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

My password app is warning me with a required override that I've used 'similar passwords too much'. For now, I'm satisfied just making the step and over-riding it, but at some point I'll need to get in there and mix it up a bit.

Another day closer to selling 2 more homes. Great homes - an American Four-square, and an American Ranch, in Olivebridge. That'll be a $9m project - the numbers in the profit and loss terrain really aren't that impressive, but a percentage of a number gets bigger as the number gets bigger. Actually, the percentage stays the same but the number gets bigger on bigger projects. Ok, like duh. But anyways, especially since I was using all cash, the liquidity is new if nothing else the investment cycle begins to return on the investment - of time and money, and attention.

Listen, the word for my blog, in the world of google search, is authority. I'm an authority - using their dense and complex and ever-evolving algorithm, they believe this blog should be weighted heavily in the topics I cover. It's no small feat - being recognized by a world-domineering tech company as being relevant and an authority about which you speak.

There are lots of things we do daily that are pretty one-off, meaning I'm not seeing a lot of copycat hurdlers - developing, designing, building and then selling a home, for decades. That's pretty much non-existent.

The pension and profit sharing programs we offer are unheard of in small businesses.

The benefits, holidays, work environment, year round stability as an employer

Running 18 jobs across 3 counties with 3 people in the office.

There's a lot more we do that when you get a little distance from it, you see it shine and shine brightly.

I mention the google thing cause our current topic du jour, Jared Covit, is now the proud host - position 1 and 2 - of our posts about the meritless lawsuits he pursued.

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When Martin Shell, Esq and I guess proprietor of Martin Shell Law Firm- a firm so advanced it doesn’t seem to have a website - writes my attorney in the Jared Covit and Lauren Rich case that I should remove the picture of Jared Covit I found on that thing called the internet and copy and pasted it to my blog, that I was to remove it immediately because it was an unauthorized use of his image, and that I should be ‘advised accordingly’, I’m wondering if he got that legal threat from the same playbook that resulted in 5 of his 6 bullshit causes of actions against me and Catskill Farms - claims so frivolous it seemed like the judge was trying to conserve ink while dismissing them, and playing a game of how few words the Honor could use while disposing of the weak arguments offered up as serious legal doctrine.

I’m no Oliver Wendell Holmes, but you got to understand, that to have 5 causes of actions dismissed, a Court not allowing them to move forward at all, those causes of actions must be so meritless, and so lacking in legal basis and precedent, that the Court decides they don’t have to hear more, without hearing much at all.

Only in the insular footsie world of the law would you be allowed to file a bunch of bullshit lawsuits and have no fear of repercussions.  Wouldn’t it be more fair, that if your claims can’t even pass the most liberal interpretation of the statute, that given all the benefits of the legal doubts, the claims still don’t hold up, wouldn’t we all agree that there should be some consequence to that - say the lawyer being brought up on ethics charges, or the failed plaintiff having to pay the legal fees of the wronged party? Doesn’t that make sense, to us non-lawyers?  Sure, that would reduce the income of many a lawyer, as they had to be more careful and thoughtful, and I guess maybe that’s what they are talking about when you hear about trial lawyer reform, and how their lobbying body always blocks efforts to make wrongfully suing people harder.

So I asked my attorney to forward me some information on this legal doctrine of Martin Shell, this doctrine of unauthorized use of an internet photograph.  I’m actually very interested in learning more about this legal theory from this grand legal mind, and I'm not being sarcastic - . 

The Court seemed weary by the end of the ruling and clumps cause of Action 5 and 6 together, dismissing them both with a rationed use of words. We, for the benefit of our google relevancy testing (though Jared Covit's internet irrelevance plays a part too), will tease them apart and review them independently.

Getting right to the point, the Court opens with ...

"The Defendants' motion to dismiss the Plaintiffs' 5th and 6th causes of action based in the application of General Business Laut 349 is granted." One could wonder if the court was sensing a general trend in the legal merits of the lawsuit as it picked up dismissal momentum.

