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

The 3rd house at our Ashokan Acres project sold on Friday.  A Ranch, on 9 acres.  Pretty nice set up.  One thing we learned along the way on this one is don’t order from West Elm - jeez, between interminable delivery times, product delivered that doesn’t match the website, and poor customer service, it’s just a vendor who is missing on too many fronts to be trusted with our speedy home delivery process.  

We are well over the 50% completion up there, so it becomes about ‘what’s next’?  I don’t really know.  Land opportunities don’t abound.  Starting a modular container ship pool company that should simplify the pool acquisition dreams of lots of families, and that might get interesting, even among our existing clients of which number over 300. Working on the branding.

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Without thinking too hard - it is early Sunday morning - of the 300 homes we sold, I think probably more than 200 original families still live in them.

It’s fascinating how many different ways we are monetizing our efforts these days - single family home rentals, single family home sales, spec homes, custom homes, Airbnb, holding mortgage notes.

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The rotator cuff surgery recovery is being tested now that baseball season is in full swing.  The overall healing seems to be holding, but the tightness is proving a handicap on the accuracy of the throws, and the strength isn’t really there yet.  Throwing a ball- especially the motion of throwing a baseball - is a very complex motion/movement, un-natural in many ways, with stresses on a bunch of small muscles weaved in and out of bone.  While rotator cuff issues aren’t uncommon, from what I learned during this process about the muscular and bone makeup of this region I’m surprised they aren’t even more common, especially for us who have literally thrown a ball tens of thousands of times.

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God, when I think back on that recovery, it seems otherworldly in its plodding process through pain and range of motion restrictions.  Day after day, month after month, where 9 months later it still is recovering.  Then you go back and read all the things your surgeon or primary doctor didn’t tell you, and you see that the process is pretty predictable.  It was never going to be a 2-4 month recovery.  PT was never going to be those tedious motion movements you see most often at a PT venue but instead soul-destroying range of motion movements earning ¼” of movement after ¼” of movement, all through eye-popping pain.

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I can see how people never make it out of the recovery period -it just gets old, tedious, painful and the sacrifice of some permanent range of motion becomes less important than moving past the daily routine of attempting to regain the motion.  If you look at the tiny muscles they repair, it’s hard to believe that repair sends shocks waves up and down the entire upper body as it first ‘protects’ the injury by overcompensating other muscle groups, and then as you work to regain motion, it yanks the rest of the torso out of equilibrium as the extreme tightness in the shoulder puts pressure elsewhere. If I never hear the word 'Supraspinatus' again I'll live happily.

The question I get asked, and that I ask myself is would I do it again knowing what I do now about the recovery.  That is a moving target question, with my answer changing as the process winds down.  At first, you spend 4 months in intensive rehab without full confidence that all the work will result in actually a better shoulder - it just seems so unlikely based on its initial baseline of non-functionality.  Like all memories, as progress was made, the memory of the hardship fades, and if in a year I’m throwing a ball like I did 10 years ago, well, then it will be hard to argue it wasn’t worth it - but let’s qualify it this way - if my left shoulder goes for whatever reason - my non-primary arm - it’s highly unlikely a surgical repair would be top of my list.

I have a passion for personal finance literacy, consume tons of podcasts and books on the topic, and have my long journey from money-less to monied to pull from for lessons.  So, I’m leading a class at the local high school on Tuesday, a 90 minute class, that I hope to flip into a club or ongoing education.  With every current of American life encouraging debt and buying what you can’t afford, and little counter-education available, keeping kids out of early debt, and raising their awareness of the debilitating consequences of debt on their future wealth-building tools is something that seems valuable indeed.  I'm paying the incentives to attend through a donor-advised non-profit fund I set up in 2021 and now has a balance exceeding 6 figures. This one could get pricey if we get good attendance, at $100 a pop.

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For me, and my journey, I used debt like the devil.  My first house I bought with one of those credit card bank checks that come in the mail. 

I was so far into debt for so long with little in the way of income that the idea I came out the other side is a testament to sticking with an idea, working non-stop for decades, and having a really good idea that I kept improving.  I wouldn’t recommend it, because for one, few products are like houses where the payoff and cash flow is so sizable.   Now I’m debt averse, do most everything with cold hard cash, and cringe every time I need to borrow operating capital to finish a home.   But it wasn’t always that way - Just ask my neighborhood bank Jeff Bank - who funded this endeavor with bold strokes of trust that somehow, someway, I’d figure it out.  Of the many rewards of the this journey, having the local bank board made up of a cumulative centuries of local experience take a winger on me has always been a fascinating part of the story - just like I often say I know my clients and their respective aspirations better than they do in many situations, this bank probably knew or saw or had an inclination into my chances - having seen so many people - as well or better than I did.

