Catskill Farms Launches its New Website

 It's hard to quantify the degree to which our website deletion by the morons at Applied Innovations led by Jess Coburn disrupted our business, but 8 weeks later, we finished the heavy lift on a vision and execution of our new website, that can be seen here at www.thecatskillfarms.com.  It turned out great, on many levels, and the idea that it was going to turn out great was by no means assured or guaranteed for a host of reasons.

Nonetheless, it was a huge distraction, and energy suck.  My one colleague has not really worked on anything else for 8 weeks, uploading content, and that effort has been augmented by my own daily macro guidance and micro troubleshooting, and on occasion the other 3 people in the office would pitch in, like last Thursday, where we all pitched in.

Of course, for each minute spent on this, there is an opportunity cost of not spending it on something else, be it a client, a sale, a hire, a problem, a solution, an idea.

What made this even more challenging is the fact we were wholly unprepared for it, and a creative exercise like this is typically layered with a lot of brainstorming, branding conversation, directional ideas, visioning, evaluation of what works and what doesn't on the old site, as well as a process for interviewing and hiring a company to handle said task.

As anyone who knows the digital space at all, there are all types of solutions out there - solutions with their own language, their own terminology, pluses, minuses, drawbacks.

I'm an old hand at hiring, which mostly means I know I'm only going to get it right about 30% of the time.  With office employees, it's a real disruption when I get it wrong, since it's a small office and the investment in anyone new is pretty large, and the weirdness of having someone in our space is always tough on the culture.  With carpenters, I typically just say 'show up, and let's see what you know'.  With subcontractors, even if you hire right, there is bound to be miscommunication with anyone new because we have a lot going on and judgement calls are made daily, some right some wrong.

The risk on a exercise like this one - reinventing a space 10,000 people a month visit, a space that defines who you are, a space that is expensive to create - is fraught with challenges, and I'm happy to report we nailed with not just with the vision but with the hire we selected, Steve, from outside London, who we found on upwork.com, a site a client of mine recommended.

How did we select Steve from outside London with live in girlfriend and baby?  We put out a query on upwork, and I used my finely tuned ear to find a good match.  My colleague Kacy steered me away from some bigger firms who would've wanted to offer more than we needed.

We were trying to update our website, without losing the feel of the site, which is a lot like the feel of our homes - comfy, working, fun, cool, thoughtful, not too fancy, not too showy.  It's an improvement on what we had, my old partner of 20 years, a website that was added onto, patched up, greased up, so often it was like a pair of jeans, or boots, or anything else well-loved, and hard worked.

There's a lot more to this story, from a business vantage, that I hope to get to soon.

Labor Day 2020

 Labor Day, 2020.

It's a cool morning, you could feel the drop of temperature a few weeks ago.  Still hot during the days, with bright sunny days, but the mornings and evenings reflect the temperate nature of our climate and the wild 35 degress to 80 degree swings a fall day can bring in the Catskills.

The thing about problem-solving is the process you use to solve said problems.  Business is, fundamentally, problem-solving (maybe life too, but that's someone else's purview of expertise).  And as I have been writing repeatedly, Catskill Farms has been beset with problems.  Many of these problems are the result of being busy and building a bunch of homes, and while not readily predictable, you know they are coming in one fashion or another.  You might not know when, or what, but you know on any given day, they are a comin'.  With these problems, we have a solid set of professional relationships - banking, insurance, surveying, engineering, trade, supply chain, etc..., we can leverage and deploy quickly in order to remedy and solve.

The other set of problems, the black swan problems, pose more of a hurdle, burden, and risk.   Typically new and unseen before, typically serious, typically disruptive.  Could be key-man/woman employee related, could be pandemic supply chain, regulatory, could be inflation, technology, illness, accident, etc...  Could even be your website of 20 years that has been a friend and partner was deleted by the morons over at Applied Innovations.

