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

I, Charles Petersheim, have a really good sense of where I need to be when, if only for a minute, during our build processes.  Take a few pictures, send them back via FB private page to the office, tagged about what I’m seeing, though many times the issue I’m pointing out is abundantly clear from the snapshot – especially if it’s the 19th time that year I’ve taken the same picture. Change comes slow.

In an environment where help is in short supply and production schedules are being delayed and disrupted by lack of qualified help, we are in an enviable position, with long term dedicated help, and a few recent strategic additions.  We are fully staffed, adding or competing in the marketplace or scouting or hunting most effectively.

Friday started in Milford, then to Saugerties, then to across the Mighty Hudson to East Chatham, then to Hudson for dinner with friends, then late night back to my new homes in Kerhonkson, where I spent the night in a nearly finished brand new home with my dog and air mattress.  The dog kept trying to nudge her way onto the air mattress.  She loves luxe and comfort.

Waking in the morning.  It's always enlightening and fun to spend a night in a new home, empty, with my dog.

Many times, as a small businessperson, you don’t get what you want.  You get a lot of what you want, but many times it’s a zero-sum game (I think I’m using that phrase right).   You take from one place to give to another, and that’s no more true with time, the scarcest of commodities, especially when divvied up against trip to Stowe, Miami, Big Sky, etc….  No just kidding, back to the point – if Amanda and I spend time on an ad or ad campaign, that’s a job that’s not being pushed forward, product not being ordered, building permits not being filed.  We scouted, vetted and hired 3 new carpenters in the last year -not an easy feat and probably invested $10k in a wide-ranging scouting effort, and adding Kacy in the office, to take the pressure off of Amanda and Breanna regarding the marketing.

But as a creative, that means I’m left with 40 ideas a week that never get acted on, just pent up inside while I manage the operational side.  And that can drive a guy crazy, except it can’t since you have to do what you have to do.  And then there is the question of how is this inability to market impacting the business, with the easy answer as, ‘not much’, since we are, and have been, fully sold out for awhile, though we are going to challenge that with 8+ spec homes coming to market.  As someone who knows his business, a lot of my time is allocated in a circular fashion – employees, banking, land search, operational, marketing, repeat.

As a guy who spent a lot of time working with people I didn’t like just for the sake of the business, and throttling and bottling up most of my creative energies in a trade off of operational necessity, I feel almost ecstatic (I don’t really get ecstatic but if I did it would be of Dionysus type, mad, hungry, freddy mercury out of control ecstatic (for those who are familiar with his ‘don’t stop by now’ ditty)) for our current place of fully operational and staffed across the company that enables me to have some fun, Richard Branson style -  It’s a true reward of the priority setting, patience and self-sacrifice small business entails for many long days and nights, with no real expectation that it will all work out just fine in the end.

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It was the Hanukkah of birthdays, a series of connected days and celebration, but all good things have to come to an end, and the end came with our 7th annual sojourn to Stowe, with the same cast of characters and hanger-oners.  It's a good mountain, about 6 hours away, always easier to get there on Friday (skipping school and work) than on the way back where Thruway 87 starts to get heavy around Albany and is a parking lot by the Woodstock exit.  It really goes to show how many people are upstate, making their way back home, that an interstate can move that slow.  Flip side is the opportunity that upstate has, and always will, provide our little company.

The ladies of the office, Breanna and Amanda, decorated my office space for my birthday, and last year helped clear my car during a storm.

Some people would be shy about posting such equal-opportunity car clearing, but that wouldn't be me.  Amanda started with me in the summers and holidays while she was Fashion Institute of Tech (I was going to write 'in Manhattan', but that just makes me seem show-offy, since everyone who I want to impress already knows where it's at), then came to work full-time after.  Her best friend Breanna came to work with us nearly 2 years ago.  Amanda is getting married to her long-time Beau this May and Breanna and her sit around planning at lunch (Bre's her best woman).  My one wedding gift was buying an office building 10 minutes up the road from Amanda so that shortens her commute to work by 30+ minutes each way.

As a pretty savvy small business employer who is a pretty good talent scout who takes chances on people as well as a veteran of making a lot of bets on people who don't work out, the risks of hiring a friend of possibly my most valued employee were clear, but outweighed by our never-quenched thirst for talent, especially professional/office talent.

Whenever I see a new idea in the Catskills, perfectly branded, optimistic with a fine game plan that may even on occasion identify a real opportunity niche, I just pity the fool, since I know the first and primary obstacle this person or couple will face is the inability to staff up to meet the demand of a growing business - it's a tremendous skill, the challenge never fades, and unless you were brought up speaking the language of the average Hudson Valley employee, all the cajoling, incentivizing, motivating benefits come to naught, held against you, used against you.  My ability to team build, against the odds, is one of the secrets of the success.  We just keep growing, and we keep finding people who meet our criteria, or can learn or be trained.

