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

I think I’ve decided that Mondays are the best days for Christmas and New Years Holidays.  Gives you that natural and extended weekend without ruining the whole week.  Now that we’ve staffed up, it’s hard to give out non-work days with abandon - just too expensive.

Geez, what started as a pretty good run of sales has now turned into a quasi-tsunami.   I know a lot of people read several blog posts at once so they sort of run together, but my efforts of composing and posting them seem like extended timeframes between with me having little memory of what I wrote just the post before.  I have no doubt I linger on certain topics before moving on, since that’s how I figure things out - toss them around in my mind until resolution arises.

I’ve probably been writing about some recent sales but with another $3.3m in just the last 10 days (merry christmas to me) things are really looking like 2021 all over again for us - and this time only us.  In 2020-2022, anybody could make money - there was land available, there were subcontractors available, there were buyers galore.

Now the buyers still exist, but they have regained their heads and are returning to value - which is fine with me, since that is what we do.  We didn’t catch the highest price wave like some souls did, but we keep plugging along and the tortoise and hare story couldn’t be more apt for our 20 year journey.  Our prices don’t go down, and only increase proportionally to our costs - and that seems to work out pretty well.

I often say I attribute a lot of my success to my ability to communicate and walk in another’s shoes and see it from their perspective.  This is true, but I’ve also come to see where it isn’t true - and one of those voids is realizing how some of our clients don’t realize, or perhaps don’t care, the blood we sweat on their behalf.  Coming from a blue collar upbringing, my inherent respect for my team's effort is just woven into every conversation I have, but that’s not true for many of our clients who perhaps have never actually had direct contact with an electrician, framer, plumber, sheetrocker and have little to know view into their workdays and lives.  So, I find myself with half a chip on my shoulder whenever a client ‘disrepects’ the team, since their many times super human efforts are so plain for me to see.  It’s the nature of the business, and it’s a bit irreconcilable.

That’s why when you really have a MasterClass client like those in the home we just finished in Hillsdale just south of Hudson NY, or over in Stone Ridge, or Up in North Branch, it’s just really refreshing.

Then I proceed to ask myself why I’m such a baby - all in all, we have tremendously grateful and resourceful clients who combine their talents with ours to create some of the best and sustainable value in the Catskills.  And this is entering its 3rd decade.

I listen to a lot of personal finance guru Dave Ramsey, and I agree with a lot and disagree with a lot.  There is the counter-Ramsey effort out there, pointing out that with home prices at historic highs and college costing 5x what it cost just 15 years ago, that his ideas are simplistic and dangerous and insulting.  I agree with him and his detractors.   He’s opened my eyes a lot to the the power of debt-less living and some of the macro marketing and corporate negative influences that we have normalized as Americans.  But some I think are very over-simplified, or actually wrong.  

One of them is the idea as a way to avoid auto debt - truly the curse of middle-class wealth building - you should buy they cheapest car you can find.  He has a word for it - a slang for a low-cost embarrassing to drive but affordable car.  Just can’t think of it currently.  But I know for a fact how costly and disruptive car repair and breakdowns can be - I see it among the many tradespeople I work with - so the idea that someone should just go out and buy a beater and take that risk of expensive repairs is really gambling and playing with fire.  It’s oversimplistic, and prone to lead to disaster and setback.  There is no ‘baby step’ progress or ‘debt snow ball’ progress when you can’t get to work and have a $1700 car repair bill on a car that’s worth $2000.

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I just deleted 49,728 emails that were in my Outlook “Other” folder, which is an email folder where Outlook moves incoming email that is not ‘primary’ and also not ‘junk’.  It works pretty well, except with the volumes of emails we all get, “Other” is not a much better place to land than ‘junk’ if you are a ‘sender’, since who routinely gets to check that, when it’s hard enough staying up with your Primary.  So currently, I’m deleting the entire “Other” inbox that I suspect has a fair amount of interesting emails in it, just maybe not emails from individuals - mostly lists I’ve signed up for over the years such as Delancy Place, a daily email that provides a quick and interesting review of some book - I enjoy it, and the reviews are a place to learn about the book and general time and place it takes place (both the writing and the topic).

But, who needs Delancey Place to remind you of how slow my reading has become and how many books I’m not getting to?  I nearly always have a good book going but God if I read 4 pages at a seating that a lot.  That means each book takes forever to finish.  But, the consolation is that I’m reading, which is important and has always been important.  I probably digest as many written words as anyone I know, and definitely as many or more from the actual printed page be it a newspaper, magazine or book.

I’m reading Demon Copperhead right now, another book by Barbara Kingsolver.  I read The Poisonwood Bible last summer, and enjoyed it enough to move right into another by her - separated by a mostly failed attempt to get through 1000 page non-fiction account of the beginning of the oil industry - fascinating for sure, and to be more fair to myself, making it 300 pages before needing a break isn’t terrible in my book (forgive the pun).

I’m currently at the Biltmore, the 175,000 sq ft 245 room Vanderbilt mansion in Asheville North Carolina, where the temperate climate brought George Vanderbilt here in the 1870’s, where he then built this home that opened for Christmas in 1892.  Of all the things I’ve learned, the macro thought of how quickly these guys built their fortunes caught my attention. Oil, rail, steel, transportation - this went from zero to largest fortunes ever seen in less than 30 years.  George V was the grandson of the Commodore, aka Cornelius, the patriarch transportation mogul who rode the acceleration of travel speed and option into a conglomerate only rivaled by his fellow Robber Barrons, Rockefeller, Carnegie, Frick, and others. 

