The I Love CVille Show With Jerry Miller! - Dave Norris And Greg Slater Joined Keith Smith & Jerry Miller On "Real Talk With Keith Smith!"

Episode Date: July 12, 2024

Dave Norris, Executive Director of Charlottesville Area Association of REALTORS Foundation, and Greg Slater, Associate Broker at Nest Realty, joined Keith Smith & Jerry Miller 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 Friday morning, guys. My name is Jerry Miller, and thank you kindly for joining us on Real Talk with Keith Smith. We enjoy talking real estate, Central Virginia, Albemarle County, the city of Charlottesville and beyond on Real Talk with Keith Smith, a show that airs anywhere you get your social media and podcasting content. Judah Wickhauer, behind the camera, our director and producer, just an all-around fantastic human being. Keith Smith, the star of our show, and we have two guests that I think may be household names, Dave Norris and Greg Slater, in today's house and on set and in the studio. Judah, if you can go to the studio camera and then a foreshot as we welcome a true cast

of characters. Keith Smith, my friend, good Friday morning to you. Which characters, Omi? That's the key thing. I just follow your lead on Real Talk with Keith Smith. Oh, boy. Then we're all in trouble. That's all I got to to you. Which characters are we? That's the key thing. I just follow your lead on Real Talk with Keith. Oh, boy. Then we're all in trouble. That's all I got to tell you before we get started.

Right. You know, I titled this episode Lessons from Legends. And I'm trying to see if I'm far enough away from him so his head gets big. But we truly have two legends in our local economy. We've got a legend of a real estate agent, a legend of now an executive director for Charlottesville Area Association, a real estate foundation, but a legend in many other different things to include officiating, not sport events. These are marriages. So for a quick two or three people who do not know who you guys are, Dave, we're going to start with you.

Tell us who you are and what you're currently doing and your life story. Great to be back with you guys. All right, we're done. Next. This guy. This guy. He is a character. Oh, man.

No, it's always a pleasure to be back on the show. Dave Norris, former mayor, city councilor, long-time nonprofit director, and just guy about town. And I'm really thrilled for the last four months to be wearing the hat as executive director of the new Charlottesville Area Association of Realtors Foundation. And we'll talk more about what that is later, but it's basically an effort by the Realtors Association to be part of the affordable housing solution here in our region. So we look forward to talking about what that looks like. And this is my boss. Thank you. Okay, boss.

You're next. Yeah, if only. Yeah, I'm Greg Slater. I'm with Nest Realty, and I moved here in 1996 to get into this business. I was licensed in 1997, and I've been doing this ever since. I enjoy helping builders and buyers and sellers engage with this market and when I'm not doing that, I enjoy the energy efficiency of our housing conversation

and maybe more importantly, the affordable housing conversation and I've served a long time with Keefe in this space on the community land trust level, getting that model to where it is. But now I focus my attention, I on the chair of the CAR Foundation this year and get to work with Dave Norris. You brushed over the green thing pretty quickly, but a little kudos to you.

I mean, we would not be having, as I'm looking at Paragon right now, the green features in our listing so people could know about the energy efficiency. If it wasn't for you. We overhauled the MLS. We were the first MLS in the country to have the green features included. That was in part because Cynthia Adams, the founder of Pearl Certification, was from here at the time. And one of our sponsors of the show. Yes.

And the thing and most recent thing I'm proud of that isn't quite public information yet that is coming soon, but we're about to have our first continuing education on solar for realtors in the state of Virginia, available later this year. We're about ready to do a listing in Belvedere. And much like the Nassau houses that we built, there actually is a $7 a month that this guy's got. But we're here to talk a little bit about the Carr Foundation. Greg, I'm going to give you a break and let the executive director tell us a little bit about the who, what, when, where, why. I'm actually going to punt on that one

because Greg tells it much better than I do, if you don't mind. Greg has the history with the Carr Foundation from the beginning and tells a great story about how it all came together. We're rather fluid here. And then I can talk about sort of what we're doing now and what we're... Mr. Former Mayor. We're rather fluid here. Tell us the who, what, when and where, why. I like to start with

pre-recession leadership at Carr. Very interested in figuring out where Carr's seat at the table was going to be as affordable housing conversation was going, as that run-up in values happened. And after many, many, many board meetings, I think that board understood it was complex and it was hard to figure out where to fit in and how to be impactful in there. And that leadership at the time decided, you know what,

