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

Now in Rome, which is fun, cosmopolitan, energetic and the May weather was exquisite.  Walked four miles and electric biked another 15.  I think the total tallies for my move-about - 1000 miles on a motorcycle (on and off road), 25 miles on an electric bike and about 40 miles walking around.  All the above were done in a somewhat random fashion of having a destination but a bit variable on how to actually get there. The bicycling specifically was done without charting a course, which makes sense especially as it was electric-assisted, meaning you can make up time or ground whenever you decide.  Walking that’s not true at all and when you want to be done, you actually don’t want to be 3 miles from home.  Even motorbiking you can’t go hog wild without a direction since you can end up a 100 miles in the wrong direction before you know it.  Biking without electric assist also has its limits since once you are tired, you are tired, and a hill is a hill.

Section E of Terminal 1 of the Rome Airport sends you through a curved gauntlet of a terminal, first leading you without escape through several Vegas-like brightly lit duty free shopping areas hawking everything but a postcard or Roma tourist stuff.

Rome was pretty, busy, entrepreneurial, hawkish.  A new item I hadn’t seen before being sold at street level were small battery phone chargers, which was pretty genius - though getting a real one I guess is a challenge (mine works fine) and randomly plugging a street item into your phone seems somewhat hazardous - 1, the damage it could do to your phone and 2, the ability to hack your phone with location and data stealing seems like it should be a real concern.  But not real enough not to be charged up.

I’ve stayed in a lot of hotels, and even a fair share of airport hotels, but this Marriott mid-way between FCO (Rome airport) was an experience.  The lobby was just gigantic, an open floor plan concept if there ever was one, with check-in, concierge, bar and big restaurant under the same giant frescoed roof.  It was also a bit in the middle of nowhere, while still being central to both the airport and the city.  Big chain hotel with a clear mission of keeping a large amount of guests well-spaced and comfortable. 

I hate my Beats head phones.  Either I have big ears, or I accidentally bought a kids set, or they are meant for someone different than me - but they hurt my ears.  They weren’t cheap but they sit on my ears instead of over them like my Bose or Sony’s do.  Makes no sense, which makes me think I’m missing something about them, since they are popular.

The Chatwal Lodge in Sullivan County in Chapin Estate is closing, with little notice or explanation.  First the Dream Hotel bought it from founder Steve Dubrovsky and his partners if he had any at that time, and they seemed to have flipped it to Hyatt, who seemed to realized the water levels on the lake have been depressed for a decade or more, meaning not only do the homeowners look onto a moonscape of water level hope and consternation but any guests primary takeaway would be ‘wtf, where’s the water?’

Remarkably, to me, who has outlasted most of these better-funded projects with my real local knowledge, was that someone, especially smart hospitality owners, would have fallen in for the idea that this project had a chance to be vibrant.  The salesmanship behind that would have been fun to see and probably involved a cowboy-owner wowing some Indians from the Sub-Continent (the Dream Hotel is from there I believe), taking advantage of their eager-beaver desire to be cool and American.  By the time it sold in 2017, a friend in the know told me he thought the original founder was bouncing checks things had gotten so tight.  And then wallah, a sale to a bunch a know-nothings - there’s always a sucker out there.  But who knows, maybe I have no idea what I’m talking about, wouldn’t be the first time.

While they aren’t in contract yet, we are moving very quickly into contract on $2.5m of homes I was just talking about in previous posts that are some of the primary goals of this years business activities, plus another $800k of previously signed, finishing up projects.  We had all year to get it done, and here it is in May - could be another one of those big big years that have become common-place, especially with the team I have in place right now, in the office and in the field.  It just occurred to me as well, if these deals happen, I’ve put nearly $5m in deals together in the last 90 days between my spec homes and our ‘your land our homes’ program.  Pretty serious accomplishment made possible by -wait for it - the team we have in the office and the field.