I like an underdog, so my best guys are guys I've found when life wasn't working out perfectly, gave them a shot, rewarded them without coodling or cuddling them, and tried to find real ways to make their lives better, mostly through  work they can be proud of, organized job sites and pay/benefit packages that can't be matched, pay packages derived not from the highest priced homes in the area, but homes that have easy to see value to people for 2 decades now.

Speaking of UnderDogs, here's Lulu.  She's so smart she knows when to get off the chair - UPS no treats, stay on chair, Fed Ex, treats, meet them at the door and follow into truck.  I think there's even a story where she forgot to get out of the truck and Fed Ex redelivered her 30 minutes later.

Back to the point of the story, hiring Amanda's friend Breanna - the real risk would be that Breanna wouldn't work out, and it would somehow impact Amanda's desire to work for us, or that the balance of power would change and the employer-employee relationship would be altered for the worst.

A big gamble, just the way I like them, comfortable with expecting and counting on unexpected outcomes.  Rolling the die, spinning the wheel, matching wits and scrambling out of pickles of my own and others making.  A writer's ability to evaluate a situation, meaning from a unique viewpoint, with blindspots for sure, but the unique vantage providing unique and untried paths to problem-solving.

Anyway, I guess this is tangent Tuesday, cause I keep going off on them. It all worked out - 2 of the smartest hardest working people I know - Amanda and Breanna - and since they are doing real jobs for a real busy business, with real financial and project management complexity, put in a position to test their intelligence and ability to learn in real time with real consequences.  And that's a big difference than most bright young people, where you have to put in a ton of time just to get the shot at having real responsibility.  Not at Catskill Farms.  You have to be awesome, or the day of your departure is already cast.  Problem is, most people don't know when they aren't awesome, but no worries, I do.

And obligatory house construction photos, since this isn't an 'eat my shorts I'm in Stowe and work with cool young women' blog.

One of our favorite farmhouse designs, 73.46 % finished, in Kerhonkson NY.

And another fav, in Narrowsburg NY.  Both houses under contract, spoken for, reserved, don't bother calling about them type of situation.

Mid-Winter hike up Ashokan Highpoint outside of West Shokan yesterday, with long time hiking pal Brian, the long time editor of Chronogram and related media properties.

Seems like an analogy worth remarking on, where you journey out on a lonely road to reach some far off goal only to find it all fogged in upon arrival.  Translation, among others, is to enjoy the journey, for the destination is only a piece of the goal.  I know, pretty hunking picture of me and the dogs.  This view is typically gigantic over the Catskills.

We literally have a to going on -

• 2 homes in Saugerties for sale and under construction under $350k
• 4 homes in Kerhonkson, 2 reserved, two for sale.
• 2 homes reserved and under construction in Narrowsburg
• 4 homes for sale and just beginning construction outside of Callicoon.
• 4 new lots in Kerhonkson
• 3 new lots in Narrowsburg
• 8 new lots pending in Saugerties
• At least 5 deals pending through Lazy Meadows, our real estate brokerage
• And possibly 3 to 4 deal pendings with clients for above mentioned properties.
• Moving the office
• Selling the rental in Miami Beach.
• 4 lot subdivision in Phoenixville Pa.

This is a barn house with a finished basement which is about 1/2 way done.  Reserved.

A new Ranch going up, for sale, in Kerhonkson.

Finished the night with a martini at the Kingsley in Kingston, and then some mexican at the Armadillo, in the Rondout.

Our ability to produce and deliver homes is frankly unparalleled in the region.  The combination of office, project management, cash flow, skilled labor, thoughtful subcontractors, lending relationships, and municipal relationships create a delivery schedule that is averaging more than 1 a month for years.

We have some competition out there, but if you add it all together - all the various companies doing new work (half of them just copying our work and confusing the marketplace with similar marketing, language, etc...) - they aren't putting out half the homes we do in a given year.  And not 'a given year', but year after year, and now we are starting to talk about decade after decade.

Now, this isn't to brag, though I'm not against bragging if you got the goods.  It's just an achievement that 1, I'm extremely proud of, and 2, was not easy.  There is nothing harder than putting together a team in the Catskills, where every level of labor supply is shallow - be project management, book-keeper, lead carpenter or clean up guy.  And revert to the last blog post about the efforts I've made to retain help once I find it, with perks and benefits typically not offered in our industry and area.

I was listening to a podcast yesterday - I'm on a run of 'enthusiasm renewal' -reading lots of biographies on people (mostly businesspeople), pod casts on management and entrepreneurism - and the one guy was saying about employee retainage - 'people don't leave companies, they leave leaders'.  I agree with that.  The better I get at my job of communicating and setting out an organized vision that is adapted to the strengths of my employees, the longer they stick around.

So we delivery another finished home, on budget, ahead of schedule, and now another young family - I think a doctor, wife and 2 kids this time - are experiencing the joys of upstate, with its wide open spaces, makers, and things to do.

Ranch 30 - in the flesh.  Ulster County NY Real Estate at its finest.

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