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As an avid listener you can imagine my excitement to be invited behind the scenes at NPR to go talk with them about all the changes going on around here. You can listen to it here.

Many people have asked about the Good project and what is going to happen to it with all the changes going on around here so I thought I would do a post on the topic and see if we can’t spell it all out.

Basically we have hit a wall with pricing where the current market has gone below what it costs us to build the product we believe so strongly in. So what we are going to do is finish and sell a few more houses that we already started and put the project on hold for a bit while we wait out the storm. It’s no secret that the market has taken a huge hit in the past year and our project although still faring better than others has been hit and is now in a spot.

There is one good thing about all this….If you want a good home, we are going to be selling the few that are under construction at below the cost to build them! So you could come in and get a killer deal on what I still believe to be the best example of Eco-Urban housing anywhere in the world.

We hope to be able to resume construction soon on the remaining lots and are already seeing signs that the market has bottomed out and is leveling off. Inventory has been in steady decline for the past 5 months which is typically the precursor to a recovery. At least that is what has always happened in the past.

So that is the story of Good.

to be continued…

Levi

On the 12th of this month my family and I are boarding a plane to Ethiopia to go help out with the orphanage we have been talking about on here lately. That means you are going to start seeing some changes here on the blog and I thought I would start to introduce you to a few of them.

This trip means that LJ Urban is going to be on a sort of hiatus. Still alive and passionate about making cities better but temporarily backing off of what has proven to be an incredibly hard real estate market. We own several properties across the central city that we intend to come back and develop when the market is delivering active buyers at reasonable prices. Today that is not the reality and this trip provides the perfect opportunity to take a break while things are slow, and sales prices are lower than the cost to build.

We are going to keep blogging here but from a whole different angle. Jessie and I are going to be doing our best to update the Blog from Ethiopia. So instead of hearing about city planning meetings and the epic saga that is green building, you will be hearing about a family in culture shock and the struggle to learn how to speak Amharic and find diapers by the truck load in rural Ethiopia. Our favorite friends over at EMRL are going to be working over the next few weeks on changing the feel of the blog so that its design is more in line with what you are going to be reading. For instance the red box at the top right of your screen is going to say something about how we are a development company on Sabbatical in Ethiopia and how you can come along and join us on our adventure. I am sure that we will loose some of our 25K visitors every month but such is life. I guess if we do a real good job of telling the story we might be able to keep everyone… You never know.

So changes will abound and you are as always invited to chime in and make suggestions as we journey onward and upward into a whole new world. Here we go!

Levi Benkert

Congratulations to Joanie of Austin, Texas. Joanie purchased 5 raffle tickets and won the scooter drawing last night at the orphanage fund-raiser. I spoke with her today and she is ecstatic with joy over her win. She already found a shipping company and they will be picking it up and bringing it to her next week!

We had a great time at the event, and I want to thank everyone who came out and supported the effort to save these children in Ethiopia. All in all, and I am guessing here, I think there were around 250 people who showed up, which is very cool!

Thank you, and congratulations Joanie. Happy Scooting!

Levi

This is off the charts. We are having the event this Thursday evening at their space in Midtown and they are making all sorts of crazy delicious food for us to snack on which is amazing but today they kicked things up a notch. Just read this description of the coffee they are roasting up just for the event…

Ethiopia Natural “Koratie”
Region – Sidamo, near town of Dilla.
Certifications – Shade-grown/Organic
Elevation – 6,069ft – 6,889ft
Plant varietals – Ethiopia Heirloom
Processing – Hand picked & cherries dried on raised beds.

Another spectacular coffee from the Sidamo region! This time we have the Koratie, a natural process coffee that is in the Dara region of Sidamo, just north of the Yirgacheffe area. Grown by small farm-holders near the town of Dilla at about 6,500ft elevation.

A higher price has been paid for this crop in assurance that only the perfectly ripe cherries would be harvested, not the green unripe ones.

This is a natural processed coffee which means the perfectly ripe cherries are directly laid out onto raised drying beds. The grades of this particular lot are a notch above the normal, Grade 4 or 5, this lot is Grade 3.

Lots like this is extremely hard to come by and Old Soul Co. roasters are completely humbled by this coffee’s presence.

In The Cup: Overwhelmingly aromatic! The nose of this coffee will have you chomping your chops for just a sip! Super berry (blueberry) with a maple syrup sweetness. Sweet ripe pineapples cool into a luscious low-toned fruit cocktail.

Just a quick reminder that this Thursday is the fund raiser event for the Drawn From Water Orphanage. We really hope you can come out and learn a bit more about the orphanage. There are going to be some very cool silent auction items up for sale including several original pieces of art by local artists who did works just for the kids in Ethiopia not to mention weekends in Tahoe and Santa Cruz. To top it all off we will be announcing the winner of the Scooter Raffle, so be sure to get your tickets you never know if you might just get lucky!

If you have not seen the video for the Orphanage yet you really should, some incredible people put their hearts into making it and it makes me cry every time.

And so you don’t have to go digging for them here are all the details again.

When
Thursday April 30th from 7-9 PM

Where
Old Soul on the alley between L and Capitol on 18th St [ map ]


Drawn from Water from Drawn From Water on Vimeo.

I think this might be the best email I have gotten in a while… It’s from the guys over at EMRL.

I get several emails a month from people who are interested in what we do and are considering starting a development company… It’s a tough question to answer because I would not wish on anyone the battles we have had to fight in the past 2 years, dropping values has brought frustrated investors and changed plans at every turn. Projects that we were nearly ready to start building on have been put on hold and we have had to retrain ourselves to think in a whole different mindset. But on the same token there are more opportunities out in the market today than ever perhaps in our lifetime and I think a whole new breed of community developer will be born from this market and hopefully the byproduct is a better urban landscape.

Today I got one of those emails and thought I would share it (and my answers) with you.

1) Did you go to seminars or trainings to get your knowledge in RE Development?

I did not but am sure there are some good things out there. I liked everything written by Seth Godin, his blog is inspiring and his books are good especially Purple Cow. Also Jim Collins wrote some good books that are worth reading.

[Read more →]

I am not sure if you have heard of Shai Agassi and his bold plan to rethink personal transportation, if not you need to take the time to watch this video and catch up on him. There is a good chance this guy leads the way to the transportation revolution this world desperately needs.