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

This has been a fascinatingly complex week of leadership running the gamut of pro se representation of a legal complaint I made as a Board of DIrector at our Milford Property Owners Association, I had our annual membership meeting at the Crest HOA- a 12 home project on 200 acres just north of North Branch NY - an HOA I’m the president of until I finish building up there, I had a worker’s unemployment hearing that resulted from two previous denials of benefits to this long-departed employee, I had a long overdue meeting with the local utility company to provide electric to 6 of my homes, and I ran for a position on my condo board in St Petes.

All of these items took a different skill set, but skill set indeed.   Some were wins, others were losses, still others (most) will be determined at a later date (court stuff).  Once you don’t mind losing, you can actually get a lot of stuff done.

I also found 2 more pieces of land to buy, bringing my buying spree to 7 pieces of land to be discovered, negotiated, contracted, due diligenced and purchased before November 1st.  Buying land comes with all sorts of starting guns - surveys, septic engineering, deciding which house to pair with the land, sometimes deciding which client in the queue to pair with the land, meetings, walking the land - dreaming up what could be, at what price, in which house style.

Certain pieces of land clearly yell for a certain house style.  Others are more flexible and still others only accommodate a certain house.  A lot depends on the grade and topo of the land.  Gently sloping is best; a steep slope can be accommodated.  Some of the toughest pieces are at first glance the most straight-forward - flat pieces of land look easy, until you try to get gravity fed drainage, or gravity-fed septics, or a walk-out basement - all benefit or even require some sort of sloped land to make everything work right.

What is also a bit counter-intuitiveness is the sense of privacy - heavy wooded and treed parcels don’t necessarily give you the most privacy - especially if it’s a deciduous type of forest.  Tree trunks, bare of leaves, don’t create much of a visual screen.  What is very useful are small or low hung pines or hemlocks, and even better than that is thick mountain laurel which can create an impenetrable visual screen - sucks to hike in before we clear it out for the house, but after that, provides a lot of privacy for these 4-6 acres homes sites. 

Friday night lights.

When I walk onto a piece of land, all my senses are firing imbued with 25 years of evaluating land.  Getting out of the car, with my dog, and walking the land.  Front to back, side to side, criss-crossed and back again.  Looking for deficiencies that can’t be fixed, looking for a neat building site with natural features be a view line, a big rock, a gentle slope.  Evaluating the utilities on the road - is there internet, is there even electric.  What do the neighbors look like?  It would seem having no neighbors on adjacent properties would be optimal, but that’s not always, or even usually the case.  I’m ok with the adjacent properties having houses or improvements on them, because then I know what I’m dealing with and can evaluate it in real time - can I see the house, is it kept up, are they weekenders, junky, neat, an asset or liability to what I might do?  When it’s a vacant piece of land, you never know what some idiot might come and do too close to your property line.  People do not use their brains in this type of work, especially homeowners- they don’t know or maybe care about the impact of their ‘improvements’ on neighboring properties.  It’s foremost in my mind, and a lot of times what we do either has no impact on our neighbors or has a positive impact on the value next door with little to no disturbance of the peaceful existence they may have been enjoying.

I’ve now developed over 300 pieces of land - typically one building lots of less than 7 acres with direct road frontage to a town maintained road.   That’s the low-risk way to go in this uber-risky business - buy the land, engineer your septic, know your property lines, get a driveway permit, submit your building permit application and get building.  As opposed to ‘subdividing’, this is by far the quickest in and out of an investment cycle, with little in your way except your own construction production capacity and skills.  Little in the way of municipal interference except building inspections.   You are propelled or hemmed in by your own skills and team when you engage in what I do and how I do it.  If imitation is a form of flattery, we are being flattered all over the place, with some companies like Western Sullivan Properties - a well-financed group with their hands in a lot of upstate business initiatives - they didn’t even try to conceal or improve on what we do/did - just made a copy of it and went head to head with us.

This will be an interesting story to follow - the Western Sullivan Properties story - because the dollar signs flashing from a few of their successful new build home sales motivated them to take a big swing and they now have 8-10 houses going that will be for sale.  I’ll be watching closely for sure since to do such volume they had to compromise on some of the land selections they made since there just isn’t enough of these 1-off pieces I like to find - so they found some views on a big farm - some views that at the same time greatly diminish a sense of privacy, and they are building a bunch of homes within earshot and eyeshot of each other.  Me, picking the land and placing the homes is an art - when you bastardize that in order to continue to have land available for your now-efficient construction crews, you can get jammed up, but you can be 5-7 homes into your plan before you realize it.  It’s tough to balance - after a lot of blood and sweat and tears you put together a real construction team, and you want to put them to good work and build some houses and take advantage of the team, but at that same time that can inadvertently leave you in front of your skis in a marketplace that can be very unforgiving.  I’m sure, since they aren’t original by plan, they saw our Crest project and misconstrued what we did up there - yes, it had some open fields but I spent a lot of time using the terrain, and slopes and hills and grass and large parcels to have the houses play nicely with one another- complement not intrude.  A real test of my skills of house placement and privacy tolerances of my clients.

