Catskill Farms Value
Back from Mexico, 2 hours south of Cancun, in a small gentrifying village of Tulum, in the Yucatan. Pretty spectacular, and the peso is not as demoralizing as the euro. Conceivably, what makes our homes more attractive is many faceted. First, many times the opportunity exists for a collaboration between myself and the new owners, satisfying the craving many people have to design something- what's better to design than something that will be there forever. 2ndly, search high and low and buyers can't find homes that match the architectural uniqueness of our homes. That uniqueness comes from constant experimentation with processes and materials, as well as the unique chemistry between Catskill Farms and the new homeowners, and what each respectively bring to the design phase. 3rdly, we price them right. I am a student of the real estate market, and we neither shoot for the moon with our prices or firesale them. We work hard, efficiently, intelligently, and toss all the savings of our process into the sales price. Show me one construction contract that is structured where the builder pays for everything - no surprises. 4th, we do our best to stand behind our work. Like the local old-timer real estate tycoon Gib McKean has said - 'you can't eliminate the problems from construction, but you have to minimize them, and address them.' Standing behind your work is important anywhere, but up here in the sticks, it's rare to take the responsibility as seriously as we do. 5th, although most of the customers get to enjoy a thorough design and architecture process, they don't have to pay for. I pay for the drawings, and from there we collaborate, free of charge, until the house is finished to customer specifications. It's a $15,000 savings at least, and a true advantage to working with a builder who has good taste (rare.). 6th, I pay for all taxes and interest costs during construction. All in all, a strategy focused on the needs of our clients - they want a house, they want it to be a great house, they want it quick, they do not want the process to take over their lives, and they do not want to pay out the nose for it. That's fine with me - and is seeming to work out well for everyone - since in these trying economic times, we are selling our houses quicker than we can design them. Happy Holidays.
Thanksgiving
This post is long over-due, since this is not a picture of a Christmas gathering, but rather Thanksgiving at our home at Chapin Estate. My uncle, dad, mom, stepmom, Juan, Amy, Lisa, my bro and his entourage of 4 kids, a wife and dog.
Marching On through the Storms
Ouch! Since the last weekend in October, the weather has beaten us up pretty good. Snow storms, ice storms, rain storms, freezing temps, warm temps, etc... On a daily basis at this point we are needing to employ our best winter weather management techniques. Take a large 2 wheel drive box truck filled with windows, insulation, sheetrock or whatever have you, add one part solid icy driveway, add one part unpredictability, add one part lots of trucks, vans, cars attempting to access the sites, park, manuever, turn around and you get a complicated cocktail of chaos. Snow is not so bad, but it eliminates parking areas for the tradesmen, meaning everytime someone comes or goes, someone else has to move their vehicle. The ice that is building up everywhere is a true foe, equally competent at causing logistical issues as well as safety issues. Putting on a roof after melting 1/2" of ice off, construction steps covered in black ice, ankle-breaking divots in the rough earth, soft spots, hard spots, things froze together, cold houses. This week we were attempting to install 2 roofs, among many other things. We encountered an ice storm on Tuesday, a blizzard on Thursday, and an ice/sleet/snow storm today. Onward we trudge.
Carr Residence Well Drilling
At the Carr Farmhouse, aka Farm #9, aka Lot 2, here is Peter Kestler drilling for water. Straight down into the earth with his boring machine, - first through the clay, then the hardpan, and in this case, after 100 ft - bedrock. Then down another 380 ft before hitting a Jed Clampett like vein of water - 100 gallons a minute when usually 10 glns per minute is considered great. if the Carr's ever want to open a 100 room hotel, they have the water for it.
Well drilling, along with quite a few others, is usually the risk of the home owner. Most builders will give an allowance for so many feet deep, and then the rest is the responsibility of the homeowner - the principle behind it being that no one can guess how deep you will need to go to find the water. However, as in many building contract scenarios, most contracts specify something like 200 ft, which for anyone in the industry knows is setting the homeowner up for that dreaded word - 'upcharge'. At $12/foot drilled, a very common 400 foot well would cost the homeowners $2400 extra.
At Catskill Farms, we don't play that game. We pay for it - period. The risk is ours. The customers can still have that leather couch they laid away, or in the case of Mr Carr - the concrete mixer he's been dying to buy.
