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

Home showcase videos we are working on -
https://vimeo.com/showcase/catskillfarmshomes

(youtube - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVjkKYXNzVg5XBuxH_2J4dQ. - if we get to 100 subscribers we get to customize our channel url.)

We aren't a small company anymore.  We have a ton of obligations.  To our employees.  To our clients.  To our vendors.  The web of people and families and businesses that depend on us is really, not to exaggerate, is gigantic.

As the top, the owner, of a very non-top heavy organization, heavy lies the crown.  I'm in charge of the navigation.

So, we sail on, through the choppy seas.  At this point, beside our physical assets, and our intellectual property, and our top-tier employees, what gives us our most confident buoyancy is the depth of our relationships across a broad array of industries - banking, engineering, surveying, legal, accounting, financial planning.  These things don't matter - really just rather routine - until they do matter, and you do need to test the depth of experience of your team.  And when you find what you use on a daily basis to keep the motor turning is just the superficial surface of what they can offer, then, then you know you've got the team.

So, I hate to use the word 'fun', but it is something like 'fun', to see a path forward in the fog of this virus.  A path for my team, a path for our clients, a path for the interdependence of our process.

And I think it's called Value.  A Value born of 2 decades of concentration, hard work and dedication to providing the best we can.  Those are our roots and from those we return in these choppy waters.

Head down, clear eyed, no tricks or glossy oversold marketing.  Provide value, stick to your lane, and call on those relationships that we have built when the weather was clear.

We are selling homes.  2 in March.  3 in April.  2 more in May.  Signing contracts, making deals.   Made possible by our Value, but also our Team.  How many homeowners who built a house over the last 5 years won't have a builder to call when this is all over cause the company didn't survive?

Seems like we will be here.  Maybe a little hobbled, maybe with some tattered trousers or bullet-hole scarred jacket and a little emaciated, but my money is bet that we will be here, building homes, and putting people in them.  And if the past reflects the future, we may just end up stronger than before, with another notch in our belt for survival, like we did after 9/11, or the Great Recession, or a hundred smaller challenges we've faced daily over the last 20 years.

Dear Catskill Farms Clients, Fans, Followers and Admirers,

Without a doubt, the collection of families that are acquainted and supporters of Catskill Farms are a talented and unique bunch. Resilient, creative, smart, and hard-working. And interestingly, from what I’ve observed over the last 20 years, many times oddly insulated from these economic and social disruptions. I saw it after 9/11, I saw it during the Great Recession, and I’m seeing it now during this pandemic.

Assuredly, there is a lot of wide-spread distress out there. But there are many pockets of families and professionals that haven’t been impacted much if at all – and many of us who are lucky enough not to be impacted, are at the same time spending less money than we ever thought imaginable.

If you’ve been lightly touched by these events, and you find $1200/$2400+ from the Federal Government in your mailbox, consider donating it to one of the many non-profits that are being decimated by a reduction in donations.  One of my favorites is this equine therapy place in Milford PA -GAIT

Stay Well,

Chuck Petersheim

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Lulu,  my dog on the left, has a new friend, Izzy, on the right.   They play and play and play and play.  Lots of growling, running, rolling, nipping, chasing and fetching.

This home, ranch 36 in Kerhonkson, just went into contract.  We are just plugging along, staying in our lane, cautious but assured that we have a product that has sold in many different types of economic environments, and assured to know our margins are big enough that if we need to squeeze them, we can.  The same can't be said for most of our competitors, who can only exist in a boom-boom economy, because their prices are - by any historic measure - high.  We actually been able to raise our prices because of their lead, even with some skepticism of how long the party may last for them.

Funny byproduct of this pandemic is how much more time families are spending in their homes.   I mean, I guess it's not a secret, but one thing that makes our great homes awesome from a business plan vantage is how little they are used.  Take a home, put a fulltime family of 5 in them and all their friends and parties and get togethers - using each and every element and fixture and knob 12 times a day- , and watch how quickly the home has issues.  Our homes are used lightly, maybe 9 days a month, and a lot of families keep them in museum condition, so the warranty obligations and wear and tear on the home is just less.

But interestingly, now with families just camped out at their homes for a month plus, dealing with all sorts of emotions - boredom, sadness, crankiness, cabin fever, productiveness - we are getting a ton of emails from clients about this and that on their homes.  They aren't wrong - but frankly, it's more of a pivot of their use, and a perception of priorities, that is driving the warranty claims and house questions, not any increased or decreased quality of the home.  People are in their homes, bored, so why not write the builder!?  I get it, we are cataloging and will attack as necessary when the 'stay home' order is lifted.

Which brings me to my biggest spur in my saddle about this whole stay at home order.  Seriously, why is fast food open?  How can that be considered essential?

First, it's unhealthy from a purely nutritional vantage.