Just read in our local newspaper that our local radio station is closing one office and reducing programming across the board due directly to funding cuts from the Trump Administration.   This radio station - Radio Catskill - has been a beating heart, integral part of the Sullivan County vibe for decades - broadcasting from a small studio in Jeffersonville and now a larger one in Liberty.  The cultural impacts of these budget cuts on the fiber of small towns is real, and I might be even ok with it if it was being done honestly in an attempt to curtail federal spending, but that isn’t the case, it’s easy to see.

The red hot rental market are not red hot anymore, and I can’t really figure out why.  I have a house in Phoenixville - literally one the best small towns in USA - and it’s just sitting there, unable to find a renter even though I lowered the rent to what I thought was a great deal, allowed pets, cleaned it up, etc…  My realtor warned me about the softening rental market but I never expected nearly 8 weeks without a qualified applicant.   And I have two more in the same area coming on line shortly.  This is when you are happy your rentals are fully paid for and you aren't living month to month on the rents, because you could very quickly find yourself in a poor position, especially if you had multiple units like I do.  Instead, while a bit frustrating, I look at the situation with an air of curiosity rather than distress.  Yes, the money flow decline is a bit disheartening, but I make plenty of money on other streams and whenever I’m paying a bill or not receiving income as expected, I really focus on my 50% tax bracket.  It’s a successful psychological trick I use on myself - though trick is a strong word since it’s very real - if I was supposed to receive $5k in rent, it was only going to be in reality $2500.

As I watch my NY529 funding for Lucas creep up and past $400,000 with principal and interest, I’m at an interesting way station of my savings journey, since Lucas won’t need half of that most likely, based on his lack of academic rigor and effort.  So It will be there for his kids, x4 since it will have 30 years to grow.  So I should stop funding it each month, but it’s such a habit it’s hard to just stop.  I think the same will be true when I stop working and begin calculating my retirement spending - it will be hard emotionally to eat into the principal of my savings after spending 30 years building it up, protecting it, growing it, defending it.  But unless I’m going to leave Lucas more money than he needs, or plan on giving it to the local dog shelter, I’m going to need to spend it and that will be hard.

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I’m nearly done reading The Color Purple.  I thought it was some horrific tale of Black America, one so dire I’ve never seen the movie, but as of right now, it’s just a good book.  I’m hoping the last 80 pages doesn’t drop some horror bomb.  The life led by most people who have ever lived are barely comprehensible in our American hammock of comfort and convenience. I'm either moving onto The Jungle next or War and Peace.

Also reading A Time to Grieve which bills itself as meditations on grief.  Unflinching and direct, probing, it picks at the open wound and validates, instructs and calms with perspective.   It’s a tough but important read.

Nothing bothers me more than getting my car serviced and they don't reset the Maintenance Required soon. Seems like an easy win for the mechanic's shop.

I'm making a concerted effort to 'unsubscribe' to every piece of email I receive that I don't want - It will be interesting to see if it makes a dent in the inbox inflow. I think it will, but it is a daily effort that's for sure keeping up with it.

Ugh, having dropped an important pass in the end zone when I was 17, I hate seeing games lost by an unusual mistake - the missed Tennessee FG against a rival, the missed extra point by Notre Dame.  I like a good game as much as the next guy - I hate a scapegoat more than most.

It’s hard to tell what's real or not anymore on social media apps like TikTok or Instagram, but today I came across one that had Trump and Prince Charles sitting in a manicured and deeply green yard with a band marching and playing Trump’s campaign song, YMCA.  It seemed so fantastical I doubted its reality.  And if it was real, was it to gain favor with pomp and circumstance with an easily flattered man or just a way to have a little fun with everyone in on the joke including Trump?  Got me.  The world is so inside out upside down who knows anymore.

Just driving around Sullivan County doing our survey and septic due diligence on a beautiful Tuesday.