we're just going to raise some money, and we're going to be the difference from what a home costs and what someone can afford to close the gap and help people get into the home. So we're going to help teachers, firefighters, nurses, and police officers. It was called the Carr Workforce Housing Fund. We raised a few hundred thousand dollars and put that into the community. Years later, they were put in there as liens against the property that accrued a little bit of interest but were paid back when the home was sold and that money has come back and with those funds I could think it's been five or six year now the concept of car having its own foundation

was established because this may be in the weeds but the Charlottesville Area Association Realtors is not a non. You know, it's an industry association, and they wanted to have a nonprofit wing for the purposes of corralling and focusing all of the resources of our membership. Because it's a vast membership that has a lot of different backgrounds and different resources and connections. And the Carr Foundation was born a few years ago. And as I was wrapping up my time on the Community Land Trust Board, I always wanted to be involved with the foundation. And when I joined three years ago, for my first year, I realized it had just gotten this 501c3 status,

and it was time to build the organization. And we immediately moved to using the resources provided by car to move in that direction of a strategic plan so we're going to talk about how and what and and i'm going to pick apart a specific example about how much money this really is going to take to make a difference i prefer the term housing affordability over affordable housing, but that's my own personal thing. But one of the things we constantly talk about on the show is as real estate professionals, we volunteer a ton of time. So I'm going to give kudos to you because you and I have been at the table, at the forefront for a long time to go ahead and put a lot of time and energy into it. But Dave, so, you know, how is this foundation going to make a difference? Yeah, it's a great question. I mean, you two are excellent

examples of how the realtor community wants to be part of the affordable housing solution and has worked diligently to be part of the affordable housing solution or housing affordability solution. You just got brownie points. And so we want to leverage, as Greg was saying, leverage the time, talents, and treasure of the broader realtor community to get involved as well. And we've sort of identified initially at least like four programmatic focus areas for the Carr Foundation. One, we've been talking about raising money.

We want to continue to do that. We want to raise even more money both within the CAR community and its affiliate network and the broader community to invest in effective, innovative affordable housing solutions. And so we are part of a new funders collaborative to create a strike fund for the community land trust, which I know is near and dear to both of your hearts you've been both involved in building that organization and getting it to where it is now and it's increasingly a very effective tool for making home ownership affordable for you know moderate income working class charlottesvillians and so that's an initiative we're strongly behind and we want to invest in other solutions as well. We want to be good advocates for public policy that helps increase access to affordable housing in our region. We we are looking to engage volunteers from within the car community to get involved

personally and being part of the solution and we've got an initiative we'll be kicking off this fall to recruit car members to serve as mentors for first-time homebuyers. So we're really excited about that. And then we want to just get involved in education and awareness raising about affordable housing needs and opportunities and resources in our communities. We've got another exciting initiative we'll be announcing soon along those lines. So from a variety of angles, we're looking to be part of the solution, and we alone can't solve the problem.

But this is, as Greg said, the realtor community here is very well positioned, wants to be at the table, wants to promote solutions, and I think we can make a big impact. I'm going to let Jerry do the Robert Liberty quote that I've totally plagiarized and stole from, which I have permission, which makes it not plagiarism. But anyway, it takes a... It's not a silver bullet, it's a silver buckshot.

That's right. And you guys are part of the solution of creating housing affordability here in the Charlottesville, Albemarle, and Central Virginia market. We're seeing this with a number of ways. I'm a huge proponent of the land trust, which you guys are doing. The flexible zoning is another solution, where if you loosen the zoning,

potentially more supply comes to market. Additional supply stabilizes prices. Is that what's happening? Maybe we talk about that some on this program. I think you have some data points that we can highlight. Yeah, so to visually see what the struggle is, this is very high level, but Jude, if you don't mind putting slide number one up, this is the one that I have in front of you, gentlemen. So at the end of the day, this is 2016 to 2024, first six months. It's a big search, right?

It's all the car footprint. Thanks to my friend Greg here, we've narrowed it down to the car origination because it gets a little wonky with some of the Louisa County numbers but the short version of it is far as market volume goes as those in the profession we're kind of 2016 volumes but what's important for this conversation about housing affordability we're're up, I did the math, actually the percentage calculator on my laptop did the math, from 175 to, excuse me, 465 between 16 and 2024, we're up 70%. And I want to get into

You're talking about home values? Home values. Median values have gone up 70% in eight to nine years, depending on how you look at the math. And wages have not. Excuse me? And wages have not. Yeah, and wages have not, right? And wages have not, and cost of goods, groceries, fuel have all escalated in price.