Two, from a virus spreading vantage, what could be worse than having the same cashier, and then the same food distributor touching the money, exchanging the germs, with the hundreds of people per hour that come through the pickup window?  From what I've seen, no gloves, no protocol after each diner, just business as usual with maybe now a glass partition and an ill-fitting mask.

How you can argue fast food is essential and not dangerous, but single family non-urban residential construction somehow threatens us all?  let me see here, fast food deals with hundreds of people per hour, single family construction is lightly staffed, lots of space, typically pretty solitary, and a lot of times outdoors?

Single Family residential construction is well-paid is well paid and provides the lifeblood of many families, yet here we have an industry (fast food) that is allowed to continue that barely pays a living wage, serves crap food, and has every opportunity to spread the virus (think of one server with the virus) vs well-paid, non-public facing hardworking tradesmen?  it's stupid, and it sort of pisses me off, and makes me wonder what type of game Gov Cuomo is playing, since he has always been serving some well-heeled master in the past.  He's smarter than this.

Happy Easter - here are some bible verses for the day courtesy of - wait for it - Country Living Magazine -
https://www.countryliving.com/life/a30705567/easter-bible-verses/

Yesterday, the sound and shrieks of sirens abounded.  It was frightening and LOUD, much louder than your typical emergency response.  Turns out, it was the Easter Bunny making her rounds on the 6 truck convoy.  Now, I may be just an old fuddy duddy, but shrieking sirens when everyones' nerves are on edge is not my idea of a party, though I appreciate the gesture.  I don't think most people knew what was happening so 'major emergency' was the primary thought.

So, I'm at an interesting juncture of my business journey to watch this virus calamity ooze through the economy and fabric of American life.  1, I'm not directly impacted on day 1 so I have some distance and hence some clarity, 2, I run a $8m / business so I have some sort of financial sophisticated lens to view this from, 3, I'm a student of both history and economic history, so I'm well-versed in panics and downtowns and how they play out, 4, I'm a student of small business, and know the terrain on which these companies tread very well.

First, wow, how can you group a $45k revenue business with no employees with a company that has 499 employees?  There is just nothing in common.   I don't who defines small business as companies with less than 500 employees, but I certainly don't.  I don't see how the same 1 trick pony works for both groups.

Two, I applied for the PPP with the help of a local bank.   We are not in dire straits like many companies, but at some point we will be impacted.  Because our production schedule is lengthy, our impact will probably be felt in September, when the homes we would be starting or progressing on now would be hitting the market or selling - and the only litmus test was a self-certification that your business suffered 'harm' - I mean, really, few businesses didn't.  But applying for it made it apparent how poorly thought out it was.  Sure, I get the idea that help was needed fast, but as I read through the program, it just feels the only way to get it through quick without ideological roadblocks was just to include everyone (applies to the unemployment program too).

Then add on top of it an administration who made it a point to hollow out the expertise of every department of the government, and somehow they are going to be able to administer this program just made very little sense.  I'm amazed at a lot of businesses really think this money is coming, coming quick, and without too many strings.   That's not me.  If I actually get the forgivable loan, I''ll put it in a CD for 6 months until the government actually starts forgiving the loans, because why would you trust a President to look out for small guy and live up to his word when he made his billions by not paying people, and especially not paying the exact small businesses getting this aid.  So it wouldn't surprise me to see the rules change mid-way through the game, after all these business received and spent the money, to find out the loans actually come with a lot more strings than first mentioned, and hey, pay it back - you can't expect your fellow americans to pay your debts.  Who really has a hard time believing that isn't at least a possible scenario here?

The real problem I believe is that this administration just isn't honest - so they say the tests are coming, and they don't.  They say the stimulus checks are coming, but they don't.  They say the SBA will process the loans the same day, and they don't.   What we all need is a sense of getting a firm footing, not this sifting sand approach.  It might work in politics, but it doesn't work in business, where hard facts and data (along with the hard-earned gut instincts of the businessperson) drive decision making, and where an approach that strays from that - where optimism and wishful thinking overshadow the facts on the ground - well, that has never proven to be a profitable or safe route.  Acknowledging the reality of the situation, and planning and strategizing around it is the only way, painful as it may be.

I guess, since we were on a 9 year economic expansion, many businesspeople have never faced the real headwinds that aren't in their control - sure, all businesses fight for client acquisition, navigate employee drama, struggle with their cash flow - but these decisions are made easier when there is plenty of money circulating in the economy.  Now, take away an 'awash in cash' economy, and put that on your sandwich and eat it.  It's a lot harder, for the primary reason is, it's not nearly as fun to contract and protect and play defense as spend spend spend and brag all about it.

Anyone can look good in a strong and healthy economy.   You see who really understands the nature of effort and risk and perseverance when things get hairy.  Or as the dangerous book for boys instructs - "Don't Grumble.  Plug On."   Easier said than done for those who haven't faced much hardship.