One thing for sure is bluetooth connection across all platforms is much improved - even hooking up my Beats to the business class entertainment system went off without much of a hitch, which is unheard of.  Hotel radios, radios in rental car, etc… are becoming less of act of guesswork and hope and pray, and more of a ‘your connected’ exercise.  That’s progress, even if Iphone voice text transcription is still a great example of the truism that monopolies stop improving as prices increase, be a railroad car in 1890, TV stations in the 70’s, Microsoft Windows, or the phone companies (Baby Bells) up until the early 80’s.  Protected politically, risk adverse, and little incentive to push into new expensive unpredictable markets or products. 

You hear all the time about the nature of food preservatives in the American food chain, and the lack of nutrition in our food and how much of our seemingly healthy food is really just a vacuous chemical-filled product with a distant relationship to real food.  I ate a lot on this 3 week vacation, so if I haven’t put 10 lbs on, I am a live test case of how pure food, regardless of quantity, doesn’t cause obesity like fake food.

I love my transatlantic business class flights, though it appears I wasn’t mistaken when thinking the plane on the way over was an older model with seats that lacked the requisite cushioning.  The A330-900 neo I’m on now, with 3 hour Avatar movie queued up on the entertainment screen.  I’ve turned down the wine, champagne and cookies, and am settling into a comfortable flight - though, not be obnoxious, but being in the first row leaves me exposed to a little too much food and cabin activity right in front of me.   Got my slippers ready, blankey nearby, and a host of Air Italy goodies in the goodie bag, including moisturizer, eye blinders, and some other items.

When I landed from Corsica to Rome, it was May 18th.  That was a day a nationwide strike was underway to protest Israel’s genocide in Palestine, and now it seems other countries.  Per the press release - 

“Workers in two dozen cities had announced strike demonstrations on May 18, with additional solidarity protests launched throughout the day in response to Israel’s acts, leading to day-long mobilizations in many regions. USB emphasized the actions were in continuity with markings of Nakba Day during the weekend of May 15-16 and with a national demonstration against war and rearmament announced for Saturday, May 23.”

‍AI describes it as “The strike was organized following a call from the USB union and other civil society groups under the slogan "We block everything." Participants opposed rising living costs, increased military spending, and what they described as government priorities favoring armament over healthcare and education”.

Whatever the reason, I wasn’t aware of it and flew into the teeth of it Monday the 18th, with a lack of transportation from the airport, and hundreds if not thousands of people looking for ways out of the airport, as gridlocked traffic and strikes impacted the ability to get anywhere.  Unaware of the strike and thinking waiting a few hours would be the trick (and not being in a hurry), I did just that, organizing some photos, etc…

When I went back outside, it was worse.  I only had 10 miles to my hotel, but there was not a lot of options except for downtown Rome and even that was tough since there was the type of traffic leading into the airport that had people walking with their luggage scenario on the highways trying to make their flights.

So, I took matters into my own hands, and walked around with two crisp Benjamin Franklin’s until I found a taker, 4x the normal fee of my destination.  I was in a car in about 3 minutes with a lot of wonderment on a lot of people.  What did Tom Cruise’s sidekick say in that sports agent movie? - “Show me the Money”. The thing about traveling these days for me is that I’m not looking for a struggle from getting here to there - if going from Point A to Point B is painful, the whole trip will have lagging and negative impacts from the travel itself.  

My 3 French golf partners.

There is simply no denying that a big part of wealth generation and preservation is tax management.  Federal tax brackets, states with high taxes, income thresholds that trigger higher capital gain taxes, sale of primary home deduction, among the lowest hanging fruit.

As a small business person, there is a lot more tax flexibility than a W2 worker but income is income and like my first good book-keeper once said and I oft repeated it, pigs get fat but hogs get slaughtered - meaning careful legal planning is better than cheating.  

Estate planning and having your shit together financially is one of my passions and pet projects and the more I dig into mine, the more I understand how advanced and proactive my planning has been.  My son’s 529 tax advantaged savings plan is overfunded so I’m looking at ways to perhaps reroute money from that account to others, and just by ways of general house-keeping I checked to make sure not only the beneficiary was correct (that’s easy) but also the Successor, meaning who controls the account if I should pass, and even that was done correctly.  Untold numbers of people die with inaccurate or outdated beneficiaries - can you imagine your ex-wife from 25 years ago getting your life insurance proceeds not your new wife or kids?

