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

Old School Real estate blog in the Catskills. Journeys, trial, tribulations, observations and projects of Catskill Farms Founder Chuck Petersheim. Since 2002, Catskill Farms has designed, built, and sold over 250 homes in the Hills, investing over $100m and introducing thousands to the areas we serve. Farms, Barns, Moderns, Cottages and Minis - a design portfolio which has something for everyone.

Wednesday, July 30, 2025

Boys Trip - St Petes, 2025

Took Lucas and 4 friends down to St Petes from Friday morning to Monday morning, sitting in the bright and sunny Tampa airport after just being notified that the shitshow Newark airport air traffic control just delayed us for 30 minutes.  We shall see what that eventually means.

I’ve traveled with one of Lucas’ friends a lot, 2 quite often too, but Lucas +4 was a bit of an experiment with a lot of extra logistical elements - we couldn’t all fit in one car from home to the airport (solution: took two cars), there was no way 5 large young men were staying at my condo with their dirty and wet shit everywhere (solution:rent a room at the Marriott just around the corner for three of them).  They wouldn’t all fit into a regular sized SUV especially when luggage is accounted for (solution:bad ass large oversized Tahoe).

They were all over the place - beach, mall, put dozens of miles or more on rental bikes and scooters, movie theaters, a ton of time on our rooftop pool and jacuzzi and gym.   And watched the new Adam Sandler film Happy Gilmore II.

Out of 4 bag search opportunities going through Pre-Check there and back, I got flagged 3 times - 1, for poker chips I was carrying from PA to FL in hopes of teaching the kids some poker (didn’t happen), 2, for a ham sandwich and banana, and 3, for a candle Lucas asked me to carry.

Like up North, but more, it was hot down here, feeling like 105 mid-day.  Played pickleball Sunday morning at Crescent Park with the 40 or 50 people who show up to play each morning, 7 days a week.  Whack whack whack here the neighbors.  The tennis courts adjacent sit unused.

Florida storms are wild, and last night one blew in that packed rain, cool clouds, thunder and a lot of lightening.  I’m not sure how much stock to put into it since I’ve only seeing some posts on my TikTok, but they say the Florida real estate market is crashing with a perfect Floridian storm of back to work mandates, natural disasters, insurance costs, condo assessments, higher real estate taxes and too much new supply of single family and condo Units.

On the home front, we just finished the Parksville lakefront home.  And when I say finished, I mean wrapped up tight across an array of requirements for an easy landing - certificate of occupancy, utility set ups, bank inspections, paperwork, warranties, walk-throughs and sign-offs.  Our lakefront in North Branch is cruising along and our New Paltz Ranch with views is moving along as well. Unlike a lot of our competitors our shit is always moving forward.  It’s just my nature.

I’m spending a lot time on trying to decipher the best use of my accumulated capital - be in currently invested in longer term rental real estate, or equity markets.   With the 8 un-mortgaged rental homes across 3 states (NY, PA and FL), with the help of CPA John in the office, we are looking at the return on investment ratios on the following fronts - 1, long term rentals, 2, selling and investing the money, 3, selling and holding the mortgages where possible.   Lots of tax ramifications that drive the decision-making - in fact the tax consequences factor as a primary concern/variable when evaluating options - ordinary income, capital gains, current tax brackets vs future brackets (typically lower)- trying to find the magic investment sequencing, and also trying to determine if rental real estate outperforms the stock market, etc.. - all complicated because the last 8 years have been such go go good times for investments of all sorts, it’s hard to remember and plan around past results are not indicative of future results.

Though I am getting more comfortable with the idea the stock market will return 7-10% over time, something I’ve always been suspicious of.

Interestingly, and finally, prices on land in SuCo have stabilized and perhaps even retreated from their highest levels.  And as important, or relatedly I guess, things aren’t selling the minute they hit the marketplace.  This allows us here at Catskill Farms to get a little more serious about ramping up our purchases of land and put up a few more houses.  I feel vindicated, if that’s the right word, for sitting on the sidelines for a bit and watching the dust settle.  While land is about double at times, and many times more, there are at least now opportunities to pick up some parcels where I’m comfortable with the prices - meaning $50’s, 60’s and maybe even 70’s.  For someone buying SuCo land in the $20ks or low $30’s for decades, it takes some getting used to.  Sure, end prices are higher, but so is every single ingredient necessary to build a home.  

Lucas, far right, worn out from hosting all day long.

And of course no trip is satisfactory unless lucas gets a dumb picture of me.

Wednesday, July 23, 2025

Erie Canal Ride, continued...

The bubble of 800 migrant bicyclists moving across 400 miles, east to west, of upper NY State, like a caravan of Grateful Dead followers, or Phish, or any group of people who travel from place to place independently, but joined by direction or mission.  The idea that the group is pedal powered, commune camping, facing the unexpected elements together, cooperating, exercising - the whole endeavor caught me off guard in how quickly and completely I was commuted out of my ordinary concerns and priorities.   