As the leader of the Catskill Farms, with my hands and brains and backbone still fully employed on a daily basis driving this machine forward, I've been confronted with both. Interestingly, many of the former used to be unexpected and grouped with the latter, but once you confront and solve a few times, they become annoying, distracting, and sometimes expensive, but still not a complete surprise.  The black swan events, the new problem (which can be bigger in scale as we grow bigger) poses unique challenges because it's new, there is no roadmap for solving, and typically in a small company there isn't bandwidth just laying around waiting to be deployed to solve a new problem, especially a big one.

Now that I'm on the backside of solving literally a half dozen of 'exact same time' big problems that need to be solved now even though you are busier than ever, I remember how I do so, over the years, developed a process, many times subconscious, of working my way through big problems.

1, you have to believe you have the talent to solve them.  2, you have to give yourself the time to digest and acknowledge the true impact of the issue, 3, you have to accurately measure the damage, delay of the issue even if solved quickly, 4, you have to prioritize accurately, 5, you have to communicate to those impacted if required, 6, you have to solve.

It's like an onion inside of an onion inside of an onion.  The collection of issues/problems is one onion, that you have to peel away layer by layer to analyze each respective problem individually.  Then each problem is its own onion which needs to be peeled away and solved, with characteristics and problems unique and individual.  And with each small success with confronting a layer, the confidence and momentum builds that the individual issue can be solved, and leads to the confidence and momentum that the collection of issues can solved.

It's take time, which has to be found, since it's not typically laying around unused.  It takes energy, which is tough since a lot of us are running at full capacity (especially during the pandemic), it takes creativity, which is difficult to summon out of thin air unexpectedly, and it takes risk-tolerance, since the outcome of many proposed solutions are not immediately clear if correct.

Basically, when shit hits the fan, are your instincts and prior lessons learned on point or not?  It's the difference between success and failure, delay and progress, redemptive chaos or ship-sinking rocky shore.

Personally, we've used the peripheral chaos that engulfed us over the last 6 weeks to reinvent several aspects of the business, and most rewardingly, found a few employees who either stepped up and flexed skills we did not know they had, or inserted into our company new persons, contractors, etc... who have turned out to be good folks to know.

All the while not missing a step of home production, and future home planning. 

Upstate Thoughts

Upstate has lots of different meanings, as does 'the catskills'.  There is a geographical boundary, at least for the Catskills, and then there is the 'state of mind' boundary.  For instance, a lot of what what we call the Catskills isn't really in 'the catskills', defined by the State charter/designation.   Counties such as Sullivan and Dutchess lay outside the Catskills and even towns like Stone Ridge, Kerhonkson etc... are not in the Catskills proper, but certainly in the Catskills for both descriptive ease and marketing ease.

Same goes for Upstate.  Upstate literally runs from the Catskills to Buffalo, in concentric rings of furtherness.  I just took a 3 day journey into the middle of the State over the last few days that brought this salient fact home to roost.  Hamilton NY - home of Colgate Uk, Vernon NY - home to Turning Stone Golf resort, and now today we are in Cooperstown - home to more than one would think, including baseball hall of fame, Leatherstocking Golf Course, James Fennimore Cooper and one of the prettiest downtown villages I've seen in a while.

One thing for sure, NY is vast, and it is beautiful, with pockets of wealth and poverty seemingly mixed in at random.

The impacts of the Virus are pronounced, as I can see with mine own eyes, and for a small business guy like myself, alarming.  In this Central NY phase 3 reopening area, the extent the hotels and restaurants are obeying and enforcing the rules is impressive.  6' separation, masks for sure, seating arranged by the book, cooperation from guests and staff.  You can see why NY has succeeded for now in flattening the curve and eliminating the spread.

With the virus shutting down a lot of sports, we've been doing a lot of road biking this season, which is a lot of fun.  But unless you are retired or something, you can't do both road biking and golf, since they take up a chunk of time each.  So golf got shelved, and to 'get it out of our system', we hit 3 upstate courses in 3 days, riding in the '72 Malibu.