And that intuition of this bank has resulted in hundreds of millions of dollars of local economic stimulus derived from my efforts.  It’s a cool story.

The below is the house in Fremont Ny that I passed one day and I labeled it 'the perfect house' in terms of roof lines and the essence it captured.

We recaptured its glory in this Farmhouse, which we've built 4-6 times in the ensuing 20 years.

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As someone with a long history of in-depth reading of all things journalism, across a wide range of publications, you get a feel for how things get reported.  I'm just wondering when that photo from Gaza will emerge that forever defines this whole disaster. Or maybe it never will - the self-censorship of all media is extraordinary although I'm sure all the dead journalists and other aid workers has been a deterrent for an intrepid photographer. Who knew Fox and the NY Times shared such common values?

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I tried to catch up with my framer today, but he was heading to Chicago to attend his daughter’s medical school graduation.  He shows up, for 16 years, like the postman of years past - in snow, ice, rain, heat, cold - he shows up to do his job in such an efficiency of movement of he and his crew you would think it was choreographed by a professional.  We’ve traded $2m+ without a contract. I think most of our $1m+ of construction activity is done without contracts. Good faith goes a long way.

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One of my earth movers asked me to build him a home on the 90 acres of gold coast real estate in Gardner that Mark Zuckerberg (or in his words, ‘a Mark from Facebook?’) has been offering him untold escalating millions for a few months.

My mason of a decade plus owns several hundred acres, houses in Florida and his family is part of the business.

My painter since 2007 has seen his son enter the Marines, and his daughter enter her 3rd year of college.

My employees have collectively set aside $1.4m in retirement in our small business 401k safe harbor and pension plans.

Having just finished my taxes and related financial tune up, realizing that all the hard work has really paid off.

Our clients have literally made tens of millions of dollars off the appreciation of our homes.

Our clients have literally lived cumulatively over a 1000 years in our homes, and that’s probably a low ball.

Municipalities and small towns have earned over $30,000,000 of school and real property tax income.

Sales tax income of $20,000,000.

Transfer tax of real estate in the millions.

23 years and counting and getting up in the morning and dealing with shit you rather not be dealing with.  I’d like to wax poetically about the beauty of America, but I’m not feeling too great about this place and all that’s going on and the continued subversion of the people by the representatives.  It’s ungodly.  More disappointingly is the collusion of the media, being a student and read-in veteran of deep reads of journalism.    Annoyingly, proving Trump right once again with his ‘fake news’ mantra, though, I do admit, it’s fake news but not in the way he was saying it, but fake is fake in the end.  It’s weird when you realize the world around you is conjured up.  I’m pretty sure I won’t be living in this country full-time forever.

That being said, and off-setting that flex, is, you know you're a loser when… you had the sudden realization that your new routine of grocery shopping on Saturday nights at 8pm8 may be efficient, but is actually kind of sad.

I actually had a few questions and observations that I wonder if occur to other people - 

1. When is the media going to stop referring to X as ‘formerly Twitter’.  Duh, we know. Everyone knows by now.  
2. Everytime I go to NYC, it seems like everyone is stoned now, and the smell of pot is is wafting everywhere
3. It’s patently unfair that not drinking for a year has resulted in no dramatic weight loss.  It just seems like the math should be on my side, even if all else remains equal.  Guess I’m maybe sneaking more sweets or something?
4. On Google flight search, has anyone ever selected their flight based on the ‘total emissions’ category on the search?
5. Why in gods name would a banking app like Venmo think it’s a good idea to default your transactions to “Public”.   I mean literally, what is the purpose of listing your transaction and the people they are to with little disclosure?
6. Does anyone actually select ‘with bag’ when weighing their produce in the self-checkout lane?  For me, that .00092 of an ounce is never going to paid for by me.
7. How is possible that a ¼ of nuts is 215 calories?  Seems to me that healthy nuts should be like a hard boiled egg or a cup of coffee - low in calories.
8. I think my NYC inspired ‘SuCo’ for Sullivan County NY should have seen more viral acceptance among the cool kids.