So this is the quintessential death of 1,000 cuts. Yeah. all escalated in price but we so this is the death of the the quintessential death of a thousand cuts yeah but i i you know i i'm on uh as the chair of the land trust and the strike fund and i'm just going to throw this out here zoning is a good idea all this other stuff's great but at the end of the day this is money money is going to make the difference because we'll talk a little bit about a project that we're the land trust is doing at Lake Monticello. We're trying to branch outside of Charlottesville to go to some of the surrounding counties, simply because our subsidy dollars go further, which is no different than the buyer. The buyer is looking outside of the Charlottesville Albemarle Market because we're trying to get somewhere down to something folks

can afford i'm going to let you pick it up for you because i can see in your eyes you want to say well i i hate to use the phrase but it's drive to your qualifying right and we banned that here by the way okay but it was happening before the recession and then we went through what we went through and now we're getting to a point where i think you guys talk about on the show all the time that opportunities builders are targeting opportunities outside of alabama county as well with the growth in in the valley and the coming growth in green county it might be surprising to some people how many lots are coming there we should talk about that yeah so um one of the things i do is is talk to the builders and

developers all the time to stay in tune with this stuff. But Southern Development Homes has about 1,000 lots in the pipeline in Greene County. And they're partnering with Stanley Martin and Ryan Homes. So they're not going to build all of those homes, but they are developing the lots. And of all the things happening, I think this could be one of the most impactful. I'm not sure how to compare that to what's happening over in Waynesboro with the National Builder showing up and the growth that's happening there. But I can assure you it's not at that volume. Yes. And so I've had a couple of brief examples, you know, in northern Albemarle County.

Like, for example, Southern Development Homes got a hold of the last lots of Wexford recently, which are larger lots in a community that's been around for a long time. And we were both shocked at how fast those homes absorbed into the market because it's really just across the county line I guess some people still have the perception whether or not they want to be inside or outside of Albemarle County is a pretty big line for some people when it comes to schools and other things but I think that 29 North corridor and more opportunities for new construction in Green County and Southern Green County specifically is going to be very helpful to the conversation. Jerry and I speak to this all the time. Green County will be probably for the next decade the place where new construction, the volume is going to uptick.

There's 1,000 that you know of, another 500 that's off book that hasn't started yet. So there is anywhere between 1,000 to 2,000 lots coming on the market over the course of time there, which is a pretty large chunk on it. But Dave, going back to how the foundation can help this is a this is a big nut right and you know from my perspective I'm over if you give me more money I can solve a problem right you know so how are we gonna do this how are we going to raise it and before before you answer just to put it in perspective I've got X to this question all the time. What is affordable? I can tell you what it is.

To a number, we're doing basically to hit 80% AMI, you can't go over $250,000. Really need to be about $225,000. So anything north of that, whatever model you're looking at is some sort of subsidy. So how are we going to raise money, Dave? Yeah, and one thing I'll add, just to make things even more complicated, is the fact, you know, the Carr Foundation isn't just focused on home ownership. It's certainly a primary focus, but looking at the wide range of

housing needs in our community, we've obviously got a very visible challenge regarding homelessness in our community. You see it all the time on the downtown mall. We've got, you know, issues with rental housing rents are going up significantly higher than wages so it's it's an across-the-board and so our foundation is going to do our best to raise money from within the realtor community to be you know to contribute and be part of the solution up from a financing end but it's also again how do you leverage the the resources and

the and the and the power if you will of this of this community the car community to impact public policy to be at the table at forums like the regional housing partnership which is read my note which thanks to keith smith we were just invited uh what last week to be a standing member of the regional housing partnership to bring that voice perspective to those conversations about coordinating policy on the regional level. Again, getting CAR members involved with volunteers, awareness raising, advocacy, anything that we can do to tap into the time, talent, and treasure of the realtor community to be part of the solution, we're going to do. I would like to add, and I think it's important for your audience to understand, we are not just a realtor foundation we're not just a realtor board um we have uh established

a set of bylaws that will always be 51 realtor board but we have uh two members that aren't uh realtors on our board now the first was christopher bremen of bermonte homes we wanted a partnership we wanted somebody from the uh and a shout-out to him, right? Because he wouldn't – We would have never done our Nassau projects if he didn't stop. That's right. He believes in the cause of affordable housing and has put his money where his mouth is. And we just added Alex Mahone, a local lender, to be on our board.