Leatherstocking, Cooperstown

Colgate U Course.

The Ostesaga Inn, in Cooperstown.

Turning Stone Indian Reservation golf course.

You can also see the distress of small towns and their associated main street businesses; you can see the big resorts, empty, with 5 staff laid off for every one still working.  Empty main streets, empty restaurants, empty parking lots, empty golf courses, empty hotels.  And these are the areas considered a success.

Translates into lack of jobs, lack of sales tax revenue, lack of real estate swaps, lack of enthusiasm, and lack of cash flow from anything from non-profits to small biz to gigantic resorts.  I frankly don't know how this ends, because I am up close and personal with dozens of small businesses everyday, and while they were not impacted, it's a clear window into the short runway to disaster that many of them would face in the face of such a slow down and shut down.  They aren't packing oodles of rainy day funds.  They don't have a 'what if we have to close in the busiest months of the year' plan.  They don't have a 'how to make money with our tables half full'.

So, best case, that vast federal aid helped to keep them afloat.  But then you have the idea of 'zombie' companies, typically applied to larger companies kept afloat with large government bond buying, and low interest rates, can also apply to much smaller companies, where new debt is high, sales are lower, and the businesses aren't reinvesting, growing, hiring - they are just there, zombie-like, wandering aimlessly through the fog of the final economic consequences of the virus, until they fade away, debt-laden and ruined.  The question then, is this the opening for the creative destruction that makes our way of life tick - in with new out with the old - or this something different.  Either way, it doesn't seem quick, and it doesn't seem like it will help with the wealth and opportunity gap of this country.

That being said, Catskill Farms is once again positioned well, so I have a bit of survivor's guilt, but not too much.  Only thing I hate, is there is so much demand in the marketplace that sales come a little too easy and so my competition will grow, and take our overflow.  I like it best when it's harder and I can watch others in my industry get it all wrong.  That may be a character flaw, but one of the few I'm not trying to improve on.

Press, press and more press

Lots of people writing about the Catskills and urban flight and a hundred sub-topics, and we have a lot to say about such things, since we are up close and personal to the story, and its impacts.

The Real Deal about current Urban Flight-

TV Interview with Hudson Valley Station about local real estate market -

National Mortgage News reprints an Op Ed about reopening construction I wrote
As well as a reprint of the Hudson Valleys Times Herald Record story about the local real estate market

Times Herald Record - Homes Sales Spike, etc...

Crains NY covered a story about summer rentals.

These are good stories trying to figure out the future looks like, by detailing today and guessing about tomorrow.

New Barn House for Sale in Kerhonkson- Barn 37

In order to meet demand, we are working hard to get our existing contracted homes rolling and get a few more in the 'ground'.  This home is just getting started and will be ready later in the year.

To that point, let me introduce Barn 37, a thoroughly modern lofty structure with a ton of windows and light.  We built the first one these back in 2010 or so, with the help of a young designer woman who envisioned a barn that played off previous versions of homes we built, but with a new slant.  From there it evolved over the years to include a front mudroom popout, a screened porch, a neat first floor bedroom/bath suite.  It weighs in at just under 2000 sf, has 2.5 baths, and 3 bedrooms.  Also has, will have, a basement with light and glass that could be finished at any point.

A similar barn home just finished.

This home benefited from a mistake a few years ago, where the house framer got something so wrong in the layout that it helped us see new ways to lay the house out, leading to a 2nd bath on the 2nd floor that made all the difference in terms of ease of ultimate use.


Will be located on the last lot on a private road in Kerhonkson NY, a road with 3 other Catskill Farms' homes.


3 or 4 different takes on the main space.














Easy house to love and live in.  Priced at $580,000.

