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

We got another one today. Another house closing, introducing another person to the glories of perfect country living in a perfect little house. If you remember back in November, I surmised that by following this blog over the next 2 months, a reader could have some added perspective to all the 'end of worlders' out there, spewing their toxic brew of pessimism, negativity and general self-indulgent projections based on the latest news article they read (or watched). Well, here we are, today, closing on the 5th of the 6th house we had lined up to sell. We are batting 1000%, not one deal fell through, or even got that hairy, complicated or fearful. I built a great house, we found the comparable sales (or even more intelligently, built houses for which we knew comps existed), our clients kicked it with some great and timely design collaboration, and then each and every one of them lived up to their word and when I was finished with the house, they bought it - immediately, without any problems. And that's the deal - a handshake, really - no bullshit. I'm going to build a great house fast, and when I am finished, you will buy it, without excuse. It's a serious process - and it's enlivening to see everyone working hard to fulfill their word - Dean, who is closing today on Cottage 13, on Friday the 13th, on Feb 13- the date of both mine and JamesK's birthday, and my attorney's b-day, and our good friend Amy's. During the final walk-thru at Cottage 13 the other day, Dean was telling the story about how he found our site one night randomly, decided then and there to buy one, called me up the next day, and sent $10k to 'hold his place in line'. It was a leap of faith on his part, doomed to complications and unmet expectations in most scenarios - but not this one, where his faith in what can be achieved with sincerity, hardwork, integrity and honesty was bolstered, renewed, affirmed. 100 pages of legal contracts is never as foolproof of two parties interacting honestly. Lisa, Lucas and me are on a road trip to Burlington, VT, one of our favorite out of the way destinations - about 5.5 hrs from Eldred, NY. Just in case you don't believe me,-

Pretty nice drive for a Thursday afternoon. Here's a view from our room out onto Lake Champlain.

And little Luke in our Living room.

A closeup of his red cheeks on the red sofa.

And a shot of the big full moon about 6am on Tuesday outside of Albert's farmhouse.

And me and Jack having a drink while watching the superbowl. Niether of us are super big sports nuts, but this was worth watching. It was Lucas' first. Behind me is a 'green frog humidifer' that Curtis bought for me - it humidifies by steaming out through its nostrils. Jack is the head school master at the terrific montessori school in Glen Spey NY. The school is one of the only private schools around and its located on 80 acres of flowers, gardens, sheep and trails.

In a pretty exciting development even for a person pretty used to exciting developments (both good and bad), Catskills Farms was awarded a pretty prestigous award from the Hudson Valley Builders Association - at their annual Pinnacle Awards, Cottage 8 was selected as the 'best new home under 2500 sq ft'. Now, we've won that award yr after yr up here in Sullivan County, but the Hudson Valley in a much more competitive playing field - Counties of Westchester, Rockland, Orange, Ulster, Dutchess - Towns of New Paltz, Chappaqua, Monroe, Rhinebeck, Red Hook, etc... It's a big accomplishment, and what's amazing is this builder's association plucked a house from way up in Sullivan County, but also that they chose a house that was 810 sq ft. In a era of McMansions, this was a major gesture to the future of homebuilding, and once again, Catskill Farms finds itself positioned well to take advantage of the next trend of homeowner preferences (small, modest, affordable). Although, when you think about it, it may be their next trend, but for us, it was our trend 2 yrs ago. I'm sure there will always be a living to be made when you consistently identify trends 2 yrs ahead of the crowd.

Below is the house we are selling today. The design was chosen from among thousands of possibilities, and its reality is as exciting as the aspiration of the sketch we started with. With its metal roof, weathered brown siding, stone cladding the foundation, and traditional porches, windows and trim, the house and design evolved into a home. Private, pretty, punctual and perfect.

Cottage 13 is about lines - vertical lines of the roof, horizontal lines of the siding up to a steep vertical climb of the structure, vertical porch rails, ...

The side view into the fireplace room and the kitchen, as well as the rustically designed back porch, to be screened in the the future.

Bucks County ledgestone rock, simple mantel, english chestnut floor with a satin sheen, looking into the kitchen.

The kitchen is simple and functioning, with higher than normal cabs on the refrigerator side and open shelves on the opposite. Plank white washed wood walls, subway tile backsplash behind the stove.

The Kitchen, seen as descending from upstairs.

Simple stone counter, faucets, sink and plank seamed walls. Couldn't be nicer.

A great big shower, with frameless glass door, seat in the shower, and 2 rain shower heads.

