Word is starting to get out that my wife and I are moving to Ethiopia to run the orphanage I keep mentioning here on the blog. We simply could not sit by while children were being killed over there without stepping up and doing something about it. So sometime in the next month we are going to be moving our family to Jinka Ethiopia for a Sabbatical.

But before you jump out of your seats… Don’t worry, LJ Urban is still going to keep rolling here with Micah at the helm but at a much slower pace. As I am sure you all know the market has slowed significantly and its a good time to slow things down and wait out the storm. I will be explaining all the details as well as keeping you all up to date on our progress as we wind up our American life here to embark on something completely new. As for the blog we are going to keep posting updates from Ethiopia and so it will be a sort of developer – orphanage blog for a while. Sound fun?

The thing with blogs is that there really are no rules and so we just kind of do what feels best and with this change in our lives it feels to good to keep blogging here. It’s been quite a ride for those of you who have been with LJ Urban since we started and I hope you will all stay tuned as we go on the biggest adventure yet!

In the mean time head over and check out the site for the orphanage and see what we are up to.

Levi Benkert

Ok I know its been a while. We have been running around like mad the last week and have not posted much here on the blog. Stay tuned, more good things coming your way.

Levi

Today marks a big occasion for the LJ Urban blog. This post you are reading is our 600th bringing a total of 1627 comments. I know that may not mean a lot to you but to us who started this thing not knowing where it would take us and why we were even doing this its a huge deal. The first post was on October 3rd 2006 and was done by Jason Presley. Jason was an incredible writer and spent months leading up to the launch of the blog deciding what our message would be. Once we did launch Jason tirelessly tweaked and retweaked the design with EMRL ultimately landing on the site you see today. He liked to call it a “playground” every component of the site is interchangeable and always in motion.

Anyway, I know its sappy to hear someone write about looking back and how far they have come. But I am darn proud of what the site here has become and can not wait to see what the next 600 posts bring.

And since we are getting all sentimental here are a few of my favorite posts out of the last 600.

- The 800 Pound Gorilla
- Optimism
- The Myth of Quantity over Quality
- Alice in wonderland

There are lots more good ones I am sure but that is all I can seem to dig up that is resonating with me right now…

Levi Benkert

We got this comment yesterday and it made my day. I thought I would post it in case you may have missed it.

So I’m wandering around the web – kind of web 1.0 (because my sis tells me there is 2.0, but I don’t get it yet) looking for work, or opportunity or maybe even optimism. And I find this website and I am intrigued and encouraged by the optimism, the honesty, and the work.

So my comment is about “real estate development 2.0″ – the comment by someone named Levi I think – and its a great description. I’m a real estate developer, and nobody knows what I do – my friends, my parents, even the consultants that do so much to make projects happen. I love the comment about the S being a dollar sign….

So, in my world, a real estate developer is a creative, maker, doer, dreamer, and promoter of new, improved, land, living, using, walking past stuff. Its about passion and trying and then doing it all again.

THEN he gets sued by a neighbor who tries to extort money by stopping a project, then he gets sued by a contractor who refuses to live up to an honest contract…then the banks fold up and walk away…

And the real estate developer wonders where the optimism and the satisfaction went? Well, I found a little here, a little optimism and honesty and not much ego, and I am encouraged again.

Thanks guys!

Levi Benkert

Don’t know if you noticed but we have a pretty neat little calendar widget on the right of your screen where you can find out about upcoming events. Some are things that we are doing like open houses and such and others are things that we heard about and think you might want to go see. If you find anything interesting send it our way, our goal is to have the calendar stocked full of local happenings and we need your eyes to help spot the cool events.

Levi Benkert

Before I start I need to break a rule I read once about blogging. The rule went something like this. “Never open a blog post with, I am sorry I have not written in a while.” You all have most likely noticed that it has indeed been a while and despite the rules I am going to say I am sorry.

If you are signed up on the LJ Urban email list you got an email from us yesterday about the progress we are making on the good project. That is exactly what has been keeping me so busy. Since January 1st when word got out that we had another phase available people started blowing up my phone with calls to get in contract, which is very good news. So anyway. I am sorry for neglecting the blog here, even though I am not supposed to say that. But at the same time I am not sorry because I have such a good excuse. More people living in Good is a very good excuse right?

Anyhow. More posts to come I promise.

Levi Benkert

Some things just take a lot of patience, like waiting for the Astronaut Ice Cream I ordered off the back of a box of Raisin Bran when I was eight to come in the mail. (It takes 6 weeks by the way). The Good project has joined the ranks as one of those things in life that takes time. I was going through papers in my office yesterday looking for something and came across our planning commission approval documents and saw that we were approved in September of 2007 which does not sound all that long ago except that we had worked on the project almost a whole year leading up to that point as well. These things are like a good soup, they take time but when cooked just right with the right amount of patience come out tasting pretty darn good.

If you have driven by lately you will see that the first phase is complete (and sold out) and that the second phase has only three concrete pads poured. If you had driven by 2 weeks ago you would have seen the same thing….And 2 weeks in construction time is a lifetime (unless of course you are working on finishes in which case 2 weeks means you have hardly done anything). [Read more →]

I remember that before we would launch something new Jason used to write these amazing blog posts that had you hanging on the edge of your seat wondering what was next. He had a way with words that made you instantly connect with the emotions he felt when writing for you.

Today I tried to write one of those posts where I had you falling  off your seat with anticipation of what surprise we might have up our sleeves for you next and that post now sits in the little picture of a trash bin at the bottom of my screen, you just have to trust me that my attempt was no literary work of art and would have been a waste of your time anyway. Some people have the gift and some people don’t and today I am not one of those people. But I do want you to know that something is coming and its not at all what you would expect from a home builder. We are stepping out in a whole nother area for sure this time and I think you are going to like it. So keep an eye on the site here over the next few days,  I have tested the beta version already and other than a few minor bugs that we are working on now its pretty neat stuff. I really should stop there before I say to much.

Levi Benkert

I am sitting in the airport at 5:06 in the morning and trying to choke down what appears to be some sort of brownish liquid sold to me as coffee. I am flying to Chicago for a few meetings and am going to be posting pictures as often as I can over on the sidebar there.

It only shows the three most recent ones so click through if you want to see the rest of em.

Sorry for the poor sentence structure I am typing on my I phone and the caffiene (if there really is any) in my cup has yet to kick in. (not that I am all that much better under more favorable circumstances).

Levi

After being silent on the topic for a very long time I think its time to open this topic up..

You ready for this?

Who are you voting for and why?

And don’t be shy, more than 30,000 people read this blog every month and you might just be able to make a good point to them about why they should vote for your guy.