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

One would think this whole selling homes in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the greatest real estate bust and economic upheaval would run out of steam at some point for us here at Catskill Farms, but one thing is becoming increasingly clear - it ain't going to be 2010. I don't like to count my chickens (or homes sold) before the ink is dry on the contracts, and I've made my mark up here in the hills by never forgetting how difficult it actually is to develop, design, build and then sell (yes, it's all impossibly easy if you don't have to successfully sell it at the end) these homes of ours - the fear that "I'll never sell another", although one could argue that it's about time to 'get over it' since after 55+ homes in all sorts of implausibly daunting sales and business environments, that maybe I should just give us some credit and admit that whatever we are putting in the kool-aid is working well, tasting great to a wide-range of imbibers. Successful imbibers, talented imbibers, extremely diverse imbibers - all part of our impressive client rooster here at Catskill Farms. Looks like we are heading into the winter of 2009/2010 with a full list of persons signed up for homes - with any luck, we will have 5 homes in contract, under construction, and moving towards a late winter/early spring completion and closing. And that's pretty amazing - I wouldn't be surprised if Catskill Farms is selling more real estate than 4 out of 5 local real estate companies at the moment. My friend David keeps a widely read blog that tracks the average and median sales prices of area real estate, and nearly zero of our $15m of real estate sold has ever been reflected in his statistics because he only studies and tracks sales that happen through the MLS (multiple listing service) and we sell most of our homes privately. So one could argue that the most credible real estate stats available for Sullivan County are measurable wrong and misleading because our homes - one home a month for the last 18 months - are not included. The fact that homes sell for about double the average price for the area only reinforces the argument that without including our sales, the stats are measurably incorrect. So, 5 homes of all different shapes and sizes - a big farmhouse (2400 sq ft), a traditional cottage (1280 sq ft), a traditional mini-cottage (960 sq ft), a loft like barn (1100 sq ft), and micro-cottage (800 sq ft). The diversity of what we are capable of, - the mix of what we offer - our desire to find a way for anyone who wants one of our homes - we take it serious, we find a way, we don't lose a buyer who gets what we do. And the thing about the varying sizes, the driving design premise behind the idea is to not sacrifice any detail or quality with the smaller homes, -the prices are lower because the homes are smaller. Even the little guys have whole house audio, security, wide plank floors, fireplaces, porches and decks, soy-based organic spray foam insulation, and at least 2 or more acres. These black and whites are composites of the homes that are heading into the ol' contract phase. Cottage 20, a smaller version of Cottage 23.

Mid Century 50's Ranch II.

Micro-Cottage 2.

And Farmhouse 12.

And Barn House #2.

It's not easy keeping it real with new designs every month, but by keeping it real, we are keeping it alive - and that is more than most businesses that play with real estate can say at the moment. And, to be honest (surprise, surprise), it's how we built this business - we do it the hard way with constant new designs, constant elimination of the middleman and constant pushing the envelope of what is possible in terms of value.

Because, in the end, we sell value. Not value as we define it with savvy marketing and bullshit taglines and logos (although we have those as well)- but value as defined by our customers - who seem to the best and the brightest in their respective fields and vocations. They are the ones casting the vote and identifying our homes and processes as value-oriented - and it may be old-fashioned to offer value and play to our clients intelligence, but that's just the way we roll here at Catskill Farms.

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I forget what movie that's from, but it's a good description of me and what makes our business run somewhat smoothly - as well as a great indicator of the maturation process of our business. There's not a situation that we can run into that I don't have some idea of who to call and how to extricate my way out of the perils of construction in the sticks. Here's are examples of some of people I know (of course, all emergencies happen at 8pm on a Saturday, really testing the limits of my pull and juice).

1. If you have a bat, or bats, swooping down from your attic which causes you and your wife to scurry outside and watch the bat shadows in your baby's room like a bad Hitchcock movie - I know the guy to call who will climb into your attic on all fours and talk sweetly to the bads while capturing them on sticky paper.
2. If your wife walks outside to the mudroom porch and finds 12 baby snakes snaking around, I know the guy to call.
3. If your cat climbs up a tree 75' high -too high for a firetruck or a bucket truck - I know the local tree guy who can climb that tree, rescue the cat, fight off the scaredy cat clawing, and descend the tree before you have time to run into the house and grab your camera.
4. If you look your keys in your car while it's running, I got the guy to call.
5. If you need helium balloons asap because the ones you ordered before are now flying over Eldred.
6. If the DEC informs you to hire a rattlesnake expert, a mussels expert, a bald eagle specialist, and a wetlands naturalist in order to build a few homes, I know the home number for all of these specialists.
7. You need to dynamite some rocks to get a foundation in, no problem - I know the guy to call.
8. You need a guy to climb some trees in order to clear a path for your TV dish satellite quest, see # 3.

That's just a sampling of the people I've gotten to know over the years as I've built this business.

Catskill Farms would like to announce we now have a 5 home waiting list going into the winter - which means, more or less, 'suck it competitors' (not to steal a kathy griffith line). Sure Richard is building a great big barn studio for him and his pals and their music. And Daniel is designing and building a micro-cottage for some quiet contemplation. And Susan is living large in the small home high up outside Narrowsburg. And now Tony and Laurie have settled on our new mid-century cottage design, after circling us for years. And John and Wendy (and 3yr old and twins on the way) seem to have selected us as well to provide them with an upstate getaway. A description of the Shaker design premise -“The Shakers were seldom victims of fashion. Their buildings bespeak forthright, contemplative lives, freed from the influences of the outside world. Stylistic considerations were not high on the list of Shaker priorities; to the contrary buildings were designed to outlast the vagaries of changing tastes. They had to be efficient, easy to maintain, and give their builders a sense of serenity and grace from knowing that what they created was as close to perfection as humanly possible.

Nineteenth-century visitors wrote of the unity of design in Shaker villages. Developed according to the community’s standards and requirements, the buildings in a Shaker village are more consistent in appearance than those of the neighboring farms. Their clustering on the land, the way they relate to one another in function and scale, the consistency of aesthetic choices employed by Shaker craftsmen, all attest to that communal society of spiritual brethren and sisters devoted to creating an ideal life on earth.”

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Every where we go up here, every corner we turn, there's fabulous scenes like rivers, rushing water, mountains and what have you. Here's Cottage 23 coming to a conclusion, with a closing date set for late November.

Cottage 20 is a smaller version of Cottage 23, and as all our readers know, it will only be a few short months before this house welcomes a new owner - in this case, Susan.

Here's the foundation of a 980 sq ft mid century ranch house, currently unspoken for.

And Cottage 24 is moving right along, just waiting for some siding to finish up the exterior.

And the interior just passed the last inspection prior to the installation of the insulation.

We are hoping to get planning board approval on a new piece of land November 10th, and if that happens, we hope to get another 3 foundations 'in the ground' before winter's chill hardens the ground.

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