I’d like to say it’s just the kids who feel the nag of the phone after a few minutes away, but it’s me for sure too. I’m probably better at recognizing the notion, but I’m still tugged by it, especially after doom-scrolling for a little while.  I didn’t really know what doom scrolling was/is - I’m told it’s just spending a lot of time on an app, but to me the phrase feels more like when you watch too many videos about Gaza or police encounters, or people stuck in caves while cave diving - I don’t know why watching videos of new bulls being dropped off at a new yard of eager heifers, or families that make music together, or babies and their dogs would be considered ‘doom- scrolling’ - but that’s what my nearly 17 year old is telling me.

I’m astounded at the number of people who don’t have their estates in order. The more I ask, the more I’m astounded.  Smart people, savvy people. I’m asking everyone now - every employee I have, every small business partner I have - do you have a will, and do you have life insurance?  I’ve already gotten 3 men to act and get it together.  A man without a will and some simple term life insurance is a man who really isn’t showing a lot of love to his family - it’s that simple. So it’s my mission now to make sure the people I have contact with have thought this out and gotten it taken care of.  It literally takes 60 minutes.  The shit-show I’m currently involved with has made what was always abundantly clear abundantly urgent.  I’m sure I’ll annoy a lot of people but that’s the cost of doing business with me from now on.

With the killing of the right wing guy, you can see why people want to ban TikTok - it’s just impossible to control the narrative as you can with cable news or newspapers.  As soon as one side deploys their press machinations of some narrative or another, here comes the army of TikTokers with a couple of million views debating and countering the MSM narrative.

Just planned a trip to FCU and OLB and ATH and EWR IAH to see Denver v San Fran.  Airport codes - Rome, Italy - Olbia, Italy - Athens Greece, Houston Texas, Newark.  Airport codes you learn as you plan some travel.  In May 2026 heading to Sardinia for a 6 day motorcycle ride, then 6 days on the Amalfi Coast and then 5 days on a little ship cruising around the Mediterranean with my 28 yr old nephew wingman.    Gonna miss him when he gets a serious girlfriend.

I once mistook the grocery store floor cleaning robot with the grocery store question and answer robot, so stood there posing questions to the floor cleaning one.

Anyone who has ever run a small business understands the ebbs and flows of headache, heartache and the sweet aroma of victory.  Not sure which - the ebbs or the flows - is considered the positive wave, but whichever, that’s what I’m riding right now.  Good team, good land, sunny weather, lower interest rates and some positive mojo momentum.  I think I’m due for a good run of it, if just by the sheer statistical overdue nature of it.  Yes, I’ve been making plenty of money, but that’s only one metric of success - having a little peace and quiet and routine and predictability and fun is another.

Lots of houses coming up. I keep telling new clients 'it's my last 10' - seems like it's true, hopefully it doesn't turn into one of those 'going out of business' sales tools that never actually happens. Seems less true than it did a few months ago, that's for sure. We will have to see how this wash and rinse cycle goes - land is expensive, construction is expensive, economy dicey, little more competition. I always do have an ejection button at the ready - our margins are gross enough (as in gross margins) that I have a lot of wiggle room for a sales negotiation if push comes to shove.

Before there was Catskill Farms there was Chuck in NYC, ill-fitted, ill-suited, ill-prepared for big city life. But I learned a lot, a lot of it sort embarrassing in the rear view mirror. But I happened to be working in Soho at the Scholastic HQ that was being built and I was at the breakfast bar up top, with a pretty view south towards the towers when all hell broke loose. The next day I made my way down there, having grabbed some Cen Hud yellow coveralls as diversionary disguise - not that there was a lot of perimeter enforcement at the time. Scary, cause buildings were still falling, creaking, moaning and falling over.

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The yellow envelope says "Directions to Country Clubs".

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I spent the day down there, helping on the bucket chains, roaming an empty building, taking some photos on a real camera - no iphones yet.

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Names of those lost from one company etched in real time on a dust covered window.

You know you are feeling mortal when you take a look at your 90 page living trust and identify a hole in the detailed plan - that hole revolving around what if me and my son die together or at the same time, or what would happen if I would pass, and then he would pass without a will or beneficiaries (meaning, pass young).  Turns out in PA where I live, my estate would then be considered ‘intestate’, and governed by the rules of the State, the exact opposite of what all this planning is about.  And here’s the thing about all you aghast at even the thought of this - there is zero correlation between planning and dying.  We all go sometime - fade off into that bright light, down that long tunnel. There is no living without dying - one defines the other - one makes the concept of the other possible.  Good planning is just that - good planning.  And I’m a planner and give a lot of credit to good planning for making all this all possible.