And so this year's board is now full. Every year we'll have seats become available. We're interested in finding the right community partners that complement real estate and are interested in these topics that will grow our reach and our influence so we can raise money within our organization. But we hope to become a steward of funds from our expertise and the board we establish and all of the processes we set up, that people that want to be impactful in this space will see us as a place to park their money because of the people we put together to figure out how to put it into play.

And I'm super excited about the concept of a fund that is recyclable to help nonprofits acquire properties before they go into the hands of the free market and become something else and and that concept is definitely one of our goals to help be a part of that and help it come to fruition in a on a larger scale it's already happened on a few projects and we have proof of the results of what can happen how does a non-profit acquire property before it goes on the market just out of of curiosity. Well, we're talking about organizations like the Piedmont Housing Alliance and the Community Land Trust, right? Yes. Going out there and putting something under contract so they can turn it into what it wants to be.

I'm sure Keith has shared many examples. No. Well, look, we built a better mousetrap, in my opinion. The Land Trust is a really good mousetrap. We fine tuned what's already been there and it's functioning great. At the end of the day, it's all about money, right? We get phone calls, the executive director gets phone calls all the time about to Jerry's question, hey, I'm not ready to put this on the market, right? Would you be willing to buy it? The thing is, if it's in

Charlottesville, we're paying $455, $56, $57, $50 to acquire it, but I only can sell it for $225. So the question is, is that, you know, the math difference, where in God's holy name is that coming from? And this is a strike fund. I love it. But this is a button that I'm personally been pushing. You know, look, we're making magic happen out in Lake Monticello, somewhere between $50,000 and $75,000 today. I don't think I can do it tomorrow. We're making some magic happen. In Charlottesville, you've got to put a couple of zeros before that $50,000 or $75,000.

You're looking at $250,000, $350,000,, 350, 450 of subsidy to make that happen. And these are huge nuts, right? These are huge amount of money. And my struggle is, is where are we going to get it from? And we got to do it, in my opinion, quickly, because as the market starts chugging along, we're going to be losing opportunities. It's definitely all about the money. And, but I think some of the path to that money is education and awareness and and being a resource for people who are interested in this conversation but don't know where to start and then our strategic plan is to become that resource for Realtors in the community beyond right the report what was the partnership you can speak to a better now that developed kind of

organically right when we started having this conversation are you talking about with Charleston tomorrow yes yeah yeah So we haven't actually publicly announced it yet. There you go. But, yeah, both Charlottesville Tomorrow and the Charlottesville Association of Realtors Foundation, independent of the other, had been having conversations about how we really, there are a lot of housing resources in this community,

but it's hard to know what they are and who can access them, who's eligible for them. And they had put out an editorial saying, you know what, we're just going put one together there's an online housing resource guide ourselves and we had already kicked around the idea of doing our own online housing resource guide and so one of our board members said why don't we just talk to each other and sit down at the table. It's amazing how that talking to one another makes a difference. And we had an incredibly fruitful conversation and we realized like we'll

get so much more done by working together on this. Later this fall, we'll be launching a new online housing resource guide which I think is going to be very user-friendly, very accessible, very comprehensive. The foundation hired a summer intern to do a lot of the data gathering for this guide. He's created a voluminous

Just like a one-stop shop. It's a playbook, right? You've got a playbook of housing affordability. Is that what you're doing here? Yeah, it's like for anybody who wants information on how to get support in buying a first-time home. Go online. You can find out all the local resources. Very well organized.