How to Message in uncertain times

With several new house deals over the last 6 weeks, and our Lazy Meadows real estate arm busy as a bee, it's a confusing time to be successful.  Only 8 weeks ago, I was blogging about how we always seem to shine when times get hard, since I'm forward thinking, don't wear rose colored glasses, and have the ability to find a lane, ahead of time, of which lane we should occupy.  This was a lot easy than I expected, with demand for homes really off the charts.

And that leaves me with a perplexing condition of what I guess they call survivor's guilt, where the individual wonders why they are so special to have survived unscathed.  Usually applied to war survivors, or terrorist attacks, school shootings or a wide-range of calamities where people suffer and die, and the ones left are left with a feeling of guilt for still being around.

(came back for more)

Now, with our little company as busy as can be, my son healthy, I'm healthy, my employees are healthy, my dog seems happy, my wild flowers are blooming wildly on a large plot of land I cultivated, and both the pandemic and now the racial unrest, more than just the tender-hearted can feel.   Slathered top to bottom in white privilege, I sail on with my clients, associates and friends.

I'm not really going to take this thought too far, but one level I've been focused on and struggling with is a marketing message that has the right tone.  Word like 'capitalize on', 'opportunity', 'escape' all ring with slightly off-key pitch, as does my usual flippant 'you snooze you lose', or 'could've been you' in your face taunt.

I'm cognizant of the power of words, cognizant of the somber moment, and cognizant that I do best by keeping my family fed, my employees and their families working, our subcontractor teams engaged, and our clients safe.  It's a bubble, but like one of my new clients said artfully, it was a bubble I choose 20 years ago, and it's a bubble that keeps giving back.

So our marketing message has been reduced to 'we build safe houses for you to be safe in, and we've been doing it for 20 years'.  Nothing more really has to be said.

Couple of news pieces -
http://www.westmilfordmessenger.com/tag/-/meta/charles-petersheim

https://upstater.com/catskill-farms-saugerties-mini-homes/

Milan NY Home for Sale - $650,000

This Ranch home in Milan is packing a big punch.  It's Milan, pronounced MYLYNN.  Now you know and can save some face.

We only build one or two over in Dutchess a year because it’s a little far for us, and it’s just harder to work over there with a pretty picky Board of Health, and very small building departments.  Sometimes I think both are by design to help in the effort of retarding growth.

But, whatevs, we got a good one going on 3.5+ acres.  It’s one of our famous Ranches – 2500 sq ft, lots of deck, shared living space and a really fun feel.  Can accommodate a big crowd as well as feel homey when it’s just the two of ya.  Here's a link to our site that details the floor plans

https://www.catskillfarmsranchseries.com/options/ranch-option-e

The specs are pretty fab - 3 beds, 3 baths, awesome media room space as well as plenty of room for an office, as well as plenty of room left over for storage in the basement.  Ton of decks, lots of windows, and good sized rooms.

Fireplace, check.  Energy efficient, double check.  Open floor plan, check.  Ton of fun accents and details, check.  House house warranty, check.  For Sale, check.

Price - $650,000

The below pic is a one we did with a screened porch, which was somewhat complicated but ended up being really nice.

This property is literally less than 5 minutes off the thruway, and is a gateway home to the towns of Rhinebeck, Red Hook, Hudson and even east to the Berkshires or Vermont.  It sits up, like a tree house, and has an active river access that can be seen and is open to use as well.

Couple of interior shots - 

Our Ranches have been fun, and a big hit since we brought out the first ones in 2008.  Little guys, cute as a button.  Since it was an experiment we kept it simple, but year by year the sizes increased as more people expressed interest, and the general market stabilized.

Olivebridge NY - New Home for Sale Information, $495,000

Interestingly, for all the things this blog is and has been, it's never really been used as a looking-forward tool for what we are building, where we are building, and when it will be available.

But with inquiries coming in fast and furious and everyone wanting to talk on the phone for some reason, I'm trying to figure out how to best inform this hungry buyer segment with what we have in the works.

