View from the Blog in Today's NY Times

I was thrilled when someone emailed me an article, "View from the Blog" in the Escapes section of today's New York Times. This blog pretty much made it front and enter in the article. This morning, when I opened my email, there were a dozen "Congratulations" emails from friends and clients, almost like having a baby or getting married. (I suppose when you're gay, single and 52, neither of those is going to happen, so I'll settle for my excitement where I can get it!) Many thanks to my client Nick for being so complimentary.

I just checked the blog visit statistics, and they're going through the roof. For first time visitors here, I'd like to mention that this blog is only one aspect of the online information I have available about buying Sullivan County real estate. This blog links to my main website, www.catskill4sale.com, where there's quite a bit of information about the county, property here, a monthly Current Market Conditions report, and a property search engine to search listings in the Sullivan County Multiple Listing Service.

I'd also like to thank all the readers who come here regularly to post comments and responses.There have been over 1,500 reader comments posted on here, with some threads generating 40+ back-and-forth comments. If this is your first time here, I hope you enjoy yourself, and I'd love to hear your comments.

Comments

[Eric]

wow what a great site

We're looking to buy a nice cabin on around 30 acres with a budget under 90,000.
I hear Sullivan county has many orthodox bungalow colonies.

Eric

[David Knudsen]

Eric, thanks for your comment about the site. Unfortunately, I don't think Sullivan County has what you're looking for in that budget range. 30 acres is a pretty big chunk of land here, and a cabin or small house on 30+ acres would start at a minimum of about $250,000 and go up from there. (At the low end for that amount of acreage, you're looking at some significant compromise with either the house or the land.) In the $150K to $250K range, you can sometimes find small houses here on 4 to 8 acres, but not really 30. And I just don't see anything happening here on acreage under $90K. Land values here tend to be higher than further north because of our proximity to the city (2 to 2 1/2 hours.) If you go further north, outside of the 3 to 3 1/2 hour range from the city, you'll find that prices drop considerably.

Regarding bungalow colonies, I can't address the comment at all, one way or another, due to Fair Housing laws.

[Adam G]

Eric,

Come up north near Roscoe, Livingston Manor or Delaware county and you might find what you are looking for. My uncle bought a small ranch on 42 acres in 1998 for $85,000. Might be worth double that today.

I would hold onto my cash. There are no bargains yet even though very little is selling. This crisis will deepen causing great price declines in the coming decade.

AG

[Stephen]

Congratulations, David, on the article in the Times today! I've been a reader of the blog for the past two years and want to commend you on the wealth of information you provide and the forum you've created -- truly a great resource.

[andy]

I'm struggling to reconcile David's report to Eric that in Sullivan Co. $150K-$250K may buy a small house with at most 4-8 acres, with Adam G's suggestion that a small ranch with 42 acres may go for $170K. Both these statements can't be right. Roscoe/Livingston Manor/Delaware Co. border just aren't that far from the heart of Sullivan Co. second-home country to explain such a spread.

[Reg]

Congrats, David.

[Bix]

Andy, the two statements can't be reconciled because there is no way you can get anything on 42 acres for 170K.

[ross]

it's kind of embarrassing that the outside world is going to see these threads.

[DN]

Your posts, Dave, are interesting and worthwhile to read. Congratulations.

[andy]

back to topic, more or less, I've often thought that if David K wanted to ditch real estate, he'd make an excellent columnist on either lifestyle or public affairs.

[David Knudsen]

andu, I love the idea. I wouldn't have to ditch real estate. With this 'easing' or 'slowdown' (Note: very careful to not use emotionally charged words and phrases like 'screeching halt' and 'Armageddon') I've got some extra time on my hands. But nobody's come a knockin'. I'd love to be able to introduce myself as a professional pundit!

[theFrontSteps]

Might I suggest a move out west to any of you? ;-)

[Mike Kennedy Deep Creek Lake Real Estate]

David - congrats on the article. I was one of the other bloggers featured in that article - but I must say you do an incredible job keeping your readers informed of your market and all the happenings in your area. The amount of comments you get from your readers is great - it shows you are giving them the staight news and they appreciate it. We don't get as many comments on our blog. I also sent the NY Times article to one of the main contributors over at the Bloodhound Blog. He was thrilled to see a main stream media outlet like the NY Times pick up on this topic and wrote his own blog post about it - as you can see you are predominately featured in his post! Here is the link -

http://www.bloodhoundrealty.com/BloodhoundBlog/?p=5366

[David Knudsen]

The last couple of days since the article came out have been really interesting and fun. There have been about 2,500 blog page views since Friday, about 4 times normal. The article didn't generate a surge of new business yet, but it did result in a lot of other interesting connections. I heard from a couple of old friends I haven't heard from in years. Seems like everyone and their brother-in-law reads the Times. But the most interesting thing to watch is how the article moved through the real estate blogosphere. I've gotten emails from a number of real estate bloggers, and a few have written about the article on their own blogs. (See Bloodhound, above.) This journey has taken me to a lot of other real estate blogs. Many are very well written, with lots of great info. But a noticeable difference between this blog and many other real estate blogs that are consumer-oriented (rather than oriented to real estate professionals) is the community of folks that's built up around this one. That folks drop on by here regularly to leave comments — often very passionate ones — seems to be pretty unique. So thanks to everyone for your contributions here.

Now that I've had my fifteen minutes, it's time to get back to my role as a real estate crumudgeon. Next up: Current Market Conditions with October's sales data in the next couple of days.

[John beck property vault]

This blog have alot of knowledge and i get alot infomation which i dont know before.