A Study of Houses

Really pivoting here - a blog post mostly about our Homes, actually the point of the blog when you get right down to it.  I hit the ground running, post New Years, and the office team punched out a lot of work getting a few houses up on the website, and getting them listed on the SuCo and Ulster MLS’s.  Always a reasonably heavy lift between the house deets, the pics, the floor plans - each needing a bit of fine tuning and tech tweaking.  First text 5am, last email 7pm. I put in 14 hr days like Barkley runs downfield.

 I launched a google ads words campaign, which I haven’t done in years (or at least haven’t done much of it in years). Didn’t really need to recently-we were sold out.  But with a few things to sell, I thought I’d run a campaign and see how it goes.  Besides possibly selling some homes, you get a lot of other information from these campaigns, indirectly, after you sort through a lot of red-herrings and false flags. But, if you’ve been at it long enough, you can tease out some information from the data and traffic.  Such as the volume of traffic to the ads can correlate to the activity in the marketplace, ie people looking for a home. I’ve been saying for a few months I thought this first quarter was going to be busy as the dust settled from the election, bonuses are paid out after a very good year, and inventory remains tight but life keeps going. The fires in LA could provide an additional stimulus to the marketplace over the next 3 months, as bi-coastal businesses bring their employees east. Whether your home burns down or not, the region is fundamentally changed, forever, and not for the better. Asheville, St Petes, LA. LA is a test of the ability of us humans to not change in the face of creeping horror.

I guess interest rates are ticking up, but I’m not sure what that really means to our clients, many who could put down more down payment than they need to, and seem to enjoy the mortgage tax deduction (though I’m not sure if that’s a thing anymore though Trump might be more amendable with Republican pressure - the SALT deduction elimination was really at the time a poke in the eye to blue states) and arbitraging their investment strategies and their mortgage payments.  I’m thinking of offering some owner-financing on one or more of the houses I have for sale, and earn the interest, avoid the lump sum tax hit, etc… I like to do this, but have only successfully done it once or twice.  It’s a nice annuity per se, revenue stream.

So let’s get to it know and talk about the elephant in the room, the houses I design, build and sell.  It’s no wonder I’m such an oddball - I don’t know anyone else in my immediate peer group, family group, or casual friend group who goes out and makes million dollar mistakes and decisions and just chalks it up to ‘good college try’.  I mean, every house I decide to build on a certain plot of land either maximizes my ROI, or it doesn’t.  And you can’t run from the truth. It’s there for you to see everyday.  Everyday I get my ass whipped in one manner or another, and that’s just because that’s the nature of small business, and small business decision-making, and being a speculator who thinks he can gauge the marketplace and add something valuable to it. You get some really right, you some really wrong, you knock it out of the park and you go down swinging.  You get some really great opportunities out of the blue just because you are in the game and those gifts feel earned for all the bad stuff that happens that’s unnecessary.

‍Barn 56 in Olivebridge, listed at $1.150,000 through the Upstate Curious group, is a fine house with 3 beds, 2 full baths, 2 half baths, a killer master suite, a container pool and a two car garage.  We don’t really play a lot in this price range, but the houses we are putting up and the market in the area (Ulster Cty) is incredibly vibrant and seem to be worth it when compared to other sales.

https://www.thecatskillfarms.com/homes/ashokan-acres-olive-ny-ulster-county-real-estate-barn-56

‍Barn 53, a mid-sized barn, with 4 modest bedrooms and 3 full bath sits on a pretty cool piece of land.  We built a little studio the land as well.  It’s a great house on a great piece of land - if I could do it over I’d build a Ranch.  People dig the Ranches.  They dig all the houses but the Ranches are crowd-pleasers. $849k

https://www.thecatskillfarms.com/homes/ashokan-acres-olive-ny-ulster-county-real-estate-barn-53

Ranch 71 -  a small 2 bedroom house on 5 acres is fun.  I love these little houses.  Just outside Narrowsburg. $399k.

https://www.thecatskillfarms.com/homes/ranch-71

‍Ranch 72 is one of large Ranches, and this one is on 22 rugged acres.  The house is going to have killer views.  This is North Branch/Fremont of SuCo, just north of Callicoon. $899k.

https://www.thecatskillfarms.com/homes/ranch-72

That’s what we got for sale. Prices subject to change. We have 3 ‘our homes your land’ projects coming up, or partially started.  Should be a good predictable year.

I've been reflecting- at first glance there seems to be 4 distinct phases of life- 1, growing up, 2, discovery (20-30), 3, In it (kids families careers), 4, reflection. Amazed at how that season of hustle and bustle passes and the next generation enters the mix of it. When I think I've got a good 25 years left, and then look back at what I was doing at 29, I gotta say I'm looking forward to knowable stretch in front of me.