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

Would anyone argue if I said that we've taken the Chinese of 'wish for an interesting life' too far?   Seriously.  

A real life experience: My friend Leo in Nortbern California, married, 18 year old daughter.  

So his daughter is going to Bard, expensive, private.  She had to/is quarantining for 14 days in a crappy hotel.  Then released to campus, for who knows how long.  What is certain is if campus doesn't stay open, Bard won't be refunding much of that $70k.

Leo, lives in an area north of San Francisco.  Just evacuated with his wife.  In his VW 1984 Bus; he quotes, " I never expected to want the same thing - VW Bus - as much at 50 yrs old as 18 year old'.  From a huge fire appearing unexpectedly near Santa Rosa, which was the scene of a huge fire a few years ago.  So, he's on the road, in his VW bus, newly emptied nest, taking nomadic photos of the hazed-in sun from the smoke of the fires.  Beautiful, if it's only impact was for the eye, and not on tens of thousands of lives.

What was pretty...

Turned smoky and scary.  North of SF somewhere.

For me, and others I'm sure, this is the Year of the Black Swan, the phrase used to describe an unexpected event with society-wide impacts.  It's what happens when everything is going good, defenses are down, chickens being counted before and during hatching.

We had the Virus, whose impact has been dramatic, across the board.  As a parent, seeing a kid lose 4 months of their youth - no school, no sports, a bit isolated - that's no fun even if money's not a problem.  Now sending them back into the abyss as school starts up next week, trying to decide if isolation and shitty academics is an equal trade with their health and safety.  I think I'd be less inclined to send them back if I didn't watch a little league league have a great summer of games.  Hundreds of kids at our little ball park, decided 2 months late to play the season, and played 3-4 nights a week for the last 6 weeks.  We didn't let Lucas play - he wanted to play lacrosse anyways - because back in late May things were still pretty hairy, but in retrospect, a lot of kids used that league as a real life saver for the summer - and zero persons got sick.  Zero.  So we worried that school would be the same way - we take the side of precaution, then it all turns out fine, and he misses something he wouldn't have.  

That said, we are preparing for a shutdown, and this year if it happens we will definitely be prepared, meaning mostly, gather some kids each day to study and learn together from the zoom classes, forced to get up, get dressed, add some structure, and lessen the isolation.  I guess this is what they are calling 'learning pods' except ours won't be high-end, just kids hangin' learning together, having lunch and recess, etc...  Still, no sports, no this, no that.  Gets old.

My primary lead man carpenter in Ulster County learned in Mid-July his 10 year old daughter has I guess what they are calling brain cancer, that has spread to the spine.  So she's been in the hospital since the moment they found it, and he's been off work without working 5 of the last 6 weeks.  That is an incredible disruption to our best laid plans - I don't mean 'delay disruption' to the clients who read this, I mean more like everyone's job is different now, as we rearrange the pieces on the chessboard.  More chance for error, more chance for expensive mis-fires, more chance for employees getting overworked.  This synchronized exactly with us signing up a dozen new clients and we were ready to blaze away.  We subcontract a lot of our work out, but it still hurts.  That's professionally.  Personally, every single member of our team has a heavier step because of it, as a friend and co-worker goes through I guess what could be safely called the worst thing a parent can go through.

On the Lazy Meadows Real Estate side of things, where I help my existing homeowners resell their homes when that day comes, and also help families who inquiry with Catskill Farms but don't quite fit with what we offer, my one and only agent Caroline Akt springs it on me that she has been planning for 6 months to launch her own shop.   She has her office set up, she has her broker's license, she has her fed/state tax ID.  Which is fine, but since I mentored her, trained her, introduced her to my 2 decades of top-tier relationships, taught her how to speak not as an excavator's wife but as a high-end salesperson, passed 100% of the leads that came through the door to her, one would've hoped for a more proper notice, since she knew as well as I did her actions would literally shut the door on Lazy Meadows' efforts until I could find an agent, which is like saying 'until I do the impossible'.  Disloyalty, dishonesty and treachery.  Now, don't get me wrong, I know this happens all the time, but since we are such a small shop, it's impact, and the awareness of the impact, is what stings, since that's just bad business.

It reminds me when Henning Nordanger of Hennings Local restaurant worked for me as a carpenter.  He was earning a good wage, but more than that he met Larry who worked for me, and Brian, who worked for me, and between the 3 of them they launched an idea to start a restaurant, used most of my employees at night to get it up and running and then, in order to launch, stole my primary lead carpenter to help open his business.

What gets me over and over in these situations is just the lack of proper procedure - why not say 'thank you, here's what we are doing, don't want to blindside you', instead, it's always just the opposite, where I'm viewed as so successful that to use me as a springboard, and take whatever is needed to get it done, is fair game.