“The Plaintiffs' complaint, viewed as a whole, principally alleges that the Defendants breached a contract entered into by the parties that called for the Defendants to erect and complete a home according to the layout and specifications set forth in the parties' contract, and for the Plaintiffs, in tum, to purchase the home and the property. Consequently, the instant action is a private contract action, unique to the parties, that accordingly falls outside the ambit of GBL 349. As such, the Plaintiffs have failed to demonstrate that the Defendants' conduct was consumer-oriented, as opposed to a private conduct, or that the Defendants engaged in a deceptive practice, as opposed to allegedly breaching the terms of the parties' contact. As such,the Defendants' motion to dismiss as to the Plaintiffs' 5th and 6th causes of action is granted pursuant to CPLR 3211 (a)(1) and (7).”

Basically, it seems the theory behind all of this is because Jared Covit feels wronged, the entire world has been wronged - that because he feels my dealings with him (that has netted him $300k+ in paper profit) were mean, that the whole world feels that way - that somehow our dispute between two parties somehow reflects my dealings, period, and that I’m engaged on some sort of day to day fraudulent behavior.

Now, you have to walk a mile in my shoes over the last 25 years and $300m in community investment and untold tens of millions in profits made from reselling my homes to understand the scale of the insult to accuse me of being a fraud, and perpetrating a scheme to harm people I have spent half my life housing and bringing joy to their families, over a cumulative spans 150 years of families living safely in my homes. I'm ok with an honest business dispute. This ain't that. This is a temper tantrum, with defaming characteristics at the heart.

"The Plaintiffs' third cause of action for unjust enrichment is also dismissed pursuant to CPLR32ll (a)(1)," rules the Court.

An action for unjust enrichment requires the proof "that (l) the other party was enriched, (2) at the plaintiff's expense, and (3) that it is against equity and good conscience to permit the other party to retain what is sought to be recovered."

In one paragraph, the Court dismisses and discards the idea that Jared Covit and Lauren Rich were a victim. The brevity of the dismissal goes to the root of how malicious and frivolous the claim was in the first place. To be the recipient of an asset that grows in value by 50% in 24 months that you were somehow victimized can only be the conclusion of worst type of inward-looking millennial stereotype.

Choose a public venue like the courts to address your problems with a goal to embarrass your building partner, be prepared for a public response. Or as Kathy said, play around, find out.

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For discovery and production on the one remaining lame cause of action, we produced all the documents related to building Jared Covit's home. As I was searching and printing, it became self-evident how accommodating we are.

The pile on the right is all the times we said 'yes'. The pile on the left is when we had to audacity to say 'no'.

Impressively, we are now the first result in Jared Covit's online profile, after 36 hours. I don't easily impress myself much anymore, but this one raised my eyebrows.

Ahhh, Aspen.  Just spent 4 days skiing there with a small group of skiers from around the country and literally world champion instructors.  The goal was to improve some fundamentals so I can ski more safely and more efficiently for the next two decades. Mission accomplished.

Wednesdays high school basketball game was between the Aspen Skiers and the Coal Ridge Titans.  Everyone tells you their wealth story and Aspen real estate story in less time than it takes the gondola to travel the bottom of the slopes at the Gorsuch Cafe to the Sun Deck at the peak.  Real estate stories abound, mostly buying early and holding on, with an acceleration over the last 7 years that exceeded all expectations.  In one gondola ride the rider and a lawyer who didn’t know each other were talking real estate transactions (that cost $20k-$30k for legal fees alone) and the gentleman described it as the ‘immoveable vs the indestructible’.  

Aspen is an old silver mining town, it’s heyday in 1880’s or a bit before, with 12,000 persons employed in the mining industry and the related bars, brothels, hotels, eateries and what have you.  Then you had the Sherman Silver Act which set a floor on silver prices, prompted a rush on silver mining since a price floor had been established with the government as the buyer of all things silver, to the repeal of that very same act a few years later when the unintended impacts of the act became clear, and with that repeal a crash of the price of silver when the artificial price and demand were removed, spelling the end of Aspen as a silver mining town.  

Then you had the quiet years, when the population dipped to just over 1000 hardy farmers working a short season, and then the 40’s when the skiing and tourism industry emerged, slowly then all at once.