When you are camping and pitching tents with 800 people, spread out across only an acre or two in 300+ tents, sharing limited port-johns, showering in semi-trucks with trailers rigged with showers, eating together under a tent in a buffet style, it’s just a very different experience very quickly.

First, to be out there doing it takes a certain type of person - you have the veterans who return every year for a decade, you have the ones like me that bike frequently but never tried something like this - long distances and overnight, and unaccustomed to camping -, you have the people who shouldn’t be out there - some who power through and some that tap out. Your ass definitely hurts and you seek that meditative rhythm of pedal stroke cadence, breath and speed.

Many days on this trip, the temps were in the 90’s and more oppressively, climbed throughout the day so dinner time and beyond were the hottest times of the day.  Too many tents for the limited shade trees so typically the tents - set up by others and aligned with militaristic precision - were out in the open, each a little greenhouse hut, starving for a breeze. At night, there were the snorers, the coughers, the farters, the rustlers, the frequent bathroom visitors with the slam of the plastic portojohn doors, the late night talkers, the sounds of tent zippers up and down (but not the music players).

First light, people start rustling, so days are starting at pre-5am, first slowly and then cascading into a movement of people.  The only thing missing was the bugle call.  Sleepy people, unkempt people, slow walking people through the dewy grass, people preparing for breakfast and then 4-6 hours on a bicycle, taking down their tents, packing their gear, fueling up with conversation, coffee and camaraderie under the buffet tent. Making their way to the porto-johns and the water stations activated by a foot pedal. Many cultures don't have the space or the affluence to offer day to day privacy, but we do here in the USA, so to pierce that protective veil of dedicated personal space is jarring.

One thing I noticed, since I also notice the inverse, was the lack of public noise from phones or devices.  Whereas I can’t even eat pizza in peace anymore without someone listening to their phone on speaker,  here you had nearly a thousand people more or less quietly going about their business.  It seemed anyone attracted to a mass event like this came with an elevated sense of noise propriety.  

I employed (2) 16 yr olds all summer, teaching how to work, how to show up, how to put some coin in their pockets. They did good - it was hot, weedy work but project by project they made their mark. Tomorrow is their last day of the summer, and I'm treating them to a round of golf and bought them Beats headsets as a bonus.

Lulu knows how to enjoy the grounds, always seeking out new perches, angles and elevations.

It's that time of year. Lucas is vying for the starting QB role, - not just vying for pole position, but then having to keep it, maintain it, earn it week after week.

Saturday, July 19, 2025

Eric Canal Bike Ride

I first signed up for the whole 8 day, 375 mile Erie Canal ride across the upper NY region.  Later, coming to my senses, I reduced that to half the ride, or two hundred miles, or from Buffalo and Syracuse.  The full canal riders are still out there, arriving in Albany sometime tomorrow.

This Erie Canal bike ride happens every year, for who knows how many years.  This year had a bit more historical significance because it was the 200 anniversary of the opening of the Albany to Buffalo man-made waterway, the mule and man made ditch that spurred the western expansion of the US, pushing both ideas and commerce westward in a fraction of the time and a fraction of the cost.

My trusty gravel bike.

The ride itself, organized by NY Parks and Trails, was a well-run affair that was a roving migration of 800 bikers, and 100 staffers, mostly volunteers - sort of Grateful Dead meets bluegrass festival meets religious revival meets military encampment.

The logistics aren’t easy - with 60 miles traveled each day, the encampment, the luggage of the bikers, the pop-up mess tents, porto-johns, truck showers, hundreds of tents - rolling into a school or Elks Lodge or town park, only to pack up and move on the next day.

The challenges of biking that far are varied, and probably rotate each year - this year was the heat, a heat that pressed down as the day wore on so while scorching at 1, continued to its climb to late afternoon, leaving an oppressive blanket late into the early evening.

It’s an interesting crowd - a crowd that has to be comfortable with the variations and unpredictable nature of the weather, rain, logistical screwups - a go with the flow while riding a bike 60 miles a day.

Many people had done it before, many had done it several times.   Not the hardest ride in terms of elevation climbs or leg burn out, but still, sitting in that little seat for 5-8 hours a day is its own form of meditation.  My goal - as a person that spends a fair amount of time on a bike - was to see if I liked a longer, overnight type of thing, and get a handle on how far is too far, how hard was too hard and be able to dial in on trips that fit my biking profile.  I believe that has been achieved - I can now look at a biking tour group’s South Dakota or Amsterdam to Barcelona trip and see if it’s something I could do.

I’m confused at why and how the Cold Play Kiss Cam incident caught on and went so viral.  I get it that it’s one of those ‘by the grace of god go I’, or ‘that’s why you stick to hotel rooms’ type of response, but still, the outlandish pile on by social media, memes and print journalism is hard to square with the actual thing.  