Very user-friendly, like I said. Or it could be how to find affordable rental housing. Or it could be how do I find information about housing needs in the community? What kind of studies have been done to lay out the scope of the problem so we're really excited again it happened organically and I think the again car is sort of well very well positioned with all the connections it has in the history that it has to help make those connections happen you know and it's pretty exciting well as you know the regional housing partnership is built on these four pillars right and it's local governments for profits non-profits and the people who we serve on it and to have that conversation

i'm excited to have you share that with the regional housing partnership board and yeah and have you shared that with their staff yet uh they know that it's in the works got it perfect um i want to go back to what you were talking about before Keith regarding the community land trust. We had an open house at the end of last month. The Carr Foundation, our first public event was an open house for the realtor community and our affiliates to learn more about the land trust models and you guys have a very exciting project underway over there on Prospect Avenue. And I think it's a perfect example of the impact of the CLT model,

where at least four of the five homes along Prospect Avenue were purchased and renovated. And at least four of the five have been sold or are being sold to renters from the community. Literally across the street. Across the street. Literally across the street. Moving out of subsidized housing, for lack, I mean, whatever you wish to call it, across my New York 60s

almost came out, 60s and 70s almost came out, and called it something else, but I caught myself in it. They're moving literally across the street. That's also at sub-60% AMI. Exactly. Those houses are selling for $160, right? Yes, exactly right.

In the city of Charlottesville to have a… With solar. With solar. Yes. They're beautifully renovated, I think. It's examples like that that we can help maybe shine a brighter light on within the car membership to help members. I don't think we fully unlock the potential of the car membership and all of its resources and networks to be as impactful as we want to be in this space. Literally, so I was talking off air before we came on,

this house at Lake Monticello that we're selling, I'm at 50 to 1. I've had 50 conversations, 50 potential buyers to possibly spit out one. We were doing when we were like 10 10 to yeah it was before interest rates went up that's exactly right um but the great news is and you've taught me this i've got 50 real estate agents that know more about the land trust that's right when you're that listing agents for a clt opportunity you get to because a lot of elevator the first question is is tell me what the heck this is and how can i explain this to my client this question's come in is the land trust model going

to expand potentially into the valley where housing affordability is more realistic so i only can speak from my perspective as the chair not for the board but this is something i've been trying to put together to do a more regional approach, which includes Richmond. There are conversations with Maggie Walker. There is, to the best of my knowledge, there is not a land trust on the other side of the hill, so we're looking at trying to create a more regional approach to the point, we call it, you fly to qualify now. You pretty much can't drive.

You've got to fly to get to it, as a joke. But, yes, we're looking into that. It's extremely difficult to bring all the bodies together and be on the same page, but that conversation is definitely happening. We had a member of the Home Building Community Association in Lynchburg who heard about what we were doing in Charlottesville through a builder connection that's been involved with the CLT. And they came to that event for their first look at what a CLT can do because they want to learn what it's capable of and whether or not they want one in Lynchburg. So, again, you know, I'm a bit partial to the land trust. I do need to say there's other organizations out there.

And we're going to support them all the best we can. That's true. Habitat does a wonderful job. Everybody has their own little secret formula, right? Ours works well under a certain scenario. Habitat's works well also under a certain scenario. There's some crossover

where we work together, which is wonderful. We should highlight Roger Voisinet watching the program right now, Neil Williamson watching the program, Lottie Murray watching the program, Jesse Rutherford watching the program, Almar County Board of Supervisors and a city councilor watching the program right now. So I want to give a shout out to Neil. Neil corrected me on something a bunch of shows ago, and I thanked him for doing it. I got a little bit on my high horse saying, you know, hey, it's a great time that the real estate agents are starting to get into this. They've always been involved in it, right? I was wrong. He was right.

But I'm ecstatic that it's gone to the next level, right? It's gone to the next level where there's more engagement, more folks are going to be attending meetings and having a conversation. Because at the end of the day, we're at the tip of the spear, right, as real estate professionals of communicating with clients on how to do this and getting yourself educated to do it. But a shout out to him. And he corrected me and I was wrong and he was right. I'll throw this topic. And Dave, you wanted to jump in a couple moments ago. Do you want to get that thought out there? You want me to go? Okay. So I'll throw this topic. And, Dave, you wanted to jump in a couple moments ago. Do you want to get that thought out there? You want me to go? No, go ahead.

Okay. So I'll throw this topic to you guys. And, Jude, you put the graph that Keith sent to us back on screen, if you could. So in 2016, this one right here, this is a fantastic slide right here. This is a microcosm of how, I mean, you could characterize it as unaffordable, the area has become. Also, you could characterize it as a microcosm of the strength of the local economy, right? You could characterize it that way. So I'll throw this to you.

