Saturday Site Inspections
Was talking to a banking colleague who reads the blog - I know, who doesn't? - and he was commenting on what he sees at the thousands of job sites he sees around the Hudson Valley and compared that to mine, and let's say mine sort of set the bar, high. Sounds like an expert witness to me.
My most productive, rewarding and simultaneously frustrating job site visits happen on Saturdays, and sometimes Sundays. On those days, the saws have stopped, the truck and vendor traffic slows, and I can methodically work my way through the homes under construction. In Olivebridge, where we have 9 under construction - some finished now - it’s a source of great pride to me - my efforts, the efforts of others. The stamina, risk, strategy, problem-solving, team-work.
It’s not hard to appreciate all the good and talented work being done on our behalf by small businesses, many of which I have worked with for 16+ years or more. Some of these small guys have grown old with me, and more than a few are starting to retire, or more accurately, scale back. Luckily, it appears I make the cut for those scaling back, and they remain trusted advisors and resources.
But, it’s actually quite hard to appreciate my Saturday visits because that’s not why I’m there. I’m there to find out what’s wrong, what’s unfinished, what’s back-ass-backwards, what’s dirty, what’s messy, what’s muddy, what light is left on, what heat was not turned down, which window was left open, lumber pile left uncovered to the elements, overflowing dumpster with no alert to office. The things that are wrong or need corrected is endless, and you multiply that by 9 homes and you can really be fricking wound up. Luckily, up in Olive, there’s no cell or text service without a booster, so the endless streams of nastygrams to my trusted vendors can’t go out so I end up just making a list. It’s for the better they can’t go out many times. It would be fun to play a game such as 'what makes Chuck the most agitated in this photo?'
But it’s tough. Even something good can be better. And we aim for better. Always better. Always cleaner, quicker, more thorough, more efficient, more streamlined. More creative. More good-looking. More value.
Seems like the crowd is thinning a bit, a lot of the new players in the new home for sale construction game seem to be dwindling. Lower sales prices, higher construction costs, scarce land, lots of hard lessons leaves only the boldest, and there we are again - standing straight and tall and selling our pants off.
Another quiet morning at the Pinchot mansion in Milford day, organizing books from 150 years ago, with letters, cards, notes, and inscriptions. Today I came across an inscription from T. Roosevelt to G. Pinchot, c. 1905. Right there in my hands.
And I'm Court Appointed Special Advocate for kids caught up in family court, where us volunteers are assigned a case and we just sort of shepherd it through the courts and advise the courts and judges of our opinion of the situations before the courts independent of children/youth services, guardian ad litems, and attorneys who even in the best of times have too many cases.
Here are my 3 kids that are looking good at a dinner date at my home last night, just 12 months out of one of those home-life horror stories you hear and read about. The improvement is hard to put into words.
Another Day, Another Closing - Ranch 65 leaves the building
This was a fun home to build in Narrowsburg. Ranch 65. Like many of our homes, started out an orphan without an owner (spec house, meaning built on speculation) then picked up an owner when about 40% complete. Then we collaborated successfully on the completion of the home, and today they buy it. 20 years, 300 homes, 300 families. Then the resales to new families probably pops that number of over 400. Include the people who stay at our homes via Airbnb and you have literally no joke thousands upon thousands of people who have enjoyed our homes.
Then you start getting into the ROI (return on investment), where families have sold our original designs and made hundreds of thousands of dollars. Back before 2020, we took pride in the ability to sell their houses at all because there was an adage in the Catskills 'buy now own forever'. 2020 onward houses became more liquid, and the values our clients got when selling was gigantic. I think several families made more than $500k on less than 4 years of ownership.
And don't even get me started on all the ancillary people who have made lots of money off my efforts, starting with realtors charging their 6%, but quickly including banks, cleaners, pool installers, retrofit carpenters, and hundreds of other home-centric services. And don't forget about the restaurants that have made their bottomline jingle with the disposable income of our homebuyers. My one client call it the 'economic cross multiplier' - never heard the term before, but oh so accurate. $1000 gets spent in the economy, generating $5000 of economic activity, which gets spent in the community, which then becomes $15k when then becomes $50k and then becomes over 20 years $400,000,000. Only in America.
