The I Love CVille Show With Jerry Miller! - Candice Van Der Linde & Mike Plecker Joined Keith Smith On "Real Talk With Keith Smith!"

Episode Date: June 28, 2024

Candice van der Linde, Owner of Buy And Sell Cville, and Mike Plecker, Realtor at YES Realty Partners, joined Keith Smith on “Real Talk With Keith Smith” powered by YES Realty Partners and Yonna Smith! “Real Talk” airs every Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 10:15 am – 11 am on The I Love CVille Network! “Real Talk With Keith Smith” is presented by Charlottesville Settlement Company, LLC, El Mariachi Mexican Bar & Grill, Fincham & Associates, Inc., Free Enterprise Forum, Intrastate Service Co, Pearl Certification and YES Realty Partners.

Good morning, everybody. Welcome to Real Talk with Keith Smith. If you've noticed, I'm not Jerry Miller doing the intro. Jerry today is taking a little bit of family time, so we wish him a good day. He's got a bit of a busy day ahead of him today, so we wish him all the best. And he left me to my lonesome, but I've got two great rock stars across the table from me. I've got Candice sitting in Jerry's spot and Mike sitting in the backstop area. But what we're going to do is we want to talk a little bit about mid-year numbers and kind of get, you know, I crunched a bunch of numbers last night, get your guys read on it. But I'm going to get on a soapbox a little bit here. But before I do that,

I'm going to let ladies go first. Candice, please introduce yourself real quick. And then we'll go to Michael and we'll jump in. Hi, everybody. Candice. I'm the owner of Buy and Sell Seville Team Realtors with Yes Realty Partners, Keller Williams Alliance. That is a mouthful, but I love it. I'm getting better at saying it every day. Enjoy being a realtor. I've been a realtor professionally full-time now 13 years. All the changes, all the information and all the stuff, I think we're the best at pivoting in any industry because we have so much that we have to keep track of to better ourselves and our clients and make sure that we can represent properly

and have amazing people on the other side of the transaction. So my nutshell of myself, I guess I'm passionate about education. I'm passionate about teaching people and learning and come from the restaurant industry, so customer service is key. And I love selling and helping people sell and buy properties. You've been on the show a bunch of times. I have. So it's a different spiel today than normal.

A different spiel. I like that spiel. I believe that's a Jewish terminology, spiel. Tell us something that nobody knows about you that you'd like to share. Oh, my God. Well, anybody that knows me knows I love fiber work, crocheting, spinning. My baby, Bert, again, everybody should know him. He's the client morale specialist.

So Bert's the dog. Bert's your puppy. Yeah, Bert's the golden doodle. He's been with me now almost, actually, he's almost 10 years old. Been with me that long and helping people. Everybody loves him but i've been learning teaching myself how to spin his fur into yarn so then when i make client gifts or special things it's actually from bert

i have a german shepherd so well woody i keep telling woody i need his dog's fur because he's got those australian shepherds and i'll have more than enough if I had that. Yeah, I was about to say, my forest is shedding like crazy. If you want some hair. Well, his won't work. It's a little needly. It needs to be a longer staple. But we even class tomorrow Central Virginia CVFG.

Oh, no, I'm learning it. But it's a fiber guild. It's amazing. It's super cheap. But we have amazing people in our area in any walk of life or any hobby you want to get into. So let me get this straight. You're taking hair off your dog. I'm brushing it or cutting it.

You're taking hair off your dog to make housewarming gifts. Am I hearing that right? Yeah. I mean, shoot. He's so fluffy and furry, and everybody loves petting him. I mean, you just love it. I've got to tell you. Well, that is how much we care.

As realtors and professionals and service individuals, you know, we have our restaurateurs. Hold on a second. I'm texting PETA. Yeah, good. I'll make them some gifts, too. Michael, introduce yourself. I don't even know what to say after this. Yeah, good. I'll make them some gifts, too. Michael, introduce yourself. I don't even know what to say after this.

Making sweaters out of dog fur, I mean, I can't. I think the show is over. I think it's over. Like I said, I have a German shepherd at home. You're more than welcome to come over and gather up all the fur you want. But no, Mike Plecker, realtor, and started off in the new home business in Northern Virginia in 1995 and put my 60 and 70 hours a week in for many years.

But a long-time resident of Charlottesville, I can say that now. The other side of the hill, right? Well, yeah, I came from the valley, originated there along with my wife, but we spent 17 years or so in Northern Virginia, and we decided it was no longer for us, but we spent 17 years or so in Northern Virginia, and we decided it was no longer for us, so we moved here in July of 2005 to Pantops. And anybody that knows me or follows my pages knows that I'm all about Pantops, the views, and the community that's up there.

We're going to talk a little bit about that when we get into the market. When the market side of things, I didn't do slides for the other side of the hill, but just to share a quick number for you, and maybe you can do a quick comment on it. So when we get to slides, we're talking about the first six months of this year versus the first six months of last year. And, you know, I actually called everybody up to find out what's closing today, so we had accurate numbers. But 2024, there were 729 transactions. So this is Augusta, Waynesboro, and Stanton.

The median sales price was 301. 2023, it was 625, so it's up about 9%. So Augusta County, when we get into it in a little while, is one of the few counties that are actually increasing in sales, but it stayed flat. It was $300,000. To me, that's flat. My question with that, though,

is new construction. How many permits are being pulled in Augusta right now? I didn't break it down that way. I'd be curious. I think that's it. I was up to 2 o'clock in the morning working on this, Candace, so I'll get that on future shows. But tell us something about,

you know, everybody knows you used to be you were a backstop and you were in the minor leagues of the Mets, so we kind of got all that out. Sure. Tell us something that we don't know. Back when mustaches were still popular in baseball, but they're making a comeback, yeah. I've been getting multiple compliments. Some people never phased out of them.

