Farm 57 - SOLD

Farm 57, a really cool farmhouse-inspired home in the Beechwoods in Callicoon in Sullivan County NY left the nest yesterday, amid another snow disruption snow day, making travel to and fro the closing treacherous and harrowing - or so I heard, I haven't attended a closing in years.

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The was the 4th house on the 4th and final piece of land I bought a little over a year ago in Callicoon. Back when i bought it, it was pre-pandemic early 2020, and my thoughts on the marketplace was that 2020 was going to be a rough little year, with picky buyers and a slowing of the sales pace. On the other 3 pieces I built homes less than 1000 sq ft, priced in the low $300's, though I was expecting to sell them in the high $200's - no one getting rich there for sure.

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It's been a crazy year to price homes. 2020 started normally - meaning challenging, unpredictable, and risky - and ended with even my Mom being able to build and sell a house (she didn't actually do that, but if she did, someone would buy it for more than it's worth). We have a slew of houses closing over the next few months, starting with Ranch 42 (Kerhonkson) last week, Farm 57 (Callicoon) this week and Farm 59 (Narrowsburg) next week. Then right into Farm 58 (Saugerties) and Barn 36 (Saugerties), so and so forth, working off a 21 house queue. At this point, we are signing contracts for delivery in 2022. Pretty amazing to be able to scale like that - my guess is most Hudson Valley builders have filled their plate and now they are booked until that is done - or worse, overpromising, taking deposits, and overbooking their subcontractors. We've been able to scale, hire, recruit, motivate, and are doing pretty good, though it's no easy task, and the weather since Xmas has been disruptive, and slowing things down, and causing a lot of work keeping roads and driveways open and safe for the dozens of trucks of all shapes and sizes that need access each day.

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These Callicoon homes are pretty awesome, with big views, and open fields, but even with that, pre-pandemic, these sales were no sure thing for sure.

What's interesting about these homes, besides how awesome they are, is my reaction to the pandemic changing the pricing model. We started seeing our resales topping the charts from a pricing vantage, literally being sold at $150k or more than my new builds- that was eye-opening to a modest little builder, so house by house we crept our prices up to where the market supported, finally about mid-fall starting to price all the new builds at levels not seen before, and yet not even close to what the resale market was supporting. That's really always been our business model, when you get right down to it. We leave $$ on the table, give good value, make it hard to see 'why not buy'.

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It's pretty great being past all the black swans of 2020, those wholly unexpected events, stacked and overlapping, needed immediate care and attention from me, unable to be fully and sometimes even partially delegated. Amazingly, there is more than the list below, but this is what I can gather right now -

• Website was deleted entirely, which served as not only our main sales portal, but also carried a gigantic load for our clients as they designed their home.
• Lead guy out without notice on family medical leave, severely disrupting chain of command
• Learned we nearly lost 20 years of digital files because our tech company failed to monitor our backups, which had gone off line for some reason.
• Pandemic
• Remote schooling
• Idiot contractor down in Valley Forge PA (Phoenixville) that turned a simple project into something that needed my full time attention.
• Moved our offices, never easy.

And then you had the everyday issues and problems that are challenging and all-consuming in their own right.

Whatever, if I can sidestep all the unexpected and deal with the tough-enough day to day of operations, and employees, and finance, and clients, and municipals, and sales, and closings, and contract, and accounting, etc... I'll be happy enough.

To pave the way for that goal, Jeff Bank - my main source of financing since my very first home in 2003 - just approved another increase in our cash flow line of credit, helping us meet the opportunity once again. Don't even get me started on those guys- relationships built and tested over time like that one is for sure one of the crowning jewels of this journey of mine.

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