End of Summer...
Well, with temps in the mid-40's, like clockwork, summer is winding down (note play on words - clockwork...winding down). Then up into the 70's. In the convertible yesterday afternoon, it even called for a sweater.
We have a big sale today, and another in 7 days, and then another in 60 days. That will leave us with 4 spec homes next year to sell that are already built or nearly completion. Gives me lots of latitude to change directions.
Friday night lights. The booster club just bought a canon and now half the dads are down there blasting away.
Lucas is getting in the habit of inviting people over, and before I know it half the football team is sleeping over, with kids sleeping everywhere from the media room, to the screened porch, to my living room couches. Good kids though. As I tell Lucas, Lulu the dog gets a lot of privileges and a long leash (I know, too clever by half), and the way to get treated the same is to be well-behaved. It's probably weird for the kids seeing a single dad flex with pancakes, house work, dinners and the like. I'm sure the Moms drive the show in most of their households and the dads have a different role altogether.
We really suck this year on the baseball diamond, after winning the championship 2 years in a row. Errors galore and quiet bats.
I'm always tinkering around my house with this and that project - if you can call converting the existing 2 car garage into a large man-cave with ping pong, theater grade TV area, and an electronic dart board. This week will be the finish line.
I live in Milford PA, a cool town, with a fastidious block road grid and lots of charm.
Lulu has lots of perches she hangs out on. She likes how the bluestone heats up on a sunny day.
Jared Covit's all up in arms over the photo I cut and pasted from the internet, threatening this and that. You'd have to wonder how many baseless causes of action he would file before learning a lesson.
I'm rereading Killer Angels, a Michael Shaara historical fiction account of the Battle of Gettysburg and listening to a true crime audio book on the Murdaugh family in South Carolina. Killer Angels, written in 1974, places the disastrous battle for the confederacy squarely on the lap of General Lee, who seems, in this book, to be engaging in this battle in order to bring the war to a close - win or lose.
Cottage 45 ReSale
Cottage 45, with the post-sale addition of an artists studio and a lot of good looking landscaping, is being resold after who knows how many years of graceful living - is it 10? Hard to say without digging deep into the archives. But it's been awhile. Asking $650+/-, we sold it for low $300's. It's on an amazing piece of land that fronts a large creek/stream. On 12 acres. It's such a snapshot of how hard we used to work for how little money, perfecting our craft, making a living. And then wham, pandemic fueled NYC migration to the Catskills, and we were able to monetize it, since we had the team and the engine all tuned up.
I forgot how busy we actually got, since it's been 4 years and it's hard to remember that it hasn't always been this way. Well, in some ways it has, since even though we were building less, our team was capable of less. Now our team is capable of more, and we are building more. And soon, we will be building less, but our team is capable of more, which will present some difficult man-power decisions.
I hope they get their price. Looking at what's available in Barryville for between $450k - $650k, and this house is definitely the most attractive of the lot. When we started building cottages in 2006, the idea was to provide a lower cost option of getaways without sacrificing land quality or build quality. Only way to do that is a smaller home, and some counterintuitive market ideas that there was a market for 2 bedroom homes. Ideas that formulated by talking with my perspective clients, and hearing what they were saying, many times they were unaware of market insights they were giving me. Talk to enough people, put in the time, ears perked and listening and before you know it, you have information others don't.
These long-held homes that hit the market gives me a lot of nostalgia for the journey of Catskill Farms. One thing that has been true, among many, is my uncompromising ability to find good land for good homes.
Day in the life...
Thursday - Saturday morning in Orlando to watch my son’s JV football game. Their team organizes a trip down there every 2 years or so for a fun week of fun and football. Then to Raleigh NC to visit my nephew then back home on Sunday to prep for the week ahead. My pickleball skillset has accelarated.
My prep for the week includes continuing to complete a pre-closing checklist for the sale of $2m worth of Olivebridge, Ulster County NY real estate, homes 6 and 7 in our 9 home project. The other two homes, and another 2 in Sullivan County are being built and completed on ‘spec’, without a buyer lined up or in this case, even without a buyer sought until the homes are complete. It’s a boss move, keeping them secret, since it takes significant financial wherewithal, which we got.
I know of at least two ‘competitors’, or copy cats, or ‘imitation is the highest form of flattery’ projects, and I’m sure there are more, that are flaming out with lackluster or actually zero sales - one in Callicoon, and the other in Stone Ridge. The Stone Ridge property I came very close to buying and it would have been a great project and checked a lot of my boxes - already subdivided, in a good town, good screening between houses - but some of the engineering hidden in the footnotes and small print were just too much of a variable for my tastes so I passed, but was non-plussed and had a serious FOMA case when this other group bought it.
But by not buying it, I was available for the next opportunity in Olivebridge, and that one worked out well for me. As a business person, risk-taker, business owner, speculator - what you don’t do is as important as what you do do. You quickly forget about the ones you pass on, but something can tickle the chords of recollection and you can remember that what you don’t pursue - be a piece of land, a deal, a person, a problem - is critical to long term survival.
I remember when I started Ashokan Acres, an article was being written about it and made it seem like a sure thing - I assured the writer it was anything but, and listed the failed or struggling projects I knew about, but if you’re not in the game, you don’t realize the struggle. And since we have such a track record of getting it done and monetizing our efforts I guess it’s sort of assumed we will achieve the goals of the project - which I guess in a way is a bit of a sure bet at this point in my speculating career - but still - hat would be dangerous, since few people make it through a career in speculating without going bust - like the old adage that ‘there are only 2 types of motorcycle riders - those that have laid their bike down and skinned their legs up, and those that will.” 2 types of real estate speculators - those that have gone bust and those that will.
We got two million dollars of real estate closing in the next 2 weeks, and 4 homes being built buyer-less that will be for sale next year. Shifting gears, evaluating the Catskills housing landscape, filtering the information and delivering a prognosis like Ai wishes it could -
Starting to sort out what 2025 will look like. What it won't look like is moving as fast as I can, building as much as our capacity will allow.
New Rules for Realtors
I appreciate the work of a professional the much as the next guy, but no industry compensates mediocre performance more fully than the monopoly that was the real estate industry. There was literally no compensation differentiating between good skill sets and bad skill sets, between experience and inexperience, and there was little to no room to negotiate their fees, regardless of the assertions of the real estate players who claim 'that all fees are negotiable' (especially if you don't want anyone to show your home or you want to get silent black-listed from the collusive activities among all the real estate companies.)
Nobody should be paid $60,000 for answering a phone call, unlocking some doors, and showing up at the closing table. There is a value there, but because of the wink and nod collusion in the industry, it's not valued appropriately.
Here's a Axios article - Subtitled - "Mediocre real estate agents are out".
The unaffordability of using 6% commission based agents forced us in 2005 to sell our own houses, because our profit margins couldn't support a 6% payout on sales price, not profits - where agents who unlocked the door would get paid more than our years worth of effort. We actually are one of the few firms in the country that can claim the vertical integration of development, design, build and sell effort (more accurately, 'successful effort'). Over at Ashokan Acres, only 1 of 9 came through an agent, and that was a suspect arrangement that seemed more like friends or colleagues- 1 with a real estate license - working in tandem to profit from my efforts. So the buy side being eliminated from the commission would eliminate that type of shenanigans.
My guess is this article is right on - different compensation scheme, less shitty real estate agents hoping for that 1 or 2 sells a year for augmented income, more business at lower rates for the ones left standing. That makes sense to me, since to be honest, there are more poor performing realtors than professionals. No other industry compensates the same no matter what the skill level is, no matter the region being served, no matter what the sales prices is v. effort required to complete the task.