I've never phased out of them. So tell us something we don't know about you. Well, I think we all know that. I mean, Augusta County traditionally, especially long before me and through the time that I grew up, there was an industrially based and agricultural market, you know, and the demographics were blue collar and then, you know, farmers. And then there was some companies there that, you know, with a little bit different flavor to it. But historically, that's what it's been. It has, like many other areas in the country, sort of transitioned away from that somewhat.

And there's more of a mix there now. There's some tech companies that's come in. A lot of folks working from home. You know, Waynesburg being designated as one of the top three places in the country to retire because of the cost of living and health care. So you've seen a gradual blending, so to speak, of demographics and employers and that sort of thing over there. But it's changing, I think, more rapidly. And I think the slide you might, well, we don't have a slide on that one, but the numbers that you talked about with Augusta County and Waynesboro, the change that you're seeing in price and in units being sold, I think is a direct result of the expense and the lack of inventory on this side of the mountain. So I want to talk a little bit about why Gavin is in here and kind of get on a soapbox a little bit.

But there's two guys be thinking about this. There's two jurisdictions in the first six months of this year that stayed flat year over year. It was Augusta at $300,000, and it was Flavena County at $350,000. So the prices stayed exact. Think a little bit about why you think that was. Well, I do. I want to talk about why Gavin's not here, though. Yeah.

Oh, no, this all comes in. So, again, I'm a huge proponent on when something happens that is unfavorable, there's a learning opportunity. Maybe the person on the other side or maybe someone in the transaction is unaware of what is supposed to happen, right? So education is key. Working from home in the infrastructure, the cost of living and health care, these counties that are the municipalities and the counties, Nelson as well, and or, you know, bringing in gas stations where you're building three, you know, 300 unit neighborhoods, there's no gas station within 20 minutes, right? So the infrastructure, the municipalities, Scottsville's another one, you know, I believe that if people rally and have a voice to aid in those things, that's where we're seeing this increase and or permitting increase or desirability to live in that area. But I want to take this a different way because, you know, I talk about this all the time, the six rights, right? Right location,

price, features, condition, timing, and who's on the other side matters. Gavin's not here today, and we won't go into specifics because we're still trying to figure out how to make this happen on it. But that's not why this is happening. This is, frankly, a lack of professionalism on the other side. And I'm just going to say it out there publicly. He had a closing this morning that was supposed to happen at 9, which would have made enough time to get here. Again, no specific details. Did the walkthrough at 7 o'clock in the morning. People didn't move out.

So that's a matter of a real estate agent that's supposedly been in the business for a couple of decades not communicating with their client what the expectations are. And he rolls in that and this is not a good thing because they need the clothes because they got moving trucks on the way, and it's this whole big mess. It's because the other side wasn't communicating. And that's kind of why I want to kick it off. The level of professionalism that I'm seeing, maybe I'm wrong. I had a cash transaction in Richmond close yesterday that I

couldn't get receipts from a HIRCA for, a home inspection. So it just seems, I don't know if it's just my transactions that we've got going on, but are you seeing things getting a little goofy? I mean, so you could, we could sit here and probably have a roundtable for the next hour or two about the different reasons why it may be occurring if you think you're seeing it more often. I don't want to go there, but I would like to pick up on the fact that the importance of having someone, you're managing in a buyer and seller situation, you're managing expectations and emotions for the seller and for the buyer. And it is beyond important that you have someone on the other side of the transaction that has been in communication with you to maybe fend off any things that may be coming down the road because the ultimate goal or the goal of any realtor especially if you're working with one on the other side

whether they're a buyer's agent or a seller's agent is you want happy clients at the end you want them even though things come up during a transaction that may not be as pleasant for them as you would like them to be, you want to at least have the proper expectations set so that everything continues to move forward. I think what concerns me, and Candice, you can jump in on this, I think what concerns me the most at the moment as a real estate professional profession, we're about ready to have this change happen. It's going to happen in August.

The only way that that's really going to work is everybody on both sides of the transaction have to communicate. They're going to be forced to communicate now because of the change. Are they really? It's just a situation. The broker's not responding. The agent's not responding. The loan office is not responding. Honestly, though, that happens. I won't use profanity, but that happens. It always has.

It always will. There are professionals in every industry that don't do their job properly. Sorry. We can do the best we can do. There's 1,200 agents just in our little area, and 300 do all the transactions, even if they've been in the business for 50 years. I mean, there's a property, a very, very substantial property with an extremely amazing realtor who's been in the industry for a long time who has it incorrectly labeled as not in a subdivision. I mean, people are looking for it and can't find it. People make mistakes, but there's also professionalism.

If the weatherman makes a mistake, we expect that. When people are looking to a professional to do their job, again, communicate properly, set the expectations, tell them, look, this ain't going to happen. Sorry. Here's what we can do. Here's legally what our recourse is. We're not attorneys, but here's our resources.