2 problems with that - 1, I'm not THAT successful, and 2, if I am, the team I assembled has come through blood sweat and tears, so it's personal.   And 3rd, even though I said 2, it's just low class.  But what should expect when I live and work in the 2nd poorest county in NY State.  That means a lot of more than you might think when it comes to situations like this - though, that's not fair to all the local rednecks, since Henning is from Norway or something.  I guess it's just that people's dreams blind them to their own actions, and they mistakenly think taking the short-cut, or failing to pay your respects to your building blocks, is the best way forward.  Maybe, but maybe not.  I think the single most important attribute I have as a business person is the ability to read the room, not so I can take advantage of it, but so I can strike a balance in it.

Then of course, my website was deleted.  Gone, and I'm probably 50 hours into a new one.

Lumber prices are up nearly 75% since February. See here for an illustration that brings it home clear, so now I'm forced to have 15 conversations with homeowners about this pricing that I have no choice but to pass along, since there ain't no way I'm eating $150k of lumber increases while I'm building homes for people to feel safe in.  I'd rather go on vacation.

I'm doing a 3 lot subdivision in Phoenixville, PA, whose rental income should come in handy over the next 2 decades.  Great area.  This conversion from 1930's community hall to 4 bedroom single family residence turned out great.

Thing about it though, all these distractions in no way lessen the day to day obligation we have to our clients, past and present.  Obligations which are serious, large in volume and demanding of our full attention.  Nor does it relieve us of the obligations of running a business, managing cash flow, insurance, employees, taxes, mortgages, and the hundreds of daily tasks that result from living in the fast lane.

So what is one to do when you are supposed to a rock star, but your band is breaking up?  Like you've done since you strung the guitar for the first time - reinvent, reimagine, refocus and reenvision how you get here to there.  I've learned this many times, but no better time to improve your business than when it is going through unexpected trials - embrace the chaos, reorganize, and take chances you wouldn't have when everything is going smooth and you don't want to upset the apple cart.  Status quo is good, smooth sailing is good, until it isn't, and then you want a leader who has been tested at the helm so you can may be steer into the waves as opposed to trying to run from them, or duck and hide.

Consider, confront, solve, act. Too bad that doesn't work out to some sort of acronym that I could use going forward.

I'm a big news guy.  Less TV news than newspaper and digital, but since the Plague started, I've been ramping up on my news, and have settled into CNN, which evolved into a crush on New Day's host Alisyn Camerota.    Today was her first day back in the Studio since the pandemic started, and you could tell she was a little more made up and polished with the professionals on staff.

Then it turns out one of my client couples who we are building a home with, who I had the unenviable fun task of communicating the lumber inflation issue to, turns out the wife of the team is an executive producer there.  So, of course, I'm immediately thinking about angling for a meet and greet with Ms Camerota, but then, in a moment of rare insight, I know I'd flub it up, tongue-twisted, nothing to say, so I let the thought pass unspoken.  But who knows, maybe some day at the White House Correspondent Dinner I'll be sitting right there.    Then it turns out their neighbor who I am building a home for is an executive producer for 60 Minutes.My 11 year old 84 lb 5'3" son gets a real kick out of telling the story about how my one girlfriend after we parted moved to California, like somehow the events were related.  

So, as I was dreaming, I was also making my way through Norman Mailer's Harlot's Ghost, a 1300 page book about the 50's and 60's CIA scene at the beginning of the Castro area, Bay of Pigs, Marilyn Monroe death (who he might have been married to), JFK death.  A meandering, sort of pointless book that kept my attention throughout.  I'm not sure when I started, I'm sure I blogged about it prior, but now I'm finished.  I might move onto another of his, maybe the Executioner's Song, which I remember running as a mini-series in the mid-70's on one of the 3 networks.  The book was sort of so well crafted that it's meandering nature with non-finite alleyways almost makes me wonder if that was the point, that spy work is meandering, many times pointless, and hardly tangible.

On Friday I wrote a blog message about lumber inflation, which is real and scary.  Scary because it was scary in the way empty shelves at the grocery store was scary 3 months ago - it was as much and more scary because it indicated that the future is uncertain, and what is around the corner of disruption is unknown.  Confusing sentence but I'm keeping it.

It's scary for as much as what it may forecast than for the actual event.

So anytime my lumber guy calls me up, it's never for good news, because good news just goes to the rest of the team, usually in the way of deliveries, shipments, availability, etc...  He calls me up when there is an issue, and this issue turns out, he says, lumber is up 25% and still going, which I wrote about Friday, since it was such an unprecedented event and that's what this blog is for.