I’m a history buff, and have a fair to above-grade understanding of American History, and feel very comfortable with the mid-19th Century history, say 1850 onwards.  I got the rise and fall of slavery covered in some details, the industrial revolution, the railroad inception and progress from steam to coal, the assassination, the sad chapter of reconstruction, presidential rotation, etc…  But the Erie Canal’s role in all this, the canal’s role in turning NY into the aptly named Empire State, as the canal became the primary lane of commerce in America.

Wonderful Life Bridge

This helps to explain the mystery I never solved of why so many important Americans in the mid-1850’s were living in Auburn, or Syracuse, or Rochester - towns that still exist today but seem very far out of the action - but I would read a book and William Seward would be living mid-state, Susan B Anthony, Harriet Tubman, and even 13 Years a Slave, when he was returned he returned to Mid-State, Upstate - it was literally not the middle of nowhere, it was the center of everywhere, with the Canal creating one of the busiest, vibrant string of wealth that spanned the whole state.

Not just commerce wealth.  The Canal, its riverside banks - pushed ideas westward, pushed religion westward.  The abolitionist movement fermented there, women’s rights, 7th Day Adventists and Brigham Young’s mormons, where the first 5000 copies of Book of Mormon was published and disseminated.   Religious revivals - think O God Where Art Thou - up and down the banks of the countless towns that sprung up - Spencerport, LockPort, Brockport, Fairport, Albany, Rochester, Buffalo.  The original cauldron of stew -immigration, the free market and freedom to worship and travel-  that resulted in a circus and brew of personalities pushing self-reliance and the pursuit of individualism across the Appalachians in mass, for the first time.

The Bike ride was good.  The history lesson was good.  I can now hear the raucous canal life - the mules, the barges, the locks moving cargo against gravity, the preachers and sinners, block after block of saloons and bars - a dirty, frenetic, life edged with the unknown.  A combustible circus of self-determination by whatever means necessary.

The 3 high schoolers I employed this summer.

Future blog topics

  1. My recent upwork experience with suspected AI fraudster.
  2. The Bike ride
  3. Always coming home to a shitshow of one sort or another.
  4. Vet called Lulu a ‘Senior’.
  5. My son’s romance with a graduated Senior.

Wednesday, July 9, 2025

July Musing from the NorthEast

It’s been hot here in the NorthEast.  And muggy.  As I sit in my screened porch at 6am, it’s clear another hot and heavy day is upon us.   I’m a big fan of promoting the non-traditional career route of less college more real life practice, but you can’t deny one of the true drawbacks of pure trades work is being exposed to the elements.  Hot, cold, rain, etc… you are out there.

Some kids I helped through Foster care as a CASA volunteer.

Currently we are having a ‘trades’ conversation across the country - the college route and the non-college route.  It’s gotten a bit linear - be a plumber or work in an office.  The term ‘trades’ needs to be expanded and rebranded since it doesn’t do justice to all the real alternatives out there to a four year degree.  You look at a construction company - or a trades company - and just inside that company are many positions that don’t require a college degree and don’t require swinging a hammer.  Same thing at a grocery store, physical therapy office, doctors office, accounting firm, hvac company, auto dealership.

Yes, you need to know how to read and write.  The better, the better.  Some book-keeping, some excel, some communication.   What seems to be lost in the academic career prep track is the ability to prepare for the work-force - in fact, I think there could be a curriculum that is junior college, community college cost that is designed for work place prep.  Basic quickbooks, advanced use of MS office- word, excel, powerpoint-, communication etiquette, personal finance, basic business practices and law.  A foundation of useful skills that are valuable to a small business.

The team in the office is humming away.  All men.  A major switch from mostly all female.  Looks like it’s a good team, a sustainable team.  A talented team.

Without any homes to sell - currently working on 3 ‘your land our homes’ projects- I’m losing a little bit of my in-depth in-touchness with the real estate marketplace.  Looks like homes are still moving, and moving at reasonable prices, and looks like there are some really nice homes for sale.  Some of the new construction that went up and sold over the last few years are coming back on the market - interestingly, not much of it is our homes.  People keep our homes. Other new construction, that seems to turnover sometimes pretty quick.  People have always kept our homes - for decades.   Just the back of an envelope - of my first 10 homes, I think 5 families still own them after 20 years.  That’s pretty rare in a 2nd home marketplace that averages turnover every 7 years.  I think it’s a compliment to our efforts.

Our 16 homes in Saugerties built in 2020-2021, only 2 have been put back on the market, and one was always an ill-advised investment play.  12 homes in North Branch, people are just getting settled in.  15 in Kerhonkson, maybe 2 have resold.   4 in Stone Ridge built 10 years ago - no one has sold.  40 in Narrowsburg - maybe 10 over 20 years have resold.