You can just follow my Facebook page for weather. Totally. I know, I know. You're probably better. I mean, if it's raining outside, I'll tell you it's raining. Well, no, the stick works better. I've got to tell you, I actually do follow your Facebook page for weather. Well, I'll tell you, that's a 15-second quick story

because a long time ago when the girls were little and we lived in Northern Virginia, it was a hot August pool party and one of the girls had with some of her friends, and we darn near got caught in a tornado. Oh, wow. By the time we got home, chimneys were blowing off of houses. Oh, wow. Limbs were falling off into our swimming pool. And we stood in the basement and watched hail that large. That's just me secretly. I said's that secretly well I said I said

at that point I said hey we're never gonna be caught in a situation again so I'm always like he's just promoting coming I'll tell you well but it's look we've all been in the situation I can't tell you whether the problem is increasing all I can tell you is that if they're with the number of transactions that have been involved in, where we haven't had good representation on the other side, we're going into a big change in the industry. And those folks, I think, are going to exacerbate the problem. Who's on the other side always did matter, is going to matter even more. I'll get off my soapbox a little bit. It's just, you know, it's concerning to me that, you know,

it's just a simple thing of not having a house ready to close on the morning. Well, you know, too, as professionals with amazing pro on the other side, thankfully I've been fortunate to work with such amazing realtors on the other side as well. And you know what? Sometimes our clients don't do what we tell them to do. And, you know, I've had a number of times where we, again, I think the big word of the day is communication. And whenever this stuff happens, you know, there are protocols and rules. Again, I am on the board of our Realtor Association. So again, there are protocols and rules and ways to go about,

and I have given the suggestions to the agents in this situation as well that, you know what, do the best, like Michael said, do the best for your client, be honest and set the expectations. You're not moving in today, obviously, and this was hopefully a little bit expected beforehand. We'll get this fixed. It will. It'll work out.

Three days before closing, I'm showing up with boxes. Oh, yeah. I mean, I've been throwing things in dumpsters off a balcony. Michael, that's the point. The point is that the other side isn't communicating. Sure. It's not the problem that they can't move out. That happens all the time.

Well, so like Cameron said, this association is full of professional agents. I can't tell you how many transactions I've done with other agents. So that you know this agent is not

I love doing work with them. Yeah. They're great to work with and both sides are happy and everything moves smoothly.

And then there's the ones that just turn into Northern Virginia agents, by the way. They turn into ghosts on you sometimes.

So go ahead. The best thing though, here's the key, okay? Everybody, here's the secret. As a person who's looking for a realtor, make sure you get a really good one. Because it could make or break, you could have a great offer, but they go, ooh, that agent? They don't know what they're doing. I don't trust this offer from this agent because I know from the past experience they're out their mind or they're not professional or what have you.

So your clients are really needing to make sure that you have a professional on your side that knows what you're doing. Woody Fincham brings this up all the time. We refer out, right? So if there's something in Northern Virginia that we have a client, we refer it out to somebody who's an expert in that market. In this particular case, I don't think this agent should be listing something in our region.

But we'll go ahead. I'm sorry. That was an interesting point you just made. But because of the, you know, the flatness I see in the market as far as the number of sales and the fact that the inventory is way down you see a lot more agents from out of town doing work in this area

especially from Richmond one of the Virginia agents so yeah it's interesting all you have to do if anybody gets into Paragon starts switching the originating boards from car to bright and back and forth, and you can see those numbers jump up and down drastically. But I do want to possibly be doing numbers today.

So let's take a look too, if you don't mind, slide number one. So what we did is, what I did on that is I just took a look at the car footprint. This is all product types, new construction, condos, townhomes, yada, so forth and so on. And I wanted to see what the difference was in the first slide of first quarter versus second quarter. So the bottom line is we're up by sales by about 49%, about 50% jump quarter over quarter. And I'm going to let you guys chime in on what you think about that. But price has gone up 7%. Again again we're talking first quarter to second quarter where first quarter typically you do get an increase there you go okay talk about that for

a second okay okay well first slide so um so we're back to seasonal it's kind of back to seasonal type things yeah it's more of a normalized market where I think what I typically start talking to sellers about being prepared around Valentine's Day or shortly after if they want to get in on the early spring market. But, yeah, this sort of just shows. If Jerry was here, he would be asking you this question. So what do you think the third quarter is going to look like? Flat. Yeah. Candice?

Yeah. Flat. Flat. Yeah. Because you asked the question by an email to the group, I believe, it may have been on one of the shows, where have we plateaued? Yeah. And it's just my feeling sort of, you know,

reading the tea leaves, that I think we probably have somewhat plateaued on sales and pricing. I think it's timing. What number is your timing slide? I don't remember. That would be number five. I think it's really just timing. Number five is timing. Number five is timing.

Last year, you know, the Lawrence and everybody, you know, all the economic forecasts were what was going to happen, and then it didn't happen. So now the forecast, well, it changed, yes. We pivoted. Pivot, yeah. That was a word of the year one year on our show. I can't remember what year. I always think of the Friends episode on the couch moving furniture. Pivot! Patrick Pettit. But, yeah, so I think what I would imagine is, again, some of the outlying communities where construction permits have been ordered and issued and now things are starting.

I'd say Q3, Q4, there's going to be more movement and more activity in some areas. And then others are going to be flagged. When we get to Greene County's numbers, you're going to see that as a big impact on it. So slide number two, if you don't mind, Judah. So this is Charlottesville footprint, right? is a big impact on it. So slide number two, if you don't mind, Judah. So this is Charlottesville footprint, right? Same all product types, new construction, so forth and so on. But what I did is I compared first half of 23 versus first half to 24.

You know, I like this bigger six-month block, right, than these little quarter blocks on it. But sales were down 5%. So we are selling 5% less homes than we were the same period last year, but we're up 7%. So prices are going up. Again, inventory, I think. Buying is going down. Mm-hmm.