In 2016, the median value for a home sold in the car footprint was $275,000. And I want to add something to that because I looked at it this morning. Mortgage rates were between 4.5% and 5% back in those days. Right. So 2016, you had $275,000 median value. 2024, median value $465,000. Depending on where you shop, your mortgage rate on a 30 fix with good credit, good numbers, probably around the 7% number. Just call it, for the sake of a talk show, 7%.

I'll throw this to Greg, to Dave, to Keith. You've got Alamaro County investing, what, $58 million to buy some land from Wendell, Mr. Wood, Rivetta Station on the Greene County, Alamaro County line to keep the defense sector firmly planted here. We have Amazon investing $11 billion into Louisa County. We've got the $180 million data science school, and then Paul Manning's $100 million biotech school, all kind of coming to market now.

We got Northrop Grumman with $250 million factory in Waynesboro with everyone working at that factory, an average salary of $94,000 for those folks. I would imagine a lot of those folks are probably going to live in the Crozet area and then commute to Waynesboro. We had CNBC calling Virginia the best state to do business, third time in five years. We had CNBC in Bloomberg calling the Charlottesville area a top 20 metro area in the nation to work hybridly and remote.

UVA expanding enrollment enrollment more bodies moving here and then and it's research parks yeah and it's research parks and welding cooper puts out data by 2050 almarac county's population is going to increase between 40 and 50 000 people so i'm going to throw this to you here um how do all these factors and all these forces impact housing affordability? And how about the folks that say that this graph is an indication that the economy is super strong and healthy? And we want to see those numbers continue to go up. Well, you know, one of the things we talk about the most in as realtors, because it's easy data to track is the inventory problem, right? The lack of resales, the locked-in effect,

and not having the supply we need to make more transactions. And for a while now, I think realtors have figured out when you list a home, there are the comps, which may be few and far between, but you really have to measure demand and have some feel for the amount of demand in any particular price point to price a home, right? And it's a calculated guess in a lot of ways, but you just described it. It's a multifaceted problem we've created here. You know, the locked in effect of interest rates going up and people

hanging on to homes with lower interest rates that they don't want to let go, coupled with part of it is economic growth. Part of it was the sheer desirability of albemarle county in the in central virginia in the wake of a pandemic people re-evaluated their lives and decided where they wanted to live and when didn't want to live and as as a hokey in charlottetown i can tell you i wahoos want to come back right i often have to explain to people we used to have a newspaper called the hook right they don't know that charlottesville was the hook that brought people back and and we're seeing it in real time and you know i i run some very a variety of ways i try to figure out what's going on and i pulled the four years before the pandemic and the four years after the pandemic and compared things by price point and the price point that jumped out to me the most

was um there was a 242% increase in sales from... Sales price. Yeah, sales price from $1.5 to $2 million. Right? That was the biggest increase of... People could afford homes in that price point. And it's both the prices going up, but it's people coming here that can afford them.

Well, you know, that's indicative of the $4.65 median, right? Because that's sitting in the middle. So that means there's stuff way above it and stuff way, way, way below it. That's right right i'll let you finish your thought uh that's that's basically it um i'm not sure what it's going to take to unlock the inventory you know the beneficiary of this is are the builders trying to get as many homes out as they can the builder the builder sales if you look at all these things historically, the builder sales are actually the most in line with things historically. When I compare things to that average five-year period before the pandemic, the resale listing activity in this market is 37% off of what we could have expected the five-year average from 2015 to 2019.

37% off. It's a tremendous number. So Judah, we'll take a look at slide two now. Dave's got a thought on this. Well, I just want to say, if you look across the country, just getting back to your question, Jerry, if you look across the country,

the communities that have the least problem, the lowest problem with housing affordability are the communities where the economy's tanking. And so that's just sort of a natural result of people. There's more supply than demand. And obviously we have the opposite problem here, which is in many ways a good problem to have. But in order to make sure that,

as I have said on your program before, in order to make sure that the people that do the hard work of making this community function can actually afford to live here, we have to be very deliberate and intentional in making sure we have a supply of affordable housing, including deeply affordable housing. And that's why the Regional Housing Partnership is so important. That's why the Community Land Trust, all these other non-profits, and that's why... Your foundation? Well, I was just going to say, and that's why I think the realtor community is really stepping up and wanting to step up in an even bigger way to make sure we're making those investments and creating the kind of public policy that does ensure...