So, I dug into it Saturday morning while the kid was sleeping and found out that 25% is the minimum prices have risen, and 35%, 45% in some products like plywood were evident, and that's to me, one of their larger customers, god knows what the small fries are encountering.  So far, no disruption in the products that are needed, but plenty of scarcity on the fringes and margins of what is necessary and you have to wonder when the item you need won't be available, things you take for granted like a 2x10x14 flooring joist (yes, i know, all the ladies are crooning over my lumber talk).  The whole pandemic benefits from a steady hand at the helm for sure.

The new website is coming along nicely, but a ton of work, needing a time investment I don't have but have to invest.  Also developing a nice lawsuit against https://www.linkedin.com/in/jesscoburn Jess Coburn of Applied Innovations for his negligence.   It's funny how many companies/people have nice website, but not necessarily ones that live and breath the air of the company, and have sailed the business seas with me, the proprietor.  Not the best site, didn't work on great on mobile, was sort of backward in the backend (that's what she said), but it was a real live digital partner in my 2 decade journey.  It was recognizable and stable, 2 hard to find friends in the lively course of business building.  It's like this Jess Coburn tossed a digital match my way and watched my life's work burn.

I'm actually getting over it - I'm on like 'Depression' on the 7 stages of grief, which leaves me with just 'testing' and then the grand daddy 'acceptance'.  Which would be fine, but the 'no time, no capacity' thing makes it harder.

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It's tough communicating to kids about this virus, but I thought this cover was really helpful.  It's funny, but real, hilarious, but sort of sad.

https://www.facebook.com/joe.b.rogers/videos/10223090546195398.

One thing that has been consistent among all the newness of this virus life is the unpredictable nature of it, the way new unexpected hurdles keep popping up from nowhere.   Lumber shortages, and some other products, have been in short supply, in weird ways.  Deck lumber, concrete stain, pressure treated lumber.  The fear in the back of mind is a shortage we can't be without, some sort of lumber that prevents us from moving forward, but that hasn't happened yet.  A friend of mine's dad said he ordered some dock lumber, and paid a third more and waited 2 months.

Anyways, my point is we are seeing incredible price inflation in framing lumber.  20%, 25%.  Too much demand, not enough supply.   It's hard to square the unemployment rate, the small business failure, the stock market rise in the face of declining consumer demand, and the robustness of the economy.  Really makes me wonder what is around the corner, and no matter how good our today is, I'm super aware of the trap that is being set in terms of optimism, especially in the marketplace I work in.  It's a quandary, since I'm just about ready or have just begun, 8 houses of framing, meaning I'm swimming right into the mouth of the inflation shark.  We shall see what we should do, or have to do. Above, pic of all the lumber going up in cost like a runaway train.

It's not a time to be new in business - while the opportunity is large, the risks seem as large.

For instance, the NYTimes comes up with a new article of nonsense, and I don't even mean that meanly, like I normally do.  

New Style of Country Home Takes Root

Most of the article is about a development in Green County that hasn't built a home, hasn't overcome one hurdle, hasn't weathered one unexpected disaster, hasn't put together one team.  A NYTimes spread about a home that doesn't exist.  They mention Hudson Woods, but from what I hear, while Hudson Woods did build out their project in Kerhonkson, they got their asses kicked by the process, the lack of labor, the lack of subcontractor depth, and even though they were selling houses at twice the price they should have been listed at, was still so unprofitable they decided to do no more.  Sleight of hand, selling air, branding over product.  I feel our clients are way too smart for that.  In fact, I feel our clients are the smartest of the bunch.

But it does get my undershorts a bit in a knot, in a low fever way, because it is so undeserved.  It literally doesn't exist and even if they were superstuds, which they never are, we are talking 2 years before someone moves in.  This is a story that will harm a lot of lives, with big deposits on homes that are never produced, or produced much in the future at half the promised glory. Seen it, watched it before.

It appears some of the karmic 'for every good thing will be an equally bad thing' existence I had going seems to be fading, but wow, I'd almost give up the tubular rad wave of awesomeness we surf daily for a little less drama.

I could start this blog post with reporting new sales we booked this week, but that just seems boring at this point.  A better way to describe the Catskill Farms sales activity is to reflect on the announcement of no new clients - A Sales Moratorium.  So congratulations to those who made it in under the bell, before the avalanche sealed off the Indian Jones like cave escape.  For the time being, no more people through the velvet ropes of our door.

This is a first in our 20 year history, the first time we couldn't accommodate the families who wanted to build with us.  We expect this to continue through early October.

Though, like I said earlier, for every fantastic event, we seem to be having an equal not so terrific event.  Family illness in one of important employees, production delays in unexpected corners (like kitchens now taking 13 weeks instead of 3), website got deleted, my contact in my phone got corrupted, and now the hurricane knocked out power to many, diverting the attention of the electric utility company who was days away from installing electric at 6 of our home sites.  Oh, and my new Garmin for my bike refuses to sync with my phone, if that doesn't beat all.

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