You know, back to this professional conversation we were having. I think that's going to put more pressure on our industry than this whole commission thing will ever do on it. Speaking in general terms, if I say it seems to me that things that might have plateaued,

I look at longer blocks like you just described. And there are still pockets. It's the way it used to be, somewhat where you have hot pockets, so to speak. Hot pockets. Hot pockets. That's a plug.

Hot pockets. Jim Gaffigan. Oh, yes. Hot pockets. I'm going to see him in September in Richmond or so with my sister. Oh, yeah, cool. Yeah, I love him. Cool.

So you get the specific locations where you may see a bump in sales. in Richmond or so with my sister. I love him. I'm going to have that in my head the whole show. Specific locations where you may see a bump in sales or a higher appreciation rate. Again, generally speaking, it just feels we're going a little plateau here. We're going flat on sales.

I got it in my head. You know what? I mentioned it to Michael too because Keith is amazing and had all this stuff for, like, days now. He's prepping and telling us and getting ready. And so we had a lot of ability to analyze this and act like we know what we're talking about because you did all the legwork. But in looking at it, it really was interesting. I thought the big chunk numbers really were not that different than expected year over year. Yeah, and then individual jurisdictions and the quarter-to-quarter type of differences really made an impact.

So I thought that was weird. Which jurisdiction do you think that we should kick off the talk about on an individual? How about the one my wife and I would like to move to one day? Which is? Nelson. Nelson County. That is interesting. Let's see. Number seven. Nelson County. That's why we were hoping Gavin would be here. Hold on a second. So that's slide number seven, Judah.

Yeah, Gavin Sherwood is amazing. He's in the wintergreen snow adaptive sports and helped teach my daughter. Thank you, Gavin. Shout out um if i have questions or people that direction he's a like we said referring to realtors in areas there's different localities that really have specifics and communicating and knowing and promo to like be part of groups and organizations in whatever profession you are but you know knowing other agents in other areas if i got a question in Nelson, I'll call, you know, I'll call Gavin or Waynesboro, I'll call Michael,

you know, Jenny over in Green or Matthew. You know, so everywhere, the localities, it might be like, hey, what are you seeing here? Because, you know, I go all over the six counties and areas and that. I'm really confident and comfortable there. But not everybody is comfortable or confident in traveling in those places. I wanted to ask Gavin this question. Same six months last year versus this year.

Prices jumped 21%. Prices went up 21%. Went from $330 last year, first six months, to $409. That sounds like a Windex thing. $409. Isn That sounds like a Windex thing. 409. Right, isn't that like a... We got Hot Pockets, we got Hot Pockets, we got 409. But I think, you know what? Formula 409.

Is that for the gray hair? No, that's Grecian. That's Grecian formula, yeah. But no, I think, you know, again, I go back to look at when the infrastructure was put in. High speed internet, change of people working from home, opportunity to upgrade and make really cool, funky new stuff. But the infrastructure's there.

Now it matters. Now people can go and live in places that are rural and have high speed. When downtown, Milton, like down atwick, no high speed internet. Are you kidding me? So really affluent, beautiful communities sometimes don't have the infrastructure that these rural, beautiful farmland places have. I think that's what's happened in the last few years. Like I said, we'll have to get Gavin back on to talk about why he thinks that's going on.

So, you know, it's, if it's looking at concentric circles, I think you've used this term before. Your better half doesn't like the term drive till you qualify. No, I don't like it either. People have different reasons for moving away from the expensive center, which here would be Charlottesville. I think that we've pushed people now that really want to buy a home out a little further and canvas is absolutely correct the infrastructure for Firefly broadband internet that sort of thing other attractions restaurants that sort of thing that's being built out in northern Nelson along 151 sort of helps you know attract people out there but it may be that there's such sticker shock in town that if I was an agent out there, I would maybe try to push the envelope a little bit on pricing.

The city of Charlottesville, its median price is $520,000 in the first half. Yeah. Up $14.5. Yeah, but what's the square footage of a $520,000? Yeah. What's our price per square foot there? That's a whole different thing. That's a whole other round table.

But it makes a difference. It goes back to what it always has been. Honey, I'd like to have a little more house. We can get a lot more house in Nelson County than we can and have a little bit more lot around us than we can in Charlottesville. One of the struggles with Nelson County and Louisa, and these are big numbers, right? These are big lookout, high level, not into the details,

because literally I put it all together last night. But I can't tell you how much of that's in Winnigreen and how much is that, because I didn't break it down that far. And as we go on during the next month, we're going to start taking deeper dives into individual areas. But the bottom line is Charlottesville is at 520 up 14.5%

sales are up 2.5% I'm just going to buzz through these real quick Albemarle County is down 11% but up 7% in price so down in sales Fulvana County this is the one I want to talk about,

is down by 11%, but it stayed flat at 350 last year versus this year, same six-month thing open. And Green County, which we've been talking about looking for a boost there, they did. They're almost up 10% in volume,

and they're up about 4%, so they're up 9.5%. I let's go I want to take a dive into Fulvana real quick because Fulvana I don't have a slide for it in Augusta stayed flat mm-hmm the Augusta Wayneboro stand that's slide number 5 if you don't mind Judah I know I'm moving you around a little bit. So slide number five is Fulvana. Bottom left corner of the slide numbers. So Fulvana, this is Lake Monticello and the county, right? So this is all one big look at the whole jurisdiction. Last year, same six months, was at 350.

This year it's at 350. We didn't climb. So all the other jurisdictions climbed in some other percentage, right, increased in price. Flavana didn't. What do you think that is, guys? I've got a theory. I'm just curious what yours is. I've got a theory.