You know, there's this great t-shirt I saw recently that says, it's not paradise if the locals can't afford to live here. And so, we want to make sure the locals can afford to live here. And so we want to make sure the locals can afford to live here. And so that's why this work is so important. But go ahead. I know you were about to... Well, I mean, Jerry's outlined it very articulately. I can't even say the fin, whatever.

Very well. There you go. Very well. I lost the big word. I tried it. Really, I was going to try. Okay, let me try to impress people. Went downhill.

A for effort, Keith. Big word. He used a big word that I can't say. But if you take a look at slide number two, this is your new construction. Again, it's big picture stuff. It's all of the car footprint. It's only in the car originating board, and it's both a single family attach and detach. So this is this new construction.

To your point, it kind of follows the normal thing. You can see some of the inventory coming up and coming down. A lot of that has to do with these projects are anywhere between a half a decade and a decade in the can before they actually get built in the development process, which is something we really need to figure out how to fix. But the question I wanted to ask you two gentlemen, so let's say we've got wands here somewhere. If we have a magic wand and somehow or another can build more inventory,

is that going to make it better? If we build more, is that going to stabilize prices and is that going to keep things more at a level increase? From an economic standpoint, historically, yes, it should. But, you know, I think what we're seeing right now is the maxing out of what we can achieve in our new construction environment, right? The delay of getting lots to the market and the number of builders we have here and the homes they're trying to create. I'm excited about some of the stuff that's right on the horizon. But some of the stuff right on the horizon we've been talking about for three years. Next year, we're going to start selling homes in X community.

And then the following year, in the spring, next year, we're going to start selling. It keeps getting pushed. Correct. The whole thousand lots you're talking about at Greene County, it's not going to hit the market to the end of 2025. If I put my Home Builders Association hat on, you're just going to hear that the regulatory environment is delaying things so much and rising. Well, you can wear that hat here. That rising cost of everything involved. You know, I just was at an HBAV fundraising event for their PAC this week.

That's why I just saw all the slides. And they're real. And it's a problem. Jerry knows this number. How much of a new percentage of a new construction is of course a regular? 24%. Neil Williamson says who restricts the supply of housing? He's obviously alluding to local government and he says expand the development area.

I'll add some color and context to his comment. 5% of Albemarle County is allocated for development and of that five percent the topography limits what can be developed within that five percent area basically not all five percent can be used and some of it is already commercial industrial space so the that five percent is never five I push I push back on expanding the five percent development area by highlighting the need to also prioritize infrastructure like schools and roads while expanding the developmental area as well. I highlight the western feeder system

which is a fantastic area and values of real estate have really escalated because the schools are tremendous but you look at a lot of the schools in the Western feeder educational area and they're at capacity or beyond. A lot of young parents like me are asking questions, hey, why are schools like this? Why are kids learning in educational trailers when 15 years ago or so they were not? That worries people like me. You know, Western Albemarle and Crozet growth area in particular is where this whole thing is playing out in real time.

100%. Community level, ground level, talk about the need for infrastructure has never been louder and more organized. You know, this stat, I just helped someone who wanted to build a single family home in an urbanist community in Crozet, which most of them are.

And what I determined at that point in time is right now in crozet if you want to build a single family detached home in a community there are two available lots on the ground to build a home on so they'll be gone in the next 30 days and then there'll be none and there won't be any more till next year if the developer is giving a timeline they can achieve. Yeah, and let's call it like they're holding on to them. They're very, very strategically releasing inventory. To Jerry's point, development, this is always a three-legged stool. There's always three other components that have to come with this. Transportation, the healthcare system, and education, right? Those things kind of work concurrently with development. Yes, we have to build more, but you do have to work on those three legs concurrently to go get that way.

It's why the regional housing partnership was formed, because people weren't talking to each other. The local governments were not talking to the developers. The developers were not talking, or they were using different languages. I know this sounds a little high level, but I think we're making some excellent progress in those conversations.

I don't think it's translating on the ground yet, but hopefully we'll get there. Dave, you jump in here, anywhere you want to go, but I want to highlight what Greg said. I think he's a thousand percent right. This infrastructure development crossroad is front and center and crozet.