The all important mudroom, with double door closet, bluestone floors chipped retangular instead of irregular.

The downstairs bath, with the clawfoot tub, telephone faucet and shower curtain surround.

Kitchen shelves, radiator, dishwasher and farmsink.

Apron sink, looking out into the woods.

Radiator art, for keeping warm, drying out the boots and glooves, or to a quick butt heat boost by using is a seat. I love how these guys look - as far as I am concerned, it's like art.

So, there you have it - another house successfully designed, sold, positioned, built, and sold. Now, while that may seem like the exciting part, - to me - it's actually begins when the house enables a busy person to slow down, a stressed person to relax, a professionally myopic person to look around and see, smell and touch the wonderland of leisure.

I'm not making light of the frickin' depression (their words not mine), but when we tried to make reservations in Portsmouth New Hampshire at one of our favorite hotels, The Wentworth by the Sea, it was fully booked, as was its restuarant. Then we changed direction and headed north, and Burlington's Hilton was fully booked, and the Marriott overlooking the big lake didn't have many rooms remaining, and the place where we wanted to have an 8 course champagne tasting menu dinner on valentines day was equally full. Now, correct me if I am wrong, but that's a good thing, I think, and winds its way back to what I've been saying. Sure, we are going through a correction/recession/resetting or whatever you want to call it, but it has happened before, and unless this is truely the end of the line, America's future still has some blooming left to do.

Probably not the end of the line observations -

1. I am not having trouble financing my new or existing businesses.
2. My customers are not having trouble financing their purchases.
3. Hotels where I am traveling too are booked.
4. Most people still have jobs.

One of my customers gave me a big slap on the back the other day and thanked me for allowing him to buy one of my homes, because it kept him from putting his money into the stock market back in August.

Well, I need to get back to my relaxing, Dean is probably minutes away from closing the deal at my attorney's office, and all is well at Catskill Farms, where easy living grows and prospers in these hills called the Catskills

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Today was filled with Customers - Erin's first review of the Ranch now that it has seriously taken shape, Dean with his friend doing the final walk-thru on Cottage 13 before closing next friday (my birthday, Feb 13.- I was born in 1980 (not)), and Albert, Gus and Malin visited Farm 10 and their music studio, probably 2 weeks away from being finished. Here, Mr Squirrel is hangin' 10 on the deck at the office on a beautifully sunny Thursday morning.

Strike a pose.

Frisky and playful on the wicker furniture.

And Anouk, reliving the days past, doing some product placement posing after replacing the large water bottle at the water cooler corner.

Dean at Cottage 13, the last review before he owns it.

Dean's friend Tory looking out the kitchen window.

Erin signed up for our first Ranch, and she was delighted at the progress. It was a beautiful day up here today. We took a good look at the layout, the lighting design and started thinking about the chimney stone, the interior doors, the exterior door and the interior wood wall coverings. I'd expect this house to be hers in early May.

Albert and group took another look at their house on the hill, which will be his in 3 weeks.

Dean, Tory, James and Erin took a ride up the mountain to check out Farm 10.

This house reminds me of all the old farmhouses in my native land of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.

Farm 10 interior house picture.

The pretty cool music studio for Albert's bandmates.

Here's a new cottage we are building that doesn't have an owner yet - 900 sq ft, 2 bedrooms, 5+ acres, 2 streams - selling fo $225k.

And Cottage 21 - pond views, 6 private acres - 1300 sq ft and very cool.

There you have it - in the teeth of a recession, we are kickin' back and welcoming our new homeowners. Oh yeah, I forgot, according the tv news and newspapers, no one has a job and no one is buying anything.

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Hudson Valley Business Journal covers our journey - http://www.hvbiz.biz/archive/122908/cover12290802.php