I want to hear Michael's. I can answer that question better about Augusta. Okay, answer it about Augusta. Go ahead. They're building inventory. They're building apartment rentals, you know, a lot of those, but they're building inventory over there. So you're up 9%. So you're roughly in Augusta, Waynesboro, Stanton up 10% while Flavena is down 11%.

So let's say percentage-wise it's inverted. Do you think that's it? Well, so earlier we were talking about Augusta County, and I said I've watched it grow, the demographics change, I was sort of bringing it up to the point where it's at now, which I see as we're going to start

leveling off over there somewhat, but I think, again, people are looking at that side of the mountain, there's inventory to be bought, especially along the Houghton Parkway area in Waynesboro. You know, you've got Atlantic Builders over there. Ryan Holmes is building. D.R. Horton is in the area over there now.

Yeah, big time. And I know land is getting snatched up over there because, I mean, I've actually spoken to some folks that were selling on that side of the mountain and marketing it directly to builders. They just approved another 400-townhome community within the city limits of Waynesboro. Really? Yeah, where the old district home used to be at the end of hopen parkway and i know my grandfather and grandmother on my dad's side they actually were stayed at the district home back in the 70s but it's just been a dilapidated pile of asbestos for years they finally sold it they're remediating all that stuff out and it's going to be 400 townhomes and that's's also on Houghton Parkway right there.

So, again, though, I always go back to this. Let's look back. What happened a few years ago to now have this happen? The municipality is open to change and open to growth. The infrastructure and the development and the opportunity to build without having nine months of waiting for one permit to even see if you can break ground. That's what happens. The time delay and cost for development in Albemarle, Charlottesville is,

thank you for doing the best you can, everybody, but it is long and costly. Therefore, let's go out and have it done elsewhere. And Augusta and that part of the world is very friendly. They're welcoming new business and job opportunities. Let's use those words. Fluvanna, on the other hand, is forget about it. So here's my theory. I really want to hear why you

think that price is the same. Fluvanna, my assumption is, what I'm seeing, and obviously you're out there building and doing all that stuff all the time. With Fluvanna, amazing. I love the three bed, two bath ranch. Put it on a basement basement put a cape on it do a little wing with the garage I don't care what it is but that product sells in Fluvanna around near around the

lake anywhere out there it's a great home it's a great starter home the cost to build it is really doable most every builder has some floor plan in a set budget, right? You chintz it out with some formica or butcher block and carpet, you know, or fancy it up as with granite and gold all over the place. But it's still a set plan that's always amazing. You've got no new construction happening in Fulvana other than Colonial Circle. And I'm going to give a little tease for everybody. Stanley Martin is starting to go vertical over there at Colonial Circle. Are they? Oh yeah, there's a foundation in the ground. Lumber's been dropped.

We're going to talk a little bit about that next Friday. Yona's going to come in next Friday, and we do our annual 4th of July thing. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So we're excited to do that. But we're going to talk a little bit about that. I'm getting some information from Stanley Martin on price and expectations. So stay tuned for that. We'll talk a little bit more about that next Friday.

I think that the size of the home matters. And so the flat price, I think, because it is an amazing community and a lot of the sales may be a certain square foot or home style that is more affordable, which is why there's more of that flat pricing. So I – this is my, why I think the other side of the hill is flat at $300,000 worth Lake Mount Natchezlo or Fulvanna County. It's the interest rates.

It's finally kicking in for that. Because when you start looking at these other homes that are $400,000, $500,000, $600,000, $700,000, $800,000, generally, they have a little bit more cash. Conventional loans And I haven't done that. Conventional loans. I haven't done that breakdown yet on how much transactions

for cash or not, which I'm working on for the rest of the month on that. But most of the stuff out in Fulvana County is financed. And a lot of opportunity to finance because it's in an area that's able to get financing. But the point I'm trying to make here is I think the reason it stayed flat is it didn't increase is because the buyer has to get a loan. And with these interest rates climbing, it's becoming less affordable, right, and more difficult. I don't know this for detail. This is my assessment after finishing this up at 0, Doc, 30 in the morning going, okay, why is that flat on that? And I think it's the same thing over on the other side of the hill.

Well, it is. So that's a good point. I haven't mentioned interest rates very timely. You just brought it up. I think part of that also, though, in Waynesboro, there's competition. Yeah, sure. So it's not a large area as far as the populace goes. It's not a hugely populated area. It's a big geographic area over there. But you have several builders all competing in the Waynesboro city limits and just outside the city limits now. And that's going to help. That helps.

Competition helps pricing as far as, you know, keeping things more in a normal, you know, 3%, 3.5% appreciation rate. So I'm kind of old school. And prices. Somebody call these Bob Barker cards. You need the tiny mic. Do that then. old school. And prices. Somebody called these Bob Barker cards. You need the tiny mic. Do that then. Bob Barker cards. To your point, first half of 2024 in

Fulvana County, we were down 17% in sales. We were at 178. Augusta, Waynesboro, and Stanton were at 730 transactions. So I'm not smart enough to figure out what the percentage difference on that, but we were in Fulvana about 178. The other side

of the hill was 729. I can agree with that argument. The other side of the hill is more is being built at stabilizing prices. It kind of goes to my soapbox I've been getting on is letting more building happen. It'll stabilize prices, I think, a little bit. But that's not happening in Fulvana County. We're not building new product in Fulvana County. So if you're talking about a mobile population

now, if you're talking about a more mobile population as far as being able to go different places and buy homes, sometimes jurisdictions see a bump and maybe now maybe Fluvanna's flat because people are now getting more attracted to the Waynesboro side of things. Well, I think you're 100% right. Well, here's the thing too. $50,000 makes a difference at 7%. Oh, absolutely. Look at the roads, windy, curvy back roads, slower speeds. I love my road, curvy roads.