Monday night gravel ride in Milford. 5 miles in, 5 mile out. My Strava failed to kick and I'm suffering from the 'if it's not Strava it didn't happen' feeling.

So, I’ve begun making a concerted effort in my iCloud email account to unsubscribe to every email that is junk or a mailing list I don’t want to receive (i.e., 85% of them) instead of just deleting them.  I’ll report back in a month if it changes the volume of junk emails I get.

We push ahead on the closing of 7 new pieces of land at prices about double what I’m used to paying.  That means a lot of things, but one of them is that it costs more money to buy them.  Obvious, yes, in theory, until you start writing the checks and the bank account starts dropping by 6 figures at every closing instead of after 2 or 3 closings.  Surveys, septics, walking the land, dreaming and envisioning what house will go where, what will the market support from a price vantage - reverse engineering the land and house package in order to back into the best play for the market at this particular time.

My home gym.

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“This particular time” to me currently means there are good buyers for the right homes at the right price and that right price is elevated for something special and profitable for our bread and butter 5 acres and a cool house.  Inventory remains low.  Buyers remain motivated.  Good houses sell.  Catskill Farms resales jump off the rack (the mature landscaping after a few years of ownership post-build and general love of property all our homeowners exhibit is clear to anyone and make the properties irresistible to prospective buyers).

Came across this resale on Rivka Road - A Ranch we built and sold in 2021/2022 during the Covid go-go times.  Nice house - in fact if memory serves me correctly, it was this father-daughter duo who took our one Ranch design, and stretched and tweaked it onto we had a new design, about 500 sq ft bigger, and we’ve never looked back.   I think they were Airbnbing this in the end, and that game just isn’t what it used to be - low margins, lots of work, picky clientele who are looking for a special amenity.  3 or 4 bedrooms with a porch is just a hard sell in this competitive space.  The $899,000 price tag is also interesting - a little lower than I would have expected, placing it solidly in the ‘profitable’ category, but by no means a grand slam.  I think we originally sold it for $710k, and was one of the homes in this 16 home project that began to come close to real market value. 

Out bushwhacking and scouting land.

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All during Covid, our prices lagged behind the market since our deals were made 9 months before the sales date, and prices were going up 5% a month - meaning a $600,000 price tag house was north of $700k market value when we sold it.  Meaning, I lost out on a ton of profit - but I was too busy to cry in my milk too much, and I’m careful, didn’t overprice, booked a ton of deals at good prices, crept my prices up house by house.  What it means is nearly everyone who bought from us in 2020-2023 have hundreds of thousands of dollars in equity in their homes.

I look at some other builders and they are literally leaving their clients under water, house after house after house.  Taking every nickel of value and finding a way to charge for it, wring it from their clients pocket to theirs.   Through almost purposeful inefficiency.  Our entire business plan revolves around being serious about time and price, and that’s actually just rare.  It’s easier to jerk people around with a smile on your face and grab every unearned nickel.  Someone should do a study on how much our clients have made off of Catskill Farms homes, vs the resale value of other builder’s homes.  

Lulu loves our daily off-leash walks in the Bashakill.

This inadvertent design leap and tweak I mentioned 3 paragraphs ago has happened more than once - we are working with a client with a good eye, who likes one of our designs, requests some changes, requests some more changes, and boom, before you know it, you have a new floor plan.  One of our favorite barn houses happened that way.  More than once as well someone - a framer, plumber - someone makes a mistake that provides a view for different layout and wallah, something new.  Same thing on the barn house - a framer made a mistake and the more I looked at it the more I realized the mistake could actually be a new half bath layout.  That’s the advantage of me being on the sites a lot - I catch things, and I know my homes well enough that sometimes a mistake provides an opportunity.

Many times good opportunities arise as you are digging out of a mistake.  The climb out of the mistake is steep, so you look for alternatives, and then there is a brand new lane to travel, and many times we never look back - the new alternative lane and route is better, more compelling.  But let’s not get carried away - many times a mistake is just a mistake and you have to through a bunch of money at it to fix it.

The big house on a lake in Fremont, just north of Callicoon and North Branch, is coming along nicely and quickly.

Now that I got this all figured out, have a pretty dynamic team, have the modular pool income stream, and look back at where I was 10 years ago - another 5-10 years of this just might be doable. Although it is getting a little annoying/concerning as members of my team - suppliers, vendors - get up and retire, leave us scrambling to fill their big shoes, many times unsuccessfully. We've been replacing some with younger newer teams, but some it's hard to see replacing them with similarly talented teams.