the 200 acres could really be screwed up with some poor house location planning, since while the openness creates lots of opportunities, it also creates real challenges and risks of one house impacting another negatively.
These 2000 sq ft ranches pack a lot of punch, and feel comfy and cozy and cabiny-like. The Buyers came from Erik Freeland of Countryhouse Realty. The buyers signed up around half way through construction which means they had a good idea of what the house would look and feel like when finished. Lots of our buyers join us when the house isn't started, which takes a fair leap of faith.
Excited about economic turmoil and volatility, hoping it bring some opportunities not yet defined or understood. I'm already starting to feel like the buyers of Catskills real estate are starting to flee to value and safety, and that always benefits us with our long track record of providing real value to our clients.
The corner turns on the market
While I'm not sure what it means for us as a company, it's clear the upstate market has changed/evolved over the last 90 days. I'm seeing "New Price", "Drastic reduction" and similar verbiage all over the MLS. For us, we aren't seeing it quite yet, with a house a month going into contract, and on the other end a house we have completed selling, and a dozen or so under construction, and at least 3 homes we are building for others on our "Our Homes, Your Land" initiative, we are busy enough in the present day not to worry too much about what the future holds. With little debt, and sales of homes under construction and under contract numbering near a dozen, we are in a good position to keep doing our thing day by day.
But the winds are changing -and with our efficient team and lots of dry financial powder, the real risk of the coming slowdown will be to pounce on an ill-advised 'opportunity'. I know in previous posts I said I'm not seeing any risk of a recession, and on the ground - (measuring it by evaluating labor supply, inflation, and the schedule of our vendors I talk to daily, I'm still not seeing it) - I'm still not seeing any evidence of it, but with the macro actions of the fed doubling interest rates, I'm sure that can't help but slow things down. Which as I might have said, is not necessarily a bad thing - too many people and businesses have been too busy for too long, running their rpms up in the red zone since summer of 2000. Been a great time to make money, with a lot of businesses charging 2x+ times what they would normally charge - so on a micro level you can see the baby steps of inflation - yes, all the costs of production are up, but businesses have been able to charge for that AND add a bunch more onto the bill since there is so much cash swimming around the economy for what ever reason.
I scan a bunch of newspapers and websites each day - and I mean a bunch - and I've noticed over the last year or so a new type of click bait has emerged, typically headlined with something like "10 Trends that are over" and then go on to mention every single thing people did and do like in their homes - shades of grey, salvaged or distressed wood, open shelves, subway tile, etc.. Next I'm sure they will start mentioning 'shade trees', 'peace and quiet' and other nonsense.
Our project at The Crest in North Branch NY continues to move along, with a completed spec home just crossing the finish line. A 2100 sq ft Ranch style with views, a stream and 5 acres.
Selling in the high $600's, this is a good test of the market, since it's a fair price compared to other homes, but still a pretty penny.
Just finished making our traditional winter travel plans, - NYC a week or two prior to Xmas, skiing in Killington over Prez Day weekend, and then a trip to Big Sky for some skiing which is typically 3 days but stretching it to 4 days this year. Still need to figure out the week after Christmas.
Rain, The Crest, and Barn 46 Sells
It finally rained. It hadn’t rained for more than 30 minutes since maybe May. It’s now been raining since Friday. A steady rain, just exactly the penetrating, consistent rainfall one hopes for when it has been dry for so long but rarely gets. Typically it comes too hard too fast for the ground to absorb (I would say 'that's what she said' but my Maturity (with a hard first T) has left such thoughts far in the past). But not this one - still raining and it’s Wednesday morning. I literally can see my parched yard turning green and the thirsty bushes growing. My yard was one large brown sheet of dead blades of grass, turning what is usually vibrantly colored yard into a brownish monotony.
It’s the pace that is sort of amazing. A slow steady rain that picks up its pace on occasion but never comes with enough velocity to roll right off the ground into the sewer grates. It’s welcome for sure, and even though it complicates our lives as builders, it is welcome.
The weather system also brought with it cooler temperatures, our first taste of fall. Ferns go first, then the leave color and start to drop. Just last week I was noticing colored leaves dropping, and deduced it was the drought not the forthcoming autumn that pulled them from their branches. It would be a wonderful world indeed if the backdrop of climate disaster for future generations, if not ours, wasn’t leaving hard to ignore tells all over the place. The heat in Cali, god the floods in Pakistan where 1/3 of that poor country is under water. I’m not sure which hell I would pick - being wet and flooded, or hot and endangered, because they are both unmanageable in a very short amount of time.