As I’ve mentioned, I forget what I write from blog post to blog post since many times it’s stream of consciousness, but this year, we have a bunch of spec homes finished and a bunch more being built.  It’s important that they sell, not necessarily like the old days where unsold homes (which was extremely rare) would pac-man your free cash with interest and carrying costs, but because they are a gauge of your continued market knowledge, prowess and instincts.  It’s been such a wild ride of the last half decade with every year bringing something brand new - 2 years post the conclusion of Covid the illness is still bringing uncertainty and unclarity into the real estate market with the new definition of remote working, hybrid working and what that means to our little sub-market, but you also have the macro elements of interest rates, Trump, now war.  It’s always been a lingering thought that upstate resales of homes purchased during the last 5 years might flood the market depressing sales prices with too much supply.

There is definitely more supply and I’m sure that is keeping prices steady, but the demand is there, still, for good homes priced right.  Even for good homes priced high, as long as high in the $700k-$885k (Sullivan County range) as long as it has some real bang. We have two specs, heading into contract.

Another Catskill Farms resale shocker- a mid-sized farmhousem, new, on Maple Lane, priced agressively in Mid-$800’s got multiple offers and then a deal above asking it appears.  That’s on the heels of another two sales just down the road.  Our shit sells, and our buyers make a lot of money. Our homeowners have made so much money off of our homes over the years it’s hard to overstate.  And so have I - not by maximizing each sale, but hitting my doubles, stretching them into triples when I can, and just keep keeping at it, sale after sale, year after year and now decade after decade. Know your market, take educated risks, hire the right people, control expenses, and never take your eye of the ball. I’m not a big enough business to have a bad year - I just wouldn’t forgive myself for it. Also, you can't eat all the shit from everyone all the the time - you gotta push back both out of principal and from a business survival standpoint - eating shit typically has a line item expense to it.

Didn't Abraham Lincoln say that - you can eat some of the shit all of the time, and eat all of the shit some of the time, but you can't eat all the shit all the time - (trivia - "I'll let you be in my dreams if I can be in yours, I said that" - singer and song name - answer at the end.

It’s been windy here in these Tyrrhenian Sea islands but today really takes the cake (and last night). It must be 40mph outside with higher gusts.  The ferry ride from Sardinia would be atrocious. I mean, I’m literally frightened to go outside.  I was unsure what to do with the last 4 days of my trip - Milan, Rome, somewhere Mainland - but I decided to stay in Bonifacio and I was going to play golf everyday, which is a hobby I hope to rekindle.  But with hurricane winds like this, ain’t no golf being played.

Said but true state of things above - lost my glasses case, so now using a sock to keep from lens scratching.

Martin Shell of The Shell Law Firm (website seems to still not exist) is threatening me with libel and slander claims if I don’t stop posting about him and his clients.  I actually hope they start a claim because the depositions would be so fun and I have such a big surprise waiting for them.  We have yet to get clarification if Shell and Covit/Rich set up undisclosed recording devices to catch my privileged conversations with my attorney at a site inspection a few weeks ago - if so, it’s a serious situation and possible disbarment, and it’s a criminal act by the homeowners.  I have evidence that seems to suggest they did exactly that.  Seriously, setting up a whole house listening system to listen in on privileged conversations? That's a good indicator of what I'm dealing with here.

I remember flying to the Alps last April and we are all excited to fly Swiss Air, business class, but were surprised to board a United plane when the time came. Turns out, airlines can 'codeshare' meaning marketing one airline but you ride on another. Now I'm always on the look out for 'operated by' since that's who you are really flying with. They almost got me again when I booked a Lufthansa cross Atlantic flight - but I noticed it this time that the stellar German airline was being 'operated by United' meaning you weren't flying Lufthansa, you were flying United. I got nothing against United, actually enjoy that airline, but it's nice to know who you are flying with as you research lie flat seats, menus, and wine lists, if you know what I mean.

I know, so much information and education in every post.

Trivia Answer -

Bob Dylan

Talking WWIII Blues

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Corsica is simply mind-blowing.  I’ve been on a lot big ferries before but the seas were rough enough yesterday to both cause a few ferry crossing cancellations and cause quite a bit of ship rolling in the waves feeling as we crossed yesterday, with any excursion away from the sidewall handrails was a game of chance as the ship rolled from one side to another.