THIS IS A SIMILAR HOME PREVIOUSLY BUILT.



WHAT - 1550 SQ FT 3 BEDROOM, 1.5 BATH ON 4 ACRES.  600 sq ft of decks and covered porches.

WHERE - OLIVEBRIDGE, NY ON THE CORNER OF RT 3 AND HANNA LANE

WHEN - FOUNDATION IS IN.  FRAME ROOF AND WINDOWS IN BY END OF JUNE.  OCTOBER FINISH.

HOW IT WORKS - SIGN UP NOW, AND WORK WITH US ON THE INTERIOR SELECTIONS SUCH AS PAINT, FLOOR STAINS, KITCHEN, COUNTERTOPS, TILE LIGHTING, PLUMBING AND A HOST OF OTHER FUN SELECTIONS TO PERSONALIZE THE HOME.

FLOORPLAN
https://www.catskillfarmsfarmhouseseries.com/option-c-floorplans#shed (THEN SCROLL DOWN TO FARM 32)

PRICE - $495K.

DESCRIPTION -
Excellent spot in Olivebridge, in the shadow of Ashokan High Point, just 5 miles from the Ashokan Reservior and the endless hiking, biking of the Catskills.  This floor plan allows for 3 bedrooms and a lot of living space on the first floor.  Full walk-out basement could add another 600 sq ft in the future.  A covered front porch and a screened back porch expands the house.  Land is private and gently sloping.

This back profile will not be exactly the same but you get the idea.





The interior is 1500 sq ft +, has 1.5 baths, a wood burning fireplace and open floor plan with a separate but equal glass encased dining room.  Light enters easily to every nook of the home, on the first floor and second.  Wide plank floors, fun hand rail systems, classic tile, functional kitchens all combine to illustrate why Catskill Farms has been the go-to design build for the last 2 decades.



It's a good looking home for sure, but it also is highly functioning - with whole house airconditioning, spray foam insulation that allows you to heat your home with a candle and cool it with an ice cube, on demand hot water heaters which produce hot water only when you ask for it and a whole house bumper to bumper warranty.

Appraises without an issue, and fully financeable.

Bird Feeder Update, and Hot Real Estate market

Like a good Agatha Christie mystery (anyone ever see 1944 academy award nominee Gaslight, Angela Landsbury's first role at 19?) or a Sherlock Holmes yarn, the bird feeder drama took a turn towards clarification.  It was a bear.  How do I know?  First, I was confused at how the bird feeder didn't shatter as it hit the concrete porch - by the laws of physics, and it's construction makeup, it certainly should have.  2nd, there wasn't a seed from the spill anywhere to be found on the ground, and while certainly I could imagine Mr Squirrel and his friends and assorted birds making quick work of the spill, not quicker than I would have noticed the increase in activity since all I really do these days is sit in my man chair reading and watching the bird feeders.

So, 3 evening past, I was sitting here in my well-worn chair, reading, when from the corner of my eye some new shape enters peripherally.  It's funny how the brain works - it works backwards from what is most probable, most familiar, rules them out by process of elimination and continues paging through other scenarios.  So, in this millisecond, I went from bird, child, gardener, neighbor to looking over, 7' away through glass, to see a momma bear with one little cub the size of a soccer ball.  Literally the cub most have been on his first life excursion. Momma is reared up, paws to the bird feeder.  Fumbling for my phone, yelling for lucas, the bear senses danger and meanders off.

So, I owe the Amish bird feeder maker an apology.  It wasn't his craftsmanship.  The bear literally reached up, delicately put two paws on the bird feeder, gave a quick tug, broke the rope, put it on the ground and ate away.

So there's that.

Funny how putting a kid in a classic car with an American flag makes us seem like anti-mask wearing, social distancing denying, open now nincompoops, but we aren't.  We just love our country and the freedoms, be is speech, opportunity, religion, etc... that is part of This American Life.