Which brings me to an interesting tidbit I was thinking on the other day - that two of my biggest successes of the last 5 years have been nearly inadvertent, near misses.  

In Saugerties, when I bought 16 lots in 2 tranches of 8, the transaction was occurring just as covid was springing forth its bountiful wrath.  I had already purchased the first 8, and the 2nd 8 were set to close in 60 days, and I did everything in my power to get out of the deal, since I personally had no idea where the market was going, and I was of the mind-set pre-covid (2020) that the sales environment was going to get rough, and was preparing to stay prepared for a rough spell - I think we were building a half a dozen smaller homes.  The last thing I wanted to be was the guy holding 16 parcels of land (with borrowed money) as the market churned to a stop.

The NYC seller, who had owned all 16, would have none of it.  A sophisticated seller with a tough attorney, they were going to hold my feet to the fire and sell these lots to me whether I liked it or not.  This was March and April.  So I bought them.  Turns out these $40k-$60k lots were a good mine, as the Covid restrictions and fears pushed people upstate in a gold rush like volume.  Soon, everyone was buying land; soon, everyone was buying homes; soon, lots of builders, designers and developers were seeking out land.  And the cost was going up, quickly, and more than that, there was never a lot of land available, and it was becoming scarce rapidly.  Prices for that $50k piece of land now ranges from $185k-$300k, and there’s not much to choose from.

What that did for Catskill Farms was give us a ton of land to project our building schedule - we weren’t out searching and competing for land - we owned it, we could show it, we could couple it with a house and sell it.  And that we did - one after another after another after another  And we were doing the same at several spots across our building area.  We put up a shit ton of houses.  

Same thing but different up in North Branch/Fremont NY, where I had a deal that was so good I had to buy it, but again, didn’t really want to.  I think it was 300 acres - already subdivided - and ready to go.  But before I bought it, I unsuccessfully tried to find a partner, and after I bought it, I tried like hell to find a buyer for the whole thing.  Unsuccessful in both efforts, I did what I go best - double down, hold my breath, work like hell, and build the damn thing out.

Turns out, while a ton of work and a ton of risk, both projects (and others going on at the same time) were hugely profitable - and I was still selling at under true market value of what real estate was going for since, I was making deals on unbuilt homes that would take 8 months to monetize, and the market was going up like crazy in those 8 months - especially at the beginning when my prices started at $450k and then $550k and then $650k and then $950k (in 2024 when I finally caught up mostly with them market).  You start making $200k-$300k a house and you start building real wealth.

But the point of the story is that it only happened because I got stuck in deals I was dying to get out of but turned into the best things that ever happened to me - being loaded up with great land when the great covid rush hit.  I wouldn’t get the reward with venturing out into the deep seas of the flat earth first, chartering and navigating by the stars and currents.

I had a couple of things working for me - 1, I was used to death-defying risk-taking, 2, I had a great bank (Jeff Bank), 3, I knew the market inside and out, 4, I had a great marketing machine I could switch on, 5, I had a good foundation of a team to get the work done and monetize the opportunity, and 6, I had been doing this for 2 decades, so had a lot of soft relationships with engineers, building departments, utilities, etc…  To scale, this was not the time to build relationships, this was the time to leverage ones you had built over many projects.

I’ve probably written this here before the clever analogy I came up with during this time or shortly after - that for many businesses, Covid was like being on a raft in the salt water ocean - there was lots of water (potential clients) but you couldn’t drink it because is was salt water (capture the business) - yes, your phone might have been ringing off the hook but because of a lack of business infrastructure, cash flow, employee recruiting acumen, production process - you weren’t able to scale and the only thing you got good at was saying ‘no, can’t do it’, or worse, saying ‘yes’ only to fail to finish properly or finish at all.

This was when having a business degree, a communications degree and 20 years of experience helped - we scaled, we met the moment, we executed, at the highest level, at the highest RPM, with our steering wheel shaking and our hands gripped tight - we scaled, we met the moment, we surfed that incredible wave of demand that swept right through our hood.

Charles Petersheim, Catskill Farms (Catskill Home Builder)
At Farmhouse 35
A Tour of 28 Dawson Lane
Location
Rock & Roll
The Transaction
The Process
Under the Hood
Big Barn
Columbia County Home
Catskill Farms History
New Homes in the Olivebridge Area
Mid Century Ranch Series
Chuck waxes poetic...
Catskill Farms Barn Series
Catskill Farms Cottage Series
Catskill Farms Farmhouse Series
Interviews at the Farm ft. Gary
Interviews at the Farm ft. Amanda
Biceps & Building
Catskill Farms Greatest Hits
Construction Photos
Planned It
Black 'n White
Home Accents at Catskill Farms, Part 2
Home Accents at Catskill Farms, Part 1