No, I love it. I mean, shoot, I love driving down to, you know, how many country songs can you sing? My truck sometimes makes a right over at the vineyard on the way home. It just kind of does it. However, it just goes. It's amazing how it works. It just knows where to go. It must be a GPS thing. I don't know. It's a mental GPS. So I wanted to touch base. So I believe, you know, most people I find, because again, I sell in all the surrounding counties. I'm very comfortable

in all of them. Love it. People that are not open to, willing, or intimidated by driving a curvy road and not used to it, they will not even go to the location. So I think some of that, again, location, what slide number one thing. So I wanted to touch base real quick, though, on Augusta County. And you said the inventory has grown the product is better what i'm looking at is over there and and i love augusta i love waynesboro played um golf at waynesboro country club for god a long time um augusta health care center tennis facility is freaking amazing love it the pros the cleanliness like it's amazing over there there's jobs it's clean you go to any fast food place and it's like you feel like you're in a five diamond five-star restaurant

You know thank you for all of your services So anyway having that kind of lifestyle and you can hop on 64 year there in 28 minutes of downtown Charlottesville it takes me 20 minutes from Albemarle High School to get downtown Right so I think the roads and the opportunity to drive the businesses like restaurants and shopping, back in the day, you know, Lake Monticello and Fluvanna, thank you for having more grocery stores and restaurants around. But I think that the communities and areas that are building, opening, their conservation or their comprehensive growth plans are set in place,

and then they follow and achieve those goals. Remember back 12 to 15 years ago, Louisa put in the infrastructure, pre-Zions, Crossroads, and that. They did all that. Try about 40 years ago. Was it 40? Well, I wasn't doing real estate then. I was just a few years off. But, you know, so ultimately, back when I started, I saw this happening, and there are other places that have opportunity to grow, but maybe that's not in their plan. So with competition, if you look over, I'll get off my soapbox, but I wanted to say the inventory and the product and the pricing, right? Over in Augusta County, how many years owned are those places? Because going over there, trees, streets, all the different really beautiful communities, it's generational families living there. They

have builders competing. They're going to want to bump their prices up, and they're going to want more value for whatever land or farm or whatever, but then the builders have the opportunity to price that out and break it down per unit and cost and then offer a product that's desirable or... Build or sell payment. Builders sell payment, and to

Keith's point, the payments they're selling now are higher than the payments that they were. But, you know, one aspect we haven't talked about as far as Augusta and some of the growth that I'm making a real quick point is the industry that's been brought to the area. Yeah, the jobs. You've got Amazon Distribution Center, you've got a Target

Distribution Center, you have a Walmart Distribution Center. We can talk about the same thing for Louisa County. Yeah. In road access, again, 64, hop in, hop off. At Zions and Fluvanna, you make a right. Mike, you know, all those commercial operations there, prime. But the infrastructure hadn't been put in back in the day, so now we're just playing backlog and it's more expensive to do so.

And it takes more time and energy. Part, I mean, I intimately know the whole Zionist Crossroads area. I've been involved in it for decades. The growth area on the Flavena County side is tiny, minuscule. So at some point, they're going to have to consider expanding that. There's not the political will

to do that. Right. Probably for several cycles, election cycles on it. Until then, Louisa County is going to kick my... Well, and the growth area over there, too. You've got Louisa and Fluvanna that are intermingled along that line, kind of through the growth area, don't you?

Yeah, yeah. So you've almost got two jurisdictions in the middle of sort of where the growth area would be. But I say, you know what? For industry or companies that are looking to have a warehouse or, you know, storage units and pods, conditioned units, that's a major thing. I've been going over to Lake Anna and Louisa a lot lately. It's such a beautiful area. And with our Association of Realtors, we always have their, you know, we have Young Professionals Network and Women's Council of Realtors and all these different groups that bring in the zoning officials. Reed was just in talking to us about all the city of Charlottesville zoning changes. Amazing and the beautiful thing is unlike Northern Virginia unlike Richmond unlike these areas this is a local small

town I mean we we we know each other you know I'm stuck on the road or lock myself out I've got the cell phone number of the agent usually in my in my phone somewhere and need to get help but thankfully that only happened once in 13 years but it's nice to have a small town community feel with a lot of variety. You know, the agriculture, the growth in Nelson and that with the breweries and the vineyards and all of the opportunity for industry as well as jobs. Then that creates the real estate and residential. While you guys were chatting, I was doing some number crunching.

I saw the smoke. I thought it was a hamster. Thanks, Michael. Augusta, Waynesboro, and Stanton, right? So basically, I took a look at how much of, from year to date, was new construction out of this, let's call it 800, 700, 800 units, 200. So 200 of the total transactions that sold, let me double check that, make sure I got this in the right thing before I make a mistake. Or is that what you said in Nelson, Augusta?

Hold on a second. I apologize. I had active in there too. 110. So out of 729, 110 of them are new construction. But you know it wasn't that long ago, Keith, that that number would have been almost non-existent? Yeah. Well, that's because they made the decision to do that. Sure. But, you know, Flavana County is 25 out

of, let me get my number, 178. So I don't know what the percentage differences are, but that's the difference. The difference is they're allowing new construction, which is stabilizing the prices a little bit. You don't have these 10, 12 double-digit price increases, which is great if you own, right? Right. But if you're trying to get in the market and buy, you know, if you wait six months, right,

if you're waiting six months in, let me see, pick a county. How about Greene County? Let's go to Greene County. Let's go to Flauvena. I've got to get my slides. I've got them all mixed up. That's slide number six, Judah. If you were waited six months, you're up 4%.