I remember after the white supremacists invaded Charlottesville VA a few years back and my friend Bryan commented that it was embarrassing to buy tiki torches for his yard at Home Depot since the racists down there were using them in their marches - really sad the flag has the same ability to divide now.

There's also a pandemic explosion of urban flight looking for upstate properties.  I'm not usually as wrong as I was on this one, but any theory I had about depressed demand because of deep cuts this virus is making into the heart of NYC will need to wait, since for now, demand is off the charts.

News article we were quoted in -
http://www.westmilfordmessenger.com/news/local-news/pandemic-driven-house-frenzy-hits-local-towns-AL1159772

I'm still not all that certain for what the future holds, since it seems like a lot of the pain is being artificially delayed with Fed action, with mortgage forbearance action (as opposed to default), with federal stimulus, rent holidays and increased unemployment compensation levels.  But for now, you have a level of activity in an already busy marketplace I've never seen before.  And there is not a whole to sell, so if you are a seller, or thinking about selling, now is definitely the time.

This resale of Farm 33 in Rhinebeck is going into contract for nearly $1m, the largest increase over sales price ever recorded for a Catskill Farms home.



Barn 7 in Barryville went into contract in one week with multiple backup offers.



And Farm 19 in Narrowsburg survived on the market for 5 days before 2 full price offers came through -




The new Catskill Farms Ranch 37 home in Kerhonkson just went into contract -



This Lazy Meadows sale happened on Friday -



And Catskill Farms put 3 homes into contract that aren't built yet.  I fended off another dozen clients with badly executed karate moves.

As someone who values competence, when I read things like the following it makes me sad and mad, not sure which emotion is more pronounced, since I confuse the two half the time, like any red-blooded emotionally challenged American male should -

"In the first six months of 1942, the [U.S.] government gave out more than $100 billion in military contracts, more than the entire gross national product of 1940. In the war years, American industry turned out 6,500 naval ves­sels; 296,400 airplanes; 86,330 tanks; 64,546 landing craft; 3.5 million jeeps, trucks, and personnel carriers; 53 million deadweight tons of cargo vessels; 12 million rifles, carbines, and machine guns; and 47 mil­lion tons of artillery shells, together with millions of tons of uniforms, boots, medical supplies, tents, and a thousand other items needed to fight a modern war.

"The Ford Motor Company alone produced more war matériel than the entire Italian economy. By 1944 its Willow Run plant was turning out B-24 bombers at the rate of one every sixty-three minutes. Henry J. Kaiser, who at first knew so little about ships that he referred to the front and the back instead of the bow and stern, brought the techniques of automobile mass production to shipbuilding. He reduced the time needed to build a liberty ship -- the standardized freighter of seventy-two hundred tons and thirty thousand parts -- from 244 days to 42. A total of 2,710 were produced during the war, each, in Roosevelt's words, 'a blow for the liberty of the free peoples of the world.'

And we can't even ramp up to produce virus tests in this day and age.

Incident at the Bird feeder, and other Hudson Valley Happenings

There was an incident at the bird feeder.  The feeder, which fed an increasing array of birds of red, yellow, tufted and other, was found on the ground, seed spread wildly.  Was it a manufacturers defect - some Lancaster County Amish bird feeder maker who had a weak staple - or was it the squirrel, who day after day eyed it from an arts and crafts column edge, contemplating the length of the jump to the bird feeder?  did he finally make the leap, and was left hanging for his life by his claws on the feeder platform, little squirrel heart racing, his grip tiring, and falling, falling, falling - 5' down, a fall I'm sure he's done a hundred times.  If it was the squirrel, this successful brush with fate will certainly only embolden him, if he is anything like me.

The wreakage was breathtaking in its severity.  On closer examination, I was able to pop the sides back into position, reposition the hanging cord, and put it back into place.  I now watch warily for what may transpire.