We did their Christmas Extravaganza package, and it’s funny, when you aim that high, you need to nail it, and I’ll give them a B, only because the level of service that type of package ambition implies is hard to pull off.  Just nice to see others falling short of their ultimate vision too.

Not sure if I wrote it before, but 2024 is shaping up to be along the lines of 2021 in terms of business and profits, and 2021 was a gigantic year by any measure, including the highly compensated NYC professional.  With 6 homes already in contract and being built and another 4 under construction with buyers yet to be identified.  We are by far the best at what we do.  Homes constructed, homes sold, homes resold, homes reserved, duration of the effort, - all adds up to an extended effort of perseverance, improvement and success.

My annual dinner party at my home in Milford was a big hit, 3rd year running.  Oversubscribed at 31 people, we learned that my home can accomodate that type of crowd, a fact I was unaware of before.

Back home on the 27th, heading out to work with the office colleagues, tying up loose ends and organizing for the new year.  It’s raining here today.  It has rained weekly for months.  Deluges, complicating my life as we move earth and machines.

Well, we are finishing up a project in Columbia County, a county we like working in and probably has a lot of opportunity for us, but, not an easy lift in terms of logistics.  Pretty far from the team.  That being said, I don’t think we’ve used that as an excuse once, in fact, probably the opposite where we flooded the zone more often than not, just in terms of allocating as many resources as possible in a consolidated fashion.  I camped out a few nights in my Van camper, and I know the electricians spent a few nights up there in a local campground.  Good team.  Proud to be associated with them.   

This home was fun - first, the clients were awesome.  Gold Star, Masterclass level.  2nd, they zeroed in on a cool design we hadn’t built in years, and had only built once.  So we were able to pull it out of the archives, dust if off, look at with eyes that have seen a lot since it was last built 10 years ago meaning lots of large and small improvements could be made and were made.  And then during and now at the end of the project, really were validated that this was the right design for the clients, and good design overal, and the changes we made to update it were spot on.

This is a growing trend for us, one I like.  People, in the later stages of life- retired but still spry (here’s looking at you Pat!), selling some suburban home they’ve lived in forever, and selecting us to build on of our designs for them.  It’s cool.  It’s validating.

Looks like we got another deal popping at Ashokan Acres - that will make 4.   Only 5 lots left till I’m out of lots in Ulster again, which will suck, since it’s a good market for us.  Buying 3 more lots in Narrowsburg.  Have created 6 more lots in North Branch.

I head into NYC this weekend with my son and two of this friends.   Lucas and I have been doing this since he was 2 months old.  I’m sure we missed a year or two, but not many for sure.  I have my annual dinner party at my home in Milford PA on Thursday, and then off the Biltmore in Asheville to spend with a secret admirer (I know, I know, that doesn’t really narrow it down there are so many).

For some reason, I haven’t had a drink since last April.  I didn’t really try to abstain, but here I am 8 months later and not a drop. I don’t know what miracle I was expecting, but it whatever it was, it didn’t happen.  I didn’t drop 10 lbs, I didn’t sleep a whole lot better, I guess I saved some money, and I’m sure there are mental health benefits, but nothing earth-shattering, write-home-about impacts.

I’m not a big fan of the stock market.  I have a decent amount in equities but the ups and downs of the market bother me more than it should, considering my exposure - or lack of- in terms of proportion of investable $$.  So, I’ve pulled back some to a conservative old man 60/40ish stock/bond split, so when there is a run like there has been recently, I get a relative ‘meh’ bump in portofolio value.  However, that’s ok, because I know my customers are probably invested more aggressively, and their improved sense of finances helps them pull the trigger on a home and a new home sale for me makes even good stock market returns looks silly and modest in relation.

Looks like another deal or two in the works. That gives us a pretty significant queue of deals for next year.

I do a lot in a day.  Here’s some of it:

Sullivan County - 

• Backfilled a new foundation in Narrowsburg, a house that quickly went into contract.

• Laid out 3 new homes on 3 new pieces of land in Narrowsburg I am purchasing.  Marked driveways and house clearing locations, as well as dug deep pits for septic engineering.
• Checked up on 2 underground electric projects we have been waiting months for the poles to set.  Poles set last week, this week we dug, now we pester NYSEG utility until we get electric.
• Continued with the fireplace and siding work at the Wanger residence in Forestburgh, as well as the rough mechanical plumbing work.

Ulster

• ¾ done with a ¼ mile long underground electric trench in Olivebridge.  Every hurdle possible encountered - hard rock, lots of rain in an open trench.  3 days turned into 3 weeks.  Ugh.
• Installed a kitchen at Farm 74.  For Sale
• Finished the 2nd accessory building we are including in some of our homes.  A 150 sq ft structure with big doors, windows, insulation, electric and heat.
• Continued framing a house at Lot 7, Ashokan Acres.  Under contract.
• Siding, and rough electrical work at Lot 6, Ashokan Acres.  Under contract.

Columbia

• Finishing up the Kaufman residence in record time.  

Administrative - 

• 9 employees, payroll, bills, mail, ordering, designing, warrantying.
• Couple of sales calls
• Couple of calls with attorneys, surveyors, accountants and what have you.
• Managing a rental portfolio of 6 homes.

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