Corsica is 12 miles from Sardinia, French not Italian.  You think ‘so close, probably overlapping experiences’ but that sentiment could not be more inaccurate.

It’s a medieval city, or before, preserved and existing like it did then.  I mean, I literally feel transported back in time to Napoleon, Mozart, and Columbus.  The city has been here a long time. Good travel is like that - it can blow you away with differentness and time transport and interestingly, while Sardinia was fun and beautiful and I’d go back in a second, this place is wow magical. And I’ve just got here.

I’m on top of the limestone cliffs in Bonifaciio.  It’s a walled city, Genoaese for a long time, then French, just before Napoleon was born and why he is French and not Italian.  I know we live in annoying times, but compared to the flux and uncertainty of the political climate these Corsicans have gone through, we are privileged indeed.

The weather controls to not cooperate, and not cooperate in varied ways.  Yesterday was sunny enough but the winds were literally 30mph or more all day long.  I think of the two weeks I’ve been here, there has literally been 2 days of calm and sun.  I’ve mentioned that this really hasn’t curtailed or impacted my plans but it has eliminated pool days, beach days and a lot of just comfort relaxing outdoors.  

I plan on playing some golf here, on an oceanside course.  And doing some hiking, maybe a lot of hiking.  The trails are everywhere and hug the coast many times.  

A bell rings from the citadel nearby.  It’s 7am and it’s ringing in a continuous back and forth rhythm, accelerating and slowing, speeding and slowing. It went on for a minute. 

I have a large suitcase and a large motorcycle bag, a travel back pack and an excursion pack. I think I’ve packed well, and I don’t think I’d change much. Even when I’ve been forced march around an airport or from the ferry to the car rental place, I’ve been able to move with fluidity.  The large motorcycle gear bag has wheels and a handle and has been a game-saver - having all that in a large non-wheeled duffle bag would have been a problem for the commutes I’ve done.

Just getting off the ferry yesterday where the taxi man said the car rental place was 200 meters, turned out to be more like a mile along uneven cobblestone paths, worked out fine.  Hardy, quality bags with wheels that work.  All in all, the planning for the trip has been on point.

It’s funny how I travel.  Pick a point on a map and go.  Then fine-tune the decision with a close but not to close study of hotels and transport.  Learn the airport codes, the towns, and then arrive and see how I did. Typically pretty well.  I can’t remember the last bust.  But that’s really just a matter of perspective as well - On my travels the lost luggage delayed flights poor airbnb hosts questionable weather aren't ruinous affairs but just the cost of doing business if you are going to travel. But like I've said, me and my travel guests have been blessed for years now with good weather for what our activities are - warm and dry on the beach, snowy and cold on the slopes. Even when it's been off a bit or a lot, a few times we the weather turned towards us as the trip progressed, notably a 24" snow storm in the Alps at the end of 2025 ski season.

A very old labyrinth of a cemetery perched on some very premium water front

I seem to be in Sardinia and soon Corsica before the summer travel season really hits.  I guess the season here in Northwest Sardinia is quite condensed to July and August and definitely doesn’t extend to the first part of May.  When my nephew and I visited Nice and related areas two years ago, I think it was late May and Early June, and when we hit the French Alps last year to ski it was the middle of April, just as the ski season is coming to an end.

While there are some inherent risks for visiting outside the most common dates, mostly weather related, if the weather cooperates I’m a big fan of the vibe.

Currently, at the W at Poltu Quatu, the hotel on a small short inlet just off the Tyrrhenian Sea, the place seems fully staffed but the guests have not yet arrived.  It’s a nice hotel, and has pulled off the art of luxury well in both the accommodations as well the attentiveness of a well-trained staff. So you have a perfect mix of lots of help, well-trained, and a lack of guests.  While that could be overshot in terms of helpfulness at every moment of need like a Stowe ski slope, they are restrained.  While you can hardly go into the pool without your lounger towels being swapped out, hardly turn a corner without a friendly face, you can also sit quietly without a constant stream of helpfulness effort.