I continue to work away one or two hours a week at the Pinchot Estate in Milford PA, helping to catalog its vast collection of books, many originals, from the late 1800’s.  As a veteran traveler to Yosemite, when I came across this John Muir original - legendary for his outdoor exploits back in the 1800’s -  that was pretty special.

And I’d love to read this book about the family and home life of the Borneo Head Hunters in 1870 - “... after a long day of capturing, enslaving and eating their regional foes, the Borneo men loved to come home for games and trivia with their extended families over a campfire.”

A lot of the books I open to inscribe the new catalog # in my chicken scratch have notes or inscriptions in them, many times from the author to one of the Pinchots, who served as original American conservationist, and as the Governor of PA. Famous people, authors. For the most part, their handwriting is exquisite as you would expect when that tool/talent - handwriting - was the primary source of information transfer.

Building building building.  Sold out of everything we have to offer (or have admitted we have to offer, lots of secret stuff I want to push a little further to completion before telling anyone).  Just finished paying $350,000 to my building supply company, which is a lot.  That comes close or exceeds our lumber bills in 2021 pandemic-fueled go go days, but this is different because lumber is half the price it was back then so this reflects a much larger tally in actual construction activity.  Not an easy cash flow event for sure.  We killed it, in shitty weather, in March and April, and that’s going to set up a bonanza of 3rd and 4th quarter sales. 

Below, our new Four Square on 6+ acres with a raging stream in the far backyard.

30 days till the French Riviera with my nephew.

My abode, looking sharp after the Spring cleanup. Nothing says 'nice' like mature landscaping, which is something our new homes lack, to their value detriment.

6 pretty spring days in a row. Without a doubt has lifted everyone's spirits, even those preternaturally programmed to be grouchy.

Our 500 sq ft airbnb venture in Narrowsburg. I think the Airbnb game has gotten really challenging for a lot of people as the marketplace is saturated and the pandemic visitors have declined.

I'm honored by gestures, large and small, in any given week. For instance, when someone who works for me asks me to build them a house. And when a homeowner who we have built a home for asks us to resell it for them.

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First baseball game of the season on Sunday, 10am. We will see how that goes. My body is still super stiff from the rotator cuff recovery.

Another week of rain. I'm not being a baby, I'm just reporting it as it is. It rained a lot more in Olivebridge than Wurtsboro, so I was quite beside myself when I went up to check on the jobs on Friday and found a muddy, intractable, progress-impeding mess. Not cool. It's been going on for months, and everyone expects it to one day just straighten out and be sunny, but that dream has been out of reach since September 2023. The cost of it is adding up, and I'm sure I'm not the only one experiencing financial harm because of it. It's more of a drip drip of impeding progress and lost gain than anything overt, and you can almost lose track of it from one day to another, but make no mistake, the rain we've experienced since September 2023 has been unreal - it's turned my Ashokan project into a constant concern about the degrading impacts all the rain.

Starting a pool company. A modular, crane-installed, container pool shipped whole to the site and installed in a day. Pretty cool idea and should be an interesting pool solution for many families, rather than the drudgery of the 2+ years process a lot of people experience currently. Plug and play as they say. They come in a variety of rectangular options- just enough options to be fun, just enough options not be overwhelming.

The bill from my lumber company for March was INSANE. That's the price of progress, the price of putting up 3 homes in Narrowsburg, and 3 homes in Olivebridge, with their associated windows, roofing, decking, etc... The cash flow that sloshes in and out of this company, from my pockets to the pockets of others, is - as I've often said - remarkable for the economic crossing multiplication ripple effect across towns, families, businesses, and communities. Every month for years if not decades Catskill Farms pumps a million dollars a month into the pockets of small businesses, helping them grow, hire, stabilize, maintain. And that's the thing about why the actions of Ben Forman and Corby Baumann just didn't work for me - throwing shade and accusing these men and woman of purposely sabotaging a construction site is literally the most offensive insult you can hurl, based on the efforts I observe on a daily basis, the problems I see they solve, the sacrifices I see them make. It's going to be worth the price of admission to see these two millionaires and their pompous attorney explain how they were victimized by these hardworking Ulster County small businesspeople, while these people were building their 3rd home and 4 bay garage. Only morons think that's going to play well.