You're spending 4% more for the house than you were six months ago. So, you know, now's the right time to buy. I've got to check my phone. I was going to say, Jerry, kudos to you for being able to pull in. I'm sure we have a lot of feeds and a lot of people asking questions and that.

You can call us anytime. Numbers are all over the place. I'm having a lot of fun, but don't tell Jerry this. I do miss him across the table. Hey, I think he already knows that. You guys have developed a chemistry where he knows that you're in midpoint of looking to find another piece of data. He knows how to manage somebody. He can carry it while your wheels are turning over there.

He has a special skill to manage Smith's ADD. We're kind of getting down towards the end. There's one thing, I'm sorry, that we really haven't mentioned, and we're talking about inventory. We're talking about the appreciation rates houses are getting and breaking it down by jurisdiction. And we haven't addressed that. For some folks, that may be a little intimidating to look at maybe purchasing at this time. How does that kitchen table look? My point is this. My wife and I bought our first house in 92. We had a 3-1 arm with a 2-1 buy-down or something.

I can't even remember the program they put us in, but they sold us the payment, and it fit in our budget. Was it the house, our dream home? No. But even with that and even through other buying and selling of homes and up markets or down markets, the bottom line, it is still the best foundation for any financial portfolio is buying a home. And the interest rates

aren't going to last forever. Not in my lifetime, they're ever going to go back to three. No, it shouldn't be. And they're actually now in the normal range. Well, the average from 1972 is 7.1%. So we're at that. Look, we can crystal ball the hell out of this.

You know, I'm about as, I'm about, I'm going to be as about right as Younes is going to be, Lawrence Younes is going to be but I think you're going to see after the election interest rates drop historically that's what happens Q4 will be big I think Q4, that's what I was about to ask

I think Q3 is going to be a little flat I think it'll be about what we were from 1 to 2 I think Q3 is going to be a little flat. I think it will be slightly. I think it will be about what we were from 1 to 2. You think second to third. I think it will be, yeah. I think it will stay pretty even because there's still stuff happening. There's things in transition and transaction and in the works. But I think Q4 is really going to pop.

It's going to take a while to wash out. But, see, this is a headline of an article that I was reading again this morning that a key factor. They're raising it from 2% to 2.6 is their ceiling, their floor, or whatever you want to call it. We're still at least supposed to be two above that. The whole inflation thing is still. You're talking about they're raising their target. Let's make sure I got this right. They're raising their target from 2% to some other number?

Yeah, the inflation rate. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And we've been, Jerry and I have been talking about this for a while, that I think that's what you're going to see happen, that somewhere between 2.5% and 3% is now the new norm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

And then I think when they all decide that that's reality, you're going to see at least the Fed rate start I think we said it a long time ago on one of the shows. It may have been the show where I bet you a bottle of Woodford Reserve. Did I ever pay that?

No. He's just bringing up the debt you owe. We pulled up that show where Keith agreed to that bet. I haven't seen that yet. Okay, show's over. Well, I think there are a couple important things. I got you that.

Did I not get you that? I got you that. Look, I'm trying to talk his way out of it. Really? So I think the important thing, though, is Keith's slides are really colorful, and I love it. So the right location and the right timing, those are things that are what they are. You know, crystal ball or not, pick your timing. Some people have to move.

They don't have a choice in that. Some people take the opportunity because there's a funny meme on some social media. But basically, okay, if someone is waiting for the interest rate to drop back in, when was it? Was it 7 point whatever in 82? No, it was like 13 in 82. Well, this is the point where Mr. Miller would jump in and go, Keith bought his first house at 18. Keith and Yona bought their first house

at 18. So essentially, if you had waited until the interest rates went down until 3%, how much rent would you have paid? How much equity would have you lost? It's amazing. I honestly believe this. Other than the golden handcuffs of the 3%,

everybody kind of knows that that's never going to happen. But last year, I tell you what, Q4, Q1, Q2, Q3 last year, it wasn't the case. People were holding out. And so I think those numbers are very reflective. And now people were waiting. We all thought it was going to drop, and it didn't. Now it will drop at the end of the year, hopefully. So I think Michael's more

on it. People always have bought for payment. The average person, right? There's a bunch of folks out there that do that, but most people try to buy as much house as their monthly payment can afford. That's generally how this

works. Again, there's other transactions that don't look that way. Even since just the 90s, right? Mid to late 90s. There's a lot more things that take our money now before you get to the mortgage payment, it seems like, for a lot of cases. I mean, a lot more people are using services that they're paying for and that sort of thing. It's all part of the buying is better than renting

any day. I'm going to throw out a question and then I'm going to kind of look up some data. How much do you think cash transactions are starting to slow down or increase or what do you think? Because cash

is impacting the market. Slow down. So what do you, I'm going to look at it. I think it's slowing down. So we've had this discussion before. You didn't see it. I mean, I think we kind of both agreed it was happening. But the corporations and the hedge funds that were buying.