In the Alps, in Mid April, the vibe was decidedly end of season, with lots of skis and boots being cleaned on the sidewalks outside of the ski rental stores, and with stories from the service workers on the slopes of their plans to head south to the French Riviera, the Côte d’Azur, for the summer.  That’s why when we got hit with 20” of snow a lot of places were a bit surprised and were caught off guard in terms of food on hand and staff on hand as a late rush of skiers converged.

And Nice in late May was just nice.  Perfect really.  Crowds picking up, sun warm, but again not the hordes you read about.

So early in the season even the mannequins are undressed.

In the little towns I’ve been to in Sardinia that must explode in the Summer, it’s hard to imagine the chaos of traffic and guests.  It must really be a scene.

I’m trying to leave Sardinia today after 12 days but it looks like that might be difficult since the high winds are preventing the ferries from running from Santa Theresa to Bonifacio, Corsica.  I was thinking about staying a few days in Bonifacio and then heading to Mainland Italy via Milan or Rome, but now I think I might just stay put and play some golf.

Sardinia in early May, at least this year, has been a varied and turbulent weather situation.   Chilly, rainy, windy, less sun than you would expect.  It’s fine for me, and hasn’t really impacted my travels, but if you were coming for a sunny warm-me-up holiday, you would have been disappointed.  While not unheard of, I think the last few years have been warm and calm in early May, setting up some short-term memory loss of how it can really be.

I can’t imagine a life less like residential home building in the USA than shepherding sheep in Sardinia.  We passed a lot of sheep, and a lot of sheep dogs and a few shepherds.   Most of the cows, goats and sheep wore bells around their neck I suppose to help keep track of them and in the country-side, when the motorcycles were turned off, the sound of hundreds of bells broke the arid, hilly countryside silence.  It was soothing, hypnotic.  Anyways, the shepherd’s life is a quiet life of roaming grazing sheep.  Even a farmer’s life has exponentially more must-dos and anxiety than a shepherd.  And compared to the endless lists and expectations of a builder, literally nothing seems more opposite.  For us business-owners, whose obligations are not always self-imposed, self-initiated or voluntary, and can come at you for years and decades like water from a firehose, the idea of following sheep around is both abhorrent and attractive.

Was also, on my solitary motorcycle seat following a gang of 12 up and down and in and out of the incredibly varied countryside, contemplating the black sheep that every flock-fold-mob-band of sheep had.  One can see the where the saying came from, since I guess the black sheep is 1, quite infrequent, and 2, stands out.

From Claude, who has replace Chatgpt for me.

The "black sheep" in a flock comes from genetics — specifically a recessive gene for dark pigmentation.

Here's how it works:

The genetics — Most domestic sheep carry genes for white wool, which was selectively bred over centuries because white wool can be dyed any color (making it more commercially valuable). However, some sheep carry a recessive gene for dark (black or brown) pigmentation. When two sheep that both carry this hidden recessive gene mate, there's a chance their offspring will express it — producing a black lamb, even from two white parents.

Why it's rare — Because the dark-color gene is recessive, both parents must carry a copy for it to appear. Since white wool was heavily favored by farmers, the gene was largely bred out, making black sheep uncommon but not extinct.

It's essentially random — A white ewe and a white ram can produce a black lamb with no warning, which is why the birth of a black sheep often surprised shepherds. This unpredictability is exactly what gave rise to the idiom "black sheep of the family" — someone who stands out unexpectedly as different from the rest.

Interestingly, black wool was historically considered less valuable (harder to dye), so black sheep were sometimes seen as a minor nuisance to shepherds, reinforcing the negative connotation of the phrase.

I don’t mind Chatgpt, but it was annoying how before every answer it felt the need to editorialize and contextualize what it was about to report.  For awhile, that was actually helpful, but then it got really annoying.

To kill some time I uploaded all my weekly financial reports I get from John in finance, and after some very smart questions and clarifications, Claude reported the following, about my overall financial picture -

"Overall, the combined picture is that of someone who has built substantial, well-structured wealth with almost no leverage. Very solid." I could not have said it better myself, even if the day to day still seems more tenuous than it should. Kind of like a zebra in captivity - never really loses the fight or flight instincts. They are backed at this point.

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