It’s hard not to hear about ‘Aspen’ but it’s easy to stop your understanding of the place with the superficial ‘billionaire club’.  It’s that, but it’s also hard to get to, limiting the crowds, it’s small with the silver mining days and architecture still defining the cityscape, with buildings no higher than 40’, and many of the original hotels, bars and even miner shacks still standing (now worth $12m for a tiny little spec of Aspen).

It’s the first time I’ve ever been somewhere where I see how comfortable and comforting the insular club of wealth and connections and confidence of position is so cleanly in view.  I've been to plenty of places where this is true - Martha's Vineyard comes to mind - but never with the reach and touch it attainability. You just aren’t doing anything without running into opportunity or network or advancement.  That strata where social and affluence mobility is assumed, tangible.  I could see how an interloper, a fraudster, an Anna Delvey (Sorokin) type character could quickly assimilate with tall tales of nobility, generational trust fund wealth and gilded lifestyles - it’s so quickly a topic of conversation among the Aspen crowd, a crowd that crows with accomplishment and privilege and its parallel track of hitching your wagon to other’s success, that if you play the part well, spend freely (even if it's debt), have a lot of energy, and remember your lines, I can see how fraudsters quickly assimilate.

On the other hand, I’m reading a book written in 1999 by my friend Nina Burleigh, A Very Private Woman, which details upper class American life in the 30’s-60’s, through the eyes of one of JFK’s lovers, and interesting, this woman is a Pinchot, a local Milford family of lore and owners of the Grey Towers where I volunteered for a winter organizing and catoluging old books.

So the day in day out hob-nobbing, cheek-rubbing, back-patting, leisurely life of lunches, colleges, horse riding, travelling within your little club of privilege provides a very firm footing for where you belong, where you are going, and a sure-footed way of getting there.  It’s just all laid out for you, and there is an entire social construct that provides soft guardrails and red carpets, introductions and soft-landings.

The Colorado ski resorts are getting almost no snow this year, and leading up to my trip it was worrisome, but then two storms in the weeks prior that dumped a foot each provided a decent base when combined with cool temps and snow-making efforts. 4 straight ‘bluebird days’, with crisp bright skies and sun.  The typical 4-5’ base of snow is more like 9” - it’s extreme, worked out well for us, but not many other weeks of ski plans, and will be a problem for the plains and farms and ranches and reservoirs that depend on the melt for their annual reup of moisture and irrigation - a snow pack is like a reservoir, since the soil can only hold so much water before it is saturated, so the snow pack lies above, slowing leeching into the ground during the spring, allowing maximum absorption.

I stayed a little outside of Town near the Buttermilk mountain, - Aspen is actually made up of 4 mountains, not reachable from each other.  A little outside of town, a little lower cost, and since I was 1, alone, and 2, beat after skil lessons each day, I didn’t have much exposure to the ultra high cost of goods and services you hear about.

Fur, real and fake, was everywhere, and I guess this year's jeans look ('denim trends') is a ‘baggy’ blue jean with a loose cut.  Maybe this is old news but I don’t get out that much.  High platform Ugg-like shoes.  It’s a happy place of success and leisure.  I liked it.  Lots of private jets in and out of the airport, and at least the public building of the airport is a bit surprisingly worn and threadbare, like the town is trying to ‘keep it real’, at least at the airport.  With one runway for both incoming and departing flights and unpredictable weather it can quickly become a mess of delay, cancellations and frustration.  Not sure where in the Northeast you can fly directly into Aspen, but it’s not Newark, and regardless of where you are coming from, it’s on a smaller jet, and at least in the case of American Airlines, this felt like not their serviced and high-end line of aircrafts.

So, all in all, a 10 out of 10.  Learned to ski better, got to see Aspen, the weather cooperated, and now I’m home safe and it’s snowing, so my dog and I are just lounging around in my comfortable and quiet home. I'm definitely good at picking a random place to go to, find lodging and logistics and what-have-you, and have a jolly old time.

And as expected, my team in the office and field held down the forts.

Note from Chuck - super interesting conversation I've been following, following a substack article by Mike Green which pokes holes into how the government defines poverty, and the perverse impacts on gov't subsidies as you climb the income ladder from $40k-$100k, leaving you marginally worse off as you pick yourself up by the bootstraps. Education, childcare and healthcare should not be the cross that all middle-incomers die on.