The thing about rain and progress is you can get a lot of it done with the right crews - the right crews - excavation, framing, roofing, etc.. will find a way to get it done. They will show up and wait out the showers and get a half day when a lot of companies would sit at home and get nothing. So you can get it done, but it's slower, more dangerous, a lesser product in some short term ways. But when it gets near the end and you have to grade the land to a manicured state, or install a septic, or dig a utility trench that fills up with water - when guys are working in calf-high water. Whatever. Just another push to wrapping up this Catskill Farms journey.

I can tell things are calming down on the chaos front since I have less to write about, less to figure out. Just a low simmering annoyance at the weather and all the difficulty it's creating. Today, Saturday morning, overcast, wet, puddles and mud everywhere. I literally over the last few months have to be ready at a moments notice of a break in the rain just so I take my dog for a walk.  You can tell I'm over it. As are a lot of people in my circle.

I thought venting would help - but it hasn't. It's actually a dreadful existence at this point for what I do for a living. And the impacts are widespread- I can't believe that businesses across the board aren't suffering as people huddle up depressed in their homes, unwilling to go out once again in the drizzly rain.

Whatever. So much fucking construction going on it can make your head spin.

Another week of rain.  Sure, we had a sunny day, then an overcast day without downpour, but for the most part, that last 5 days have been raining. It has been raining since September of 2023 - not hyperbolic raining - but real life raining 4-5 days a week.  Hard rain, torrential downpours, heavy rain, then even heavier rain.   It’s depressing, it takes all the fun out of construction entirely.  People can’t do their jobs right, materials suffer, everyday is a strategic plan of how move forward with wet, saturated ground you can’t drive on.  But more than that, it’s just well past getting old.  To make up for it, we literally need a month of sunshine.  And I’m going to keep complaining about it till it changes, since I grinned and beared it for too long now.

Interesting aside, as I was wondering if ‘grin and bear’ or ‘grin and bare’ I did a quick search and came up with this timely and appropriate result - 

Where does grin and bear it come from?

“Hickey used the phrase is his Memoirs from 1775: I recommend you to grin and bear it (an expression used by sailors after a long continuance of bad weather).”  So, killed two birds with one stone: verifying ‘bear’ was used correctly, and inadvertently using a phrase first attributed to someone complaining about the weather.

The good thing about writing, as with any muscle flex, is that you get better at it - in this regard, I find myself able to retrieve the word I’m looking forward with more ease, describe a situation with a bit more precision, be patient in the craft of a sentence.  This gets easier, just as running that first mile, reaching that deeper stretch, displaying emotional intelligence.

With the team back in place for the moment, I’m able to let go a little of the 7 additional jobs I was performing in the first quarter of 2024.  As I mentioned, I wanted and needed a stable start to 2024, was all set to have it, and then literally was served everything but.  Luckily, the profit incentive of keeping things on track superseded the stressful drudgery of ordering people around and actively seeking out and solving job site and office problems.

So with the space and freedom of time, I quickly pivoted and began planning my new modular pool company and planned an 8 day trip to the French Riviera with my 26 year old traveling wingman nephew.

Even with the weather, we push ahead at breakneck speed, with oversight offered at every stage by the tradesmen themselves, my project manager, me and oftentimes the client as well.  It’s redundant and effective.

Just finished my biannual - every other year, soup to nuts, inside and out, physical on the 70th Floor of the Freedom Tower in downtown Manhattan at the Princeton Longevity Center (PLC).  I’ve been staying a lot downtown, way downtown, like Battery Park/Southport Seaport area for half a year now and I like it a lot down there.

PLC offers these ‘executive physicals’ that scan you, evaluate you, measure you, test you, in every subjective and objective, every surface and subsurface test known, to use a comprehensive approach to preventative care.  With an approach like this, the odds of something sneaking up on you - plaque buildup in important arteries that lead to a widow-making out-of-nowhere heart attack, cancers, diabetes, colon cancer and dozens of other identifiable creeping issues.  At 54, I’m in extremely good health and I guess a lot of it is the effort I make in that regards, but let’s be honest, a fair portion of it is genetics and genes and nature, not nurture.  But whatever the cause, I checked out again pretty well, and all the stress of the last 16 months hasn’t (damn, can’t think of the word I need) hasn’t (damn Im so close to getting it) exhibited itself with any measurable physical impacts such as drug/alcohol overuse, weight gain, raised blood pressure, or other common maladies that go with high stress loads.  Harder to directly measure mental health, fortunately, since I’d hate to see that graph as of late.

So, off to fight another day or two.

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