Ranch 65 -
Killington. Family.
10+ annual trips to Vermont over President’s Day weekend. Always a changing cast of characters, sometimes ballooning past 12 people and sometimes shrinking to two. This year my brother, his 26 yr old son Eli Petersheim, his 20 year old son Marcus Petersheim, and my 15 yr old son, Lucas Petersheim, who can now benchpress 160 lbs and deadlift 315, or so he says. Lucas, heading towards the starting qb role in a year, and dating the smartest girl in class, and a darn nice kid with a good group of friends to boot, has been a grand achievement of mine. Anyone who parents knows there is no surefire guarantee any of the above attributes will turn out the way you hope, aspire, dream and work.
We did Stowe for years, but are into year 3 of Killington, a larger mountain with less bougie aspirations than Stowe. It’s a great big wide mountain with lots of diversity of slopes of all sorts of skill levels and terrain. My son Lucas has become a good skier which is fun to see. Marcus, in his first weekend of skiing ever, sort of frightening to watch.
It’s fun that life is long so things have a chance to work out.
I guess it's been an up and down year for VT skiing, with some snow, then rain. And from what i was hearing over the weekend, this was their best weekend of new snow all year, with 6-8 of new powder on the ground over the weekend. Some good luck is good - cause I get my share of bad luck across 16 job sites on any given Sunday.
Getting ready to close on Ranch 65 - and then will probably knock a sale out every 3 weeks for the rest of the year, +/-.
Houses - another 2 into contract. Library Work.
This is getting a little crazy.
8 houses under contract in Ulster County.
4 houses under contract in Sullivan County.
3 spec houses under construction that will be sold this year.
The hour and a half kick-starting the cataloging of thousands of old books started in earnest yesterday at Grey's Tower, and it was as spiritual and meditative as I had hoped. Literally picking up and holding (with my thin rubber gloves on) hundreds of books, originals mostly, from the the late 1800's across the fields of history, philosophy, humanities, ecology, many with notes handwritten on the inside cover, some with notes from the author to the Pinchot. Some had personal cards in them, newspaper article cut outs, etc... It was literally holding the past in my hand. I'm a big fan of the 1870's - 1925 historic period, encompassing the mature Industrial Revolution, the gilded age, the conservation movement, and the Jazz Age. Pinchot was a contemporary and friend of Teddy Roosevelt and the writiing of and about that man lay just one 'section' over. Grey's Tower is a national park service property, run by the nat'l Park Service. We made it through 3 shelves in Section 1 in the bright chilly morning before I had to head back into battle.
New owner our new micro-cottage - "CHUCK! The house is beautiful. We are completely stunned. Just wanted to send a massive thank you. My jaw was on the floor looking at the photos."
New owners at a new farmhouse - 'House looks beautiful. You've reach new heights in your craft.'
I haven't actually looked at the stats, but I'm wondering if the jan 2023 - feb 2024 time span hasn't produced more blog posts than any period in recent history.
I think a lot, really I do, I'm a thoughtful person, about the pros and cons of my blog and what I choose to write about. it may seem I'm reckless but that's the furtherest thing from the truth. It's sort of a very rare form of gorilla marketing where I just have faith that my clients and reader are smart, worldly, broadly perspectived enough to understand or at least reflect on all the different layers of communication happening with each post. I deal with humans, everyday, lots of them, in a wide range of activities - it's a fascinating journey, and while I always seem most motivated to write when things are messed up, it's still a fair record of the journey. Just the duration of the effort is legitimacy in and of itself. So many players have come and gone - many a lot better financed than me.
I'm doing a lot of time reflecting. I must be getting old. I can't decide if I'm in my prime or not - I know one thing for sure, I'm a lot more measured than I used to be. OMG, I can the laughing and guffawing from here.
It's true - my blog is a bit like pornography - everybody reads it but no one cares to admit it. That's fine. I'll take it, as well as the profits that seem to come with being real and trying hard.