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Why the American Middle Class Feels Like It’s Disappearing

By Jeff D. Opdyke

Today, we’re going to play a game I’m calling “True or Stupid".

The rules are simple: I’m going to give you a dollar value, then the context, and you decide if it’s true or stupid. I’ll give you the answer: it’s “stupid”.

So, let’s play…

The number: $37,482.

The context: That’s the Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM), as determined by the US Census Bureau for 2023. It applies to a family of four, implying a poverty line of $3,124 per month.

Now do the math in the real world.

Rent for a family of four is commonly $1,750 at the low end and about $2,140 at the high end. Let’s use the low end.

Health insurance for a family of four averages $2,131, though you might find it “as low as” $1,500—with big deductibles and co-pays. We’ll use $1,500 and pretend this family never needs care.

Food for a family of four runs about $993 a month if you’re very thrifty, and up to $1,600 if you’re not. We’ll take the thrifty number.

Utilities, including a mobile phone plan, run $600 to $750 a month. Use $600.

So using the cheapest end of every estimate, you’re already at $4,843 a month for the four biggest necessities: shelter, healthcare, food, and utilities.

And we haven’t included a car payment or lease (most households have one), the cost of keeping an older car running, or gas to get to work and the grocery store. We haven’t included credit-card debt, which more than half of households carry. We haven’t included replacement clothing, school supplies, or childcare. And we haven’t included the “something unexpected,” because life always delivers that, too.

That’s why $37,482 is a stupid number.

Sure, someone can justify it with formulas and wizardry. But the practical poverty line for a family of four—based on what it takes to live a normal American life—looks a lot closer to $72,000 a year, or about $6,000 a month. Below that, surviving to the next payday becomes an emergency.

I came to this topic because of a recent Washington Post story about Michael Green, chief strategist and portfolio manager at Simplify Asset Management. He took issue with how the Census Bureau defines where poverty begins and ends.

Under the SPM framework, the government defines poverty as income at 83% or less of median household spending on food, clothing, shelter, utilities, telephone, and internet.

Again: stupid.

Where is healthcare? Childcare? Transportation? Debt service? What about taxes taken out of paychecks and paid on consumption? Those aren’t optional costs. They’re baseline costs of functioning in modern America. Leaving them out produces a poverty line that’s mathematically convenient and socially meaningless.

That’s the point Green was making when he argued the real poverty threshold for a family of four is closer to $140,000, give or take.

Yes, that sounds egregiously high. Lots of people disagree with him. I think the number is too large myself. But even if it’s too large, it’s too large in the right direction—because it at least attempts to include the real costs of daily life and highlights just how warped America’s cost-of-living crisis has become.

And if you’re thinking, “Okay—poverty, yada yada. Why does this matter?”

Because it points to a deeper rupture in the American economy, and it helps explain why politics feels like it has run off the rails.

A solid middle-class life was once treated like a birthright in America. Today, for much of the country, it’s barely a dream. Polls have been flashing the same message for years: large majorities say the American Dream—defined as a comfortable, stable middle-class life—is dead.

And what do people do when they feel like they have nothing left to lose? They rebel. They revolt. History is packed with examples.

We’re seeing echoes of that in modern elections and modern anger. In certain ways, Trump is a manifestation of a burn-it-all-down mentality. He’s also a symbol of a Gatsby-esque society where the wealthy and the ruling class extract ever more wealth from everyone else.

The long-term numbers support the direction of that story. In 1970, about 61% of Americans were in the middle class. Today it’s closer to 51%. In 1970, the middle class held about 62% of America’s wealth. Today it’s closer to 43%.

That’s a barbell economy: lots of wealth at one end, lots of strain at the other, and a thinning middle connecting the two. That kind of system doesn’t stay stable forever. Something always breaks.

Something will break this time, too.

The core point is bigger than any single “solution” people talk about: when the official poverty line says $37,482, it’s not just stupid. It’s a signal that too many people are falling behind with no realistic path to catch up.

If you study history, you understand that this is the point where revolutions begin–a revolt of the masses. And a New American Revolution is coming…

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