Our third home sells today at the Crest - since we purchased that project last year (or was it 2 years ago - Covid confused time) - we’ve had hard to argue success repositioning this project, where the previous owners lost their momentum years ago. We’ve sold 7 pieces of land, put 10 under contract, and invested about $5,000,000 so far. An incredible array of diverse families moving in, and a telltale of pandemic affects (or is it ‘effects’ (too early to care)), half are planning to be there full-time. Should be a great place to live.
This home, a Barn on 5 acres, built on a rock ledge, with a big pond included. 3 floors of living. 4 bedrooms with at least 1 on each floor. Big views. Just an extraordinary piece of real estate ass.
Meandering thoughts on a Saturday Morning
Back by popular demand, a blog post. My friend and colleague Eric G from G5 Insurance reminded me that a new post was due, and I aim to please, so here it is. On a Saturday morning. Who knows where it will go since it is not preplanned. Last night, on the golf course, it was getting darker by 7:30, a sure indicator of the change of seasons, ready or not.
Probably best to get the house horseshit out of the way, so I'm not left tying it all together in the end. This beauty is actually for sale. Rare indeed. Up in the Crest, just north of Fremont NY. Big pieces of land, and big views, and a great assortment of homes. I ended up with that land when the original developer, after 14 years, gave up, and we took over (purchased) at a price that gave me lots of room to maneuver. The home below, just weeks from being finished, will cost around $700k. Has mountain views and a looks over a lake, and gets a lot of sun all day long.
Just returned from a 10 day trip in the '72 Malibu with the dog - Milford, Valley Forge, Spotsylvania, Nags Head, Surf City, Raleigh, Winchester and then back home to Milford. I had never been to the Carolina coast, and it was well worth the journey. From Corolla, across with the help 2 ferries from Hatteras and Ocracoke. I've never spent a ton of time in beach towns, and they all seem to share a lot of commonality, dive bars and fried food being 2 of them. Discovered my dog is not comfortable on the beach - everytime I left her off leash, she would run as fast as she could (and that is really fast) through the dunes and off to who knows where. Thought I lost her on the first flight, had written her off, but then found her on the beach 10 minutes later.
I had never been to the southern low country, and it certainly is pretty and certainly has a unique feel to it.
The big college debt relief was all in the news this week. I have 2 thoughts - $10k is really much to move the needle on a lot of the debt loads, and 2, there was a lot of great articles delving into who owes what, split out by age, region, ethnicity - so that was interesting. The whole college expense and loan issue is a real shame - the idea that 18-22 year olds, who for many have never had any experience with debt and little experience with money - that they can borrow $100k, to be paid back in the future with no current obligations, and you can borrow more than the college costs and use it to live, and you can't get out of it with bankruptcy- that's not really on kids - that's a rigged game, preying on our children. It starts in HS with school administration bragging about what schools their students get into, with guidance counselors who recommend the 'best' schools, to society at large that puts a premium on the brand of the school, and the 'life changing' network of people you could meet.
There are all sorts of ways to fix this problem - loans could be tied to the profession and salary of the chosen major (no $300k loans for teachers), schools could be held accountable for better due diligence by allowing loans to be extinguished thru bankruptcy (this would certainly cause a decrease in the cost of schools), etc.... Giving out $10k but not fixing the problem and continuing to allow this predatory behavior towards our children is not the best path forward. Maybe a start though... I mean when I went to school, University of Pittsburgh cost less than $6k a semester. If I was burdened by gigantic student loans, my entire life would be different - my fixed costs of payback would have eliminated all of my choices - choices that have resulted in an effort that by now has injected $300m of economic stimulus into the regions where I work - all that would have been impossible since the monthly payback nut would have strangled any entrepreneurial (and money borrowing) ideas. My journey has been such a high-wire act that carrying the burden of a big loan would been the breeze that blew me off course. And I was an English major, an area of focus I give a lot of credit to for teaching me how to evaluate information, and condense it into effective messaging.
Interesting times out there in the real world - information about stock market, wars, energy crisises, inflation, housing market - is hard to decipher. Just glad I'm not fully leveraged, and that we cycled through a very profitable investment cycle - where we load up on land and houses and then sell them off before loading up again (typically accompanied by a fair amount of working debt from Jeff Bank) - this time, I seem to be really well positioned, with a ton of dry powder, a years worth of sales queued up, several homes being built and paid for as we build them (which alleviates a lot of cash flow stress), a lot of passive income, and a team that is without parallel. And even a home that is solar powered with a battery so I'm sort of almost off grid - Come what may, the perch from which I write seems to be a perch of safety, come what may.
