Economic Trampoline
Things just feel like they are coming to an economic head - the tariffs have had time to work their way through the economy, meaning suppliers of product are becoming cognizant of the impact on their costs and are starting to pass them along; markets are bubbly and skittish with retail investors with FOMO on returns hanging onto sector heavy portfolios with brash but, at least historically speaking, not sustainable returns; immigration raids slicing construction unemployment to very low levels (increased costs); college-grads facing 8-10% unemployment; student loans; unaffordable yet still increasing health care costs; inflation; everyday costs like home insurance and car insurance escalating upwards of 25%; house sales slowing; loan defaults rising; a media beating drum of a ‘market bubble’ in AI and tech.
This scenario is taking shape as Catskill Farms gets set to enter the ring for another round of high-stakes Catskills housing speculation, which typically takes av1.5 years to 2 years wash and rinse cycle to buy, design, build and sell cycle. Just bought, or will shortly buy, 3 pieces in narrowsburg, 1 piece in Yulan, 2 pieces in Kerhonkson, 1 piece in Long Eddy/Fremont. Hedging that speculation is several ‘pay as you go’ house construction project - 1 in Catskill, 1 in Kerhonkson, 1 in Bearsville and 2 we are finishing up in New Paltz and Fremont.
We have a half-dozen+ rentals over 3 states with high quality tenants and diverse locales, mortgages I hold from past sales and a few homes that are complete and ready to sell.
So, I’m the Captain, on the bridge, looking for the icebergs I know are out there but with a destination in mind, a puzzle to solve, a Rubics Cube to spin. With a great team that makes it, if not fun, wholly engaging. And it’s not a computer screen - it’s out in the woods, with real people, with real trucks and dogs, fighting, clawing, arguing, and producing something that will be there for a very long time.
I’m in Houston Texas with three teenagers to see the Texans play the Broncos. My friend who runs Fox Sports got us field passes and great seats. We gained an hour by heading West, and it was the ‘set your clocks’ back weekend, so here I am at 4am, feeling like it’s 6. Bunch of people keep coming into the lobby looking for the Starbucks to open since their coffee clock is out of sync with the time change. 7am creeps closer, but slower The 2 hour gain won’t leave much room for the kids to argue about not getting enough sleep since 2 hours were built into their schedule. They Ubered into downtown Houston and last I saw of them on my kid-tracker was entry into a huge arcade, with a flat entrance fee rather than a pay as you go model.
I’ve been in Houston for literally 12 hours, and the mix of people down here is extreme. People from all over, working away. Raj, our Uber driver, from Pakistan, been here 11 years, lives with his cardiologist uncle. Feels poor, vibrant, private equity and immigrant labor, gas drilling, hill-less, flat, rich. The airport is 40 minutes from the Stadium - it’s sprawling. Seems like traffic would be horrible at the wrong times of the day.
I played a lot of baseball in my life, but I don’t watch a lot but I did watch the Dodgers/Bluejays since I kept hearing about absurdly compelling games and late inning heroics. This game did not disappoint - wow, the BlueJays were literally just a few outs in the 9th inning away from ending what Fox Sports cruelly called “Canada Dry” as it surveyed the lack of sports championships across all leagues over the last 30 years. And then some 2-bit 2nd basemen reached low for a sinker and swatted it over the fence to tie the game. The whole game was thrilling and went to 11 innings when another Dodger homer won it for them.
I feel like I’ve been part of a series of thrilling sports games recently - 2 high school football games and now this one. The one this past Friday in Pittston PA the final score was 7-6 after a 4 quarter battle in the trenches and (4) 4th and 1 stops in the Red Zone. Pittston is one of those old Scranton mill towns, with a grass field and a multi-decade sagging economy.
I mentioned a few posts ago that if you don’t mind losing you can actually win a lot. Trump a great example of that - for every win he is experiencing he has a half dozen losses, or as Dylan says the ‘loser now will be later to win’. Many times there are losses that lead up to the win, or sometimes what appears to be a loss just pivots through some sort of macro or micro incident to a win.
I used to lose a lot of small battles that never added up to much but were super frustrating - small claims court cases, unemployment cases, workers comps audits, HOA election drama, and many others - I even got a positive court decision in an HOA case were I represented myself (pro se) against a real attorney. But recently I’ve been tapping the top ring on a whole bunch of typical losers, bringing home one small win after another. It’s possible I’ve cleared my plate of so much interesting distractions like that big wrestling legal matchup a few years ago that I’m able to laser focus on the flood of problems that come my way in a more adjusted focused fashion. If this light-touch steering of the vessel continues to be effective, it should be a fun 24 months. Although calling it light touch is probably hard for anyone to grasp who actually sees the daily effort and intervention.
I always love when a foreign news source picks up a local story - like a new real estate destination. The BBC just did a big story on the Eric Canal. I love these stories because the writer and publication doesn’t assume a lot of information or background knowledge of the reader, so they take their time giving historic context, be in social or economic. Just brought together all the parts and pieces of my Eric Canal education journey over the last year into a readable and full form.
https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20240715-the-erie-canal-the-manmade-waterway-that-transformed-the-us
My cell phone voice texting continues to gaslight me - taking my most common text partners and purposely mis-spelling their names - Lysa, Erik, Jon. And this isn’t just a mis-spelling, Iphone tapping on the go - this is someone’s name so if you don’t fix it the recepient will text back with a question on why you are mis-spelling their name so you have to decide to take the tedious time to fix it now, or fix it later. And if this is AI of the future, where a phone can’t figure out the spelling of a name you have spelled 1500 times before, we certainly are in an AI bubble. Though I do like my chatgpt, and it has cut into my use of Google search, and you can how behomoths (Xerox, IBM, Blackberry, Kodak) once ubiquitious fade away.
Just sitting around waiting for my compound interest to do its work.