But not in our location, though. It happened a few times. You're right. It's not a, it wasn't a big problem. I got to tell you, when we were on vacation, you know, that we were wandering around, there's, you know, this candice, because when you guys travel and you go away, it's where you're from, where you're staying, how many times have you been here, and what do you do for a living, right? And when you get to that, we end up talking real estate forever. And when you start talking to people like from Nashville or Phoenix and stuff like that,

that's where there was a huge impact. There was. So there was a few of those transactions here, but we had a lot of cash transactions when people were running from COVID from the Northeast corridor and the metropolitan areas because they were selling houses up there at a premium

and were able to come down here and buy a house cash. I personally see that coming, that's plateaued, if not probably dropping. I'd say with cash-first financing, it's always within certain demographics and certain price points. The thing that I really want will be for another day, though, again, not to forget, the changes not necessarily with real estate and how we communicate and are compensated, but the changes within the ability for people that need hand-holding and financing to have proper representation is always going to be prevalent.

And if people that need the hand-holding, that need financing to acquire property, don't have proper representation, they will lose out to a cash buyer who may not be offering the better terms for the seller. So, again, bringing it back to proper representation is always going to be critical. And making sure that our clients have the ability to get help that they need. Feds, hello, everybody call it in. We need to make sure that these changes are happening properly so that our vets can be protected. You know one of the best feelings I had over the last

six months? What's that? A representative buyer and we got them the house they wanted and we were financing and we won out over a full cash deal. Awesome. That's because you're a pro. That's because you're a pro that's because you're a pro so talk about how you did that and we got a few minutes left guys uh well how did i do that i basically i basically over the course of us becoming very interested in the house just asked the agent on the other side questions tell me about your client you know when do they ultimately want to move? Communication, maybe? Communication, that's a great way to put it. We communicate with the other side.

I've learned what was most important to the client, and we sweetened our finance deal enough and accommodated them on a few other points that made it more attractive than the cash deal. Because in the end, if you bring them a qualified client, which is another reason I have a professional agent on the other end that's done their due diligence with their buyer to get them pre-qualified, I'm still going to have questions for them if I'm representing a seller.

But a well-qualified buyer who puts down a decent deposit is not going to walk away from the deal, typically unless something tragic happens, and God forbid that should ever happen. So my point to the listing agent is you're either going to get a check from this person or you're going to get a check from this bank. So you're going to get your money that you want. It's just that we've sweetened ours a little bit to make it more attractive. So I'm going to round the numbers up a little bit. First half car footprint, total sales, yada, yada, yada, roughly 1,700.

A little over 500, 530 were cash. I didn't get a chance to do the percentage ratio on that. Is that a third? But it's about a third, right? So we've been holding about 33rd of cash transactions. And I can tell you over the several decades, that's not the norm, right? It's maybe 10%, 5%, that kind of thing. But this constant holding of that of that um three percent and and it's interesting the medium sales price for the cash transactions back to my point about why i think it's it's um

a half a million bucks yeah the medium medium medium sales price where you start looking in the fha and some of the conventional stuff the The FHA, the medium is at $350. The conventionals are roughly around a little over $4.50 to $4.75. So that's why I think this Flavena County. I think the feeding frenzy on the buyer side also fueled cash offers because it made it more attractive to some people to get a cash offer. I think when the feeding frenzy goes away, personally speaking, if I have the cash laying around to go buy a $500,000, $600,000, $700,000, $800,000 home,

I'm not going to do it anyway. Well, I would just leave my money where it's at, parked, and earning more where it's sitting and just make the mortgage payment every month. I think, too, looking at what's the intent of the property. Is it an investment? Is it a personal family private home? Is it a starter home? Is it a vacation home? You know, those things really make a difference. And again, the demographic and the ability for whatever the intent of the property is or the best use of that property is going to dictate typically how the funding is going to happen. You're going to 1031 it.

Lots of 1031 exchanges going on, actually, I see right now. So is that cash? Pretty much. I mean, pretty much. Well, 1031 would have to be cash. Yeah. But how is it, again, how are the realtors putting it in the system? How are we implementing the rules and making sure that our professionals are doing what

they have to do? I'm so glad that it's getting stricter because this is how the pros have been operating for years, for decades. So now everyone's got to be on the same playing field. We can be better for our clients and the public get the benefit of it. We have better information for our appraisers and our lenders to go back and track. So I think it's a benefit. I think it's positive and ready to keep rocking and rolling. Well, that's a great way to end the show and close on it.

We're a little bit over an hour, so it's amazing how quick this stuff goes. We're a bunch of people who like to talk, so it kind of goes fast. But, look, guys, thank you very much for the folks out there watching and listening. Jerry's coming back on, I believe it's the 5th of July. Yonah will be here, and we're going to focus on a 4th of July special. So Jerry will be sitting where Candice is and saving my butt once again and feeding it. So my apologies for not following up on questions and fees, but we'll get back on that on the 5th. So any closing thoughts before we wrap up? Mr. Plecker, we'll start with you. I'd say what you feel about the market now and

the status is going to remain the same until late next spring. More same. More same. More the same. More same. Candice? You know what? I love what I do. I'm positive, positive energetic everything will work out people still the three things right one of them you got to have shelter and we're ready to do that anytime no matter what condition so bring it bring it i'm positive quote orange always well i'm going to shut up because otherwise we're going to keep we're going to keep on going so thank you everybody for watching and listening do Do me a huge favor. Please go into

realtalkwithkeysmith.com. Pull down the partners tab. The folks that are in there make this conversation possible. So please support them and thank you very much and we'll see everybody on the 5th of July. Have a great 4th of July. For those folks out at Lake

Monticello, some awesome stuff are happening. So go ahead and take a look at it. And if you hear fireworks on pants hops, it's not me. Thank you, everybody. Thank you.