Dean at Cottage 13 wrote us a nice email earlier this week -- "It's always great to come up and see the progress- I can't believe it's almost finished- it really is like my Mom said, like walking into a big hug." Definitely more encouraging than being verbally assaulted by a pair of homeowners with some ill-conceived grievance or another at Town Hall. With only 10 recorded real estate transactions in Sullivan County above $240k since the beginning of December, Catskill Farms is selling more than 40% homes successfully selling over the past two months. That's pretty amazing - 40% of the homes being sold are being sold by Catskill Farms and our incredibly talented team - from James who takes the heat for everything in the office, to Curtis who takes the heat for everything in the field, to Juan who more or less gets it done at the sites regardless of what it takes, to Deborah the gifted bookkeeper, to Anouk who helps me manage the myriad hurdles of any given day. And then there is me - more or less responsible for all the problems, victories, and failures experienced over the past 5 years, since we built our first new old house in Sullivan County. And there have been some real doozies - some real high victories like selling more homes by far than any other pretender over the past few years with just the advantage of an original good idea, a lot of risk-taking, and a lot of hard work to the extreme other end like over-leveraged parting of our dream homes. So, since we have been up here we have been taking huge risks - I mean, who did I think I was to try and build some cool houses in the middle of nowhere while living in a little shack without dependable electric or heat, and stray wild animals running in and out unexpectedly and certainly uninvited? Debt up to our eyeballs but our eye on the ball, we pioneered the new old house idea in this region, we pioneered the idea that a country home did not have to be a wreck of a house wrapped in a romantic notion of the fixer upper. We pioneered the idea the the real estate MLS was not the only was to sell a home locally, and then we really opened her up by producing a small, affordable, 2 bedroom 1300 sq ft perfect cottage - against all the conventional wisdom that said 'you need 3 bedrooms', ' you need 2 1/2 baths' , 'you need a bonus room', and 'you definitely need a garage' - always ending with - 'if you ever want to sell these houses.' 50 houses later - 50 houses. In 4 years. In the middle of nowhere. With a deepening recession making it rough since late 2006. Sure, that's when the bad news started dominating the newspapers, way back in 2006 - it seems like it is bad now, but it's all relative and it was just as hairy in late '06 with the first headlines about stalling sales, that continued through 2007, and then just kept getting worse through 2008 - and through it all we kept finding customers (or they kept finding us), we kept getting the construction financing, our customers kept getting their financing, and we just kept getting it done. We sold 13 homes over the past 10 months and while that may not seem like a lot, it's about 3x more per year then we had been selling - which once again stressed every aspect of the business - legal, engineering, architecture, construction, financing, etc... Then we pioneered the mini-house - under 1100 - which is proving to be more than enough house for part-timers. I'm not saying all this to be boastful or a braggart cause lord knows it takes a team to pull this off and I just happen to be captain. But we are selling houses successfully, at prices at the same level as last year, when all acros the country prices and demand are plummetting. We did three things right - we understood a market opportunity, we successfully reached out and educated that market niche, and we worked like crazy to get the house built. And I guess there is one other thing not to be overlooked - we kept it real, - really real - original, unique, one of a kind. And that is rare in this day and age of the 'easy way' first. And now to really show off our cojones, we have embarked on the construction of 3 new spec homes - a spec home being a home financed by the developer/builder without a buyer lined up. It's a testament to our credibility as a company that a bank would even lend us the money to do such a foolish thing - but doing foolish things against conventional wisdom has definitely paid the bills for us the past few years. And then, before we even had a chance to keep the houses under wraps (they were supposed to be top secret) -Erin traveled up from NYC, selecting the first design of our new mid-century ranch series. Hands up cause Erin's in the House. Introducing the Mid-Century Ranch - once we bring back the Ranch, we are going to attempt an even more challenging task, bringing Michelob back to the mainstream. Here she is - The Sketch -

The Reality-

5.7 acres, way up on a hill looking into the hills of PA, 1 mile from Barryville. 975 sq ft, 2 bedrooms, walkout basement, fireplace and big deck. The Ranch.

And Cottage 18, at 900 sq ft, also has 2 bedrooms, a stream, couple of porches and lots of other details that make life sweet.

The sketch -

The House, taken from sketched inspiration to real life house.

Selling for $225k.

And Cottage 21 - modeled after Cottage 8, which got so many rave reviews that we just had to do another iteration. This 1325 sq ft house overlooks a great pond, and will take a real arts and crafts approach to details and finishes.

And it overlooks a pond across the road. Selling for $340k.

And since we are talking about keeping it real and how originality is an important ingredient to our success, and originality can't really be faked - how about this piece of literary work from a local competitor builder? http://kenozalake.blogspot.com/ - started about 2 months ago by the group that has been unable to sell much at all over the past 4 years. Now granted, this blog from Kenoza Lake Estates in Kenoza Lake NY, in the western end of Sullivan County, might have just accidently picked the exact same tones and design for his blog - but I'm afraid it's doubtful - and regrettably, it's not about the blog design, but actually about the value produced and being offered. Words, as they say, are cheap (which with everything I got to say, would still add up to a healthy piggy bank).