I had a dilemma the other day, when toilet paper was still in short supply at the stores.  I had two rolls.  One a very nice triple ply, and another a coarse single ply of whose thin quality I hadn't encountered in a long while and really have no idea how it got into my home.  Anyways, it's allergy season and I go through a lot of tissue paper with nose blowing, so I had to choose which for the butt, and which for the nose.  I don't regret my choice - and it was similar to that of Sophie's - but after a few days of that cheap paper on my ass, I must have stopped by every grocery store, dollar general and grocery score before I found a new supply of the tri-ply.  The question that was logically posed to myself - late at night, when all is asleep and quiet and natural self-reflection creeps in- have I gotten that soft, or is that a fair thing to call a necessity?  When I evaluated my initial decision, i think it came down to which call of nature was going to be most frequent, thus most often quelled and assisted by paper tissue and by far that is the nose during allergy season.

It's busy in the Catskills.  It's funny how time is accelerated.  A week is an hour, a month is a day, in terms of new ways to live and rules around them.  The full brunt of the pandemic reaction is literally less than 7 weeks old and it's hard to imagine life prior.  That said, my initial relunctance to join the bandwagon of 'how robust the real estate market is going to be' has been wholly repudiated.   It's busy out there and our stuff is flying off the shelves.  Our resales across 3 counties, our homes started but not finished and people lining up for new homes.

So all looks really rosy and sure-fire for my company and the lane we occupy.  Which frankly, makes me really nervous, since there is no worst virus in economic life than the contagion of optimism.   I tiptoe forward, with my ear to the tracks, my wetted finger judging the wind, my tossed grass clippings hinting the way.  You may not need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows, but you certainly need to think before you toss caution to the breeze in this environment.  It could be the classic trap, the trap that catches every real estate speculator at least once in their career.

A life in real estate is like riding a motorcycle.   There are two types of ridings.  Those that have wrecked, and those that will.   Same has been said about real estate speculators.   There are those who have gone belly up at least once, and there are those that will.

At age 50, this might be my last economic cycle, and the last thing I want to do is digging myself out for the next decade of some overconfident doubling down.

Now, mind you.  I'm definitely doubling down.  I always double down.  That's my nature.  I just won't be over-confident doing it, and I'll be keeping my eyes on the exit routes when possible.

Pandemic Sales

When the virus lockdowns began, or as the restrictions trickled in, my main concerns were 2 fold.  How to plan for the future, and how to finish the 5 homes we had under construction that were more than 80% done?  What 'more than 80% done' means to my business model is that I'm fully invested, cash in the game, debt levels elevated, etc..., and the ultimate sale rectifies that.

Now, compared to many people who do what I do - though to be honest, it's no one local since the organizational and banking wherewithal exceeds what is out there and available - I keep pretty conservative debt levels, for the risky business I'm in.  My bank lends based on progress, and it barely lends enough to cover the cost of the home (not complaining) meaning the thousand other costs are being paid for by sales and cash flow.  I have a lot of my own money in the game as well as a somewhat safe investment with a decent return - I charge Catskill Farms a little more than the bank, but what's a few hundred basis points among friends.

Anyways, regardless of whose money it is, it would not have been fun to be sitting on $3.6m of nearly completed real estate.  That would lead to intemperate outbursts and short fuses and a general 'sky is falling' overreaction to any day to day issues we have every day.

We also had 4 homes $425k+ on our lazy meadows real estate side go into contract, or sell during this time.












Long story short, with the closing of Barn 35 yesterday, mission accomplished.  No easy feat navigating this brave new world with $3m+ and 12 employees and 14 clients and dozens of subcontractors chirping at the nest for feed, but navigate it we did.  Navigated the building departments (4 of them), the health departments (2 of them), the banks, appraisers, home inspectors, radon installers, spring mud/rain.  Literally dozens of players, each impacted and interpreting the evolving state rules being handed down each day.

So, really, a gigantic shoutout to all these folks for finding a way to help us tip toe along to the finish line.  I know the reason we got it done is because I'm a very forward-looking person, don't tend to get caught on my heels, tend to think many eventualities out with a clear view of probability of each, and have awesome employees and banking and vendor and municipal relationships that count for everything when shit hits the fan.  Everyone thinks they have a good team until put to the real test, which is not when the economy is perfect and people are begging for product.  It's when shit gets real messed up, and you need to have targeted action and you need it done how you want it done, when you want it done so you can inch along, like a blind person with his stick, or how you use your feet to survey the ground in front of you when walking in the dark.

I like challenging times.  It continually proves who we are as a company.  I could've have done without the pandemic, though, and would have settled for a good old fashioned credit crunch stock market correction that knocked all my over-leveraged competitors on their ass, but hey, you can't always get what you want.

Pandemic Life in the Catskills

Was at the grocery store, where the line to checkout stretched back an entire aisle.  It was clear that while it was orderly, it wouldn't have taken much for complete order to break down and panic to set in.  Panic is just under the surface.

Of course, when you are standing in a line that stretches down a whole aisle, and that aisle happens to be the treats and snacks aisle, and you are hungry, you end up with purchases like the Oatmeal Creme Pie 12 pack.  Turns out, they are a lot smaller than they used to be, and when i couldn't stop eating them, I threw the rest of the box away, but I didn't just throw the individually wrapped pies away since there was no way for sure to guarantee I wouldn't go dumpster diving for them later, I unwrapped the 5 remaining before tossing them in the garbage can.

It reminds me of when I used to smoke and couldn't quit (long time ago) - I'd buy a pack, and then throw the rest in the garbage, but would invariably go back and fish them out, even if I took the time to break them in half.  Only way to ensure no fishing was to ruin them by pouring water into the pack, or throwing the whole god damned pack out a moving vehicle, which wasn't even fail-safe since I could go back looking for them if not too far away.  Addiction, glad the only ones I have left are less harmful.

I also ended up with Doritos, Gatorade 12 pack, and a few other notables.

I didn't know bird watching was cliche, but appears Im not the only one sitting around watching birds, researching their type, and naming them.  This red bird's name evovled from 'Red' to "Lipstick'. The bird feeders have really become a hit after a slow start.  I seem to have 3 or four types of birds -

Red, or Lipstick for the Cardinal

Tufty, or Mullet for the Tufted Titmouse

Sunny for the yellow one.

Nutty, for the white breasted nuthatch.

This Lilienthal Berlin watch was really impulsive, which was interesting primarily for 3 reasons.  1, I don't wear watches, 2, I've been on the down slope random consumerism, 3, the instagram ad targeted me precisely.

Talk about big data nailing me.   The style, price, need, etc... hit me I guess where I was most susceptible, and now I'm a watch wearer.  While I'm not totally excited about being profiled like this, since they nailed it, I'm ok with it.  I've actually noticed the ads and catalogs I've been served  & mailed lately have been been pretty right on, which I respect, since it must mean that my consumer interests have been refined, curated, and now have a specific identifying trait, which I like to name Tasteful, Restrained, Expensive but not too, Discretionary but Not Dumb, aka TRENDD.  Wow, an acronym without even trying - most times you have to turn yourself in knots to get it to work.

I have noticed now that it doesn't have a light, is not glow in the dark and doesn't show the date.

After I got my new toaster - see previous posts - I started eating a lot of toast.  Which I like with butter and jam, and I wondered why the jam tasted funny and about 3 weeks in looks like my 'jam' was actually sunday topping, sugar free no less.  My ex always says, in moments like this, 'and how did you become a millionaire?" or "and how do you run a $10m company?"  It's a fair point which I ask at times too.

Was out on Luxton Lake Road yesterday, and had to stop by and take a picture of this 2009 beauty we built.  Just a great house.   Less than 1000 sq ft originally, then expanded with the build out of the basement.

And a mini-barn going up in Narrowsburg.