You had a supervisor candidate and Brad Rickle who challenged Whitehall's Ann Malick who has five straight terms on Amar County Board of Supervisors. It's not about politics on this program. I respect you too much here. Maybe someone will say

term limits should be in play when you've been on the board for five straight years. That's me talking right there, and I'll leave it alone. But Mr. Rickle, along with what, Eric Schmitz and Jeff Stone, with their Crozet United newsletter, were highlighting some of the projects that are happening in Crozet with the connector. And a lot of people, I think, because of social media, are more in tune with what's happening development-wise than ever before. And a lot of people are asking questions, hey, what's going on here?

And I think that's for the betterment of the community. One of the great... Don't you think? Yes. Transparency is for the betterment of the community. We have to highlight our problems along with the opportunities. Right. And the challenge in that infrastructure development conversation, you can look at it from both ways. Sometimes you need the development. People are

always like, well, we want more restaurants and things in Crozet. And as a small business owner in Crozet, I'm like, well, you know, it's not that easy to be successful in Crozet, right? You have to be able to draw from outside of it. Some of these businesses won't survive until Crozet is bigger. And some of the resources you need to create or to improve the infrastructure connection points of Crozet that, you know, look, I lived there before Jarman's Gap was redeveloped. When Jarman's Gap became wider with sidewalks and bike lanes, that changed that side of Crozet forever. And there is a plan for these other pieces to fall in place. But just like affordable housing, you come back to the same thing is where's the money to do it. I mean, you take somebody who lives in, and I'll stop talking here past the two guys,

take somebody who lives in Liberty Hall, what, crossing Harris Teeter, that's looking to turn left and come into town. That's a tough turn for a family trying to make that left and to come into town. I just moved to the Ivy area. If we're taking a left, coming into town, going across those lanes, that's tough when you have, I mean, you've seen it in the morning, Greg. What do you got, like, hundreds, thousands of cars coming down Ivy Road trying to come into town from Crozet? That's true. I think of Belvedere, taking a left turn out of Belvedere

is one of the toughest places for years. Yeah, I actually go out through the free state road and zip around. Look, this isn't easy, folks, right? This is complicated. It's a ton of moving parts. And, again, I'm not trying to – Yonah always accuses me of oversimplifying things. But if we actually have a conversation with one another and respect one another and try to move the needle forward for the betterment of everybody, I'm going to ask Neil if he's still watching.

Yes. I can't remember the number. I'm talking about my home county. It's somewhere between 95 and 97. I think the number is 96% county budget tied to rooftop taxes? So residential tax base basically covers 95, 97 percent I want to be clear about this

of the county's portion of the budget. That doesn't mean the money they get from the state or the feds. This is the county portion of the budget. As a resident there I have, and I've said this numerous times on the show this is the first time since I've been there since 1987, my amount of money I pay out of my taxes, the cash amount,

equals to if I was in Glenmore. I'm paying the same amount of cash out. And why is that? Because I don't have anything else in my county to offset or large enough to offset the expenses on it. This trend is going to continue, and I'll get off my soapbox here in a minute. We're very blessed. My mother and father are going to be able to move into there at this point in their life.

They're in their eight. I won't give the number because my mother will kill me because she watches the show. She's 35. I'm 60-something. I don't know how that math works, but she's 35. But this aging population, they have no place to go. We're very lucky to have them live with us. So we've been talking about how to add infrastructure

in these outlying areas, and I think the flip side of that is look where we do have infrastructure and look where we can accommodate more density, which is the urban core you know not just the city but the urban ring of Albemarle County and so the we've had this very interesting conversation over the last couple years about the rezoning the city to allow more density to support more walkability public transportation commercial growth infill creative inf development, and getting back to sort of one of the potential roles of the foundation is there's a lot of confusion right now about what this new zoning ordinance allows and what kind of incentives are in place or tools in place to create more density

and to create more affordability potentially, hopefully. And so we have an education committee at the foundation that's looking at how do we play a role? How can we play a role in helping to educate property owners, developers, real estate folks? And include the city in that, by the way. Absolutely. Absolutely. Because I've had conversations with Roger, the land trust is looking at the city's trying

to figure this out. We're all trying to figure it out. And I think we could play a helpful role. Yeah, no, we've talked about it before the show started there. The pioneers who are taking on the rezoning process, hopefully, and some of them have already agreed to it. We need case studies that we can make examples of. It's the same way we were doing with affordable housing back in 2006 or 2007,

the proffered affordable. We said, look, we're going to go build these proffered affordable homes, and we're going to bring it back to you and show you what happened. And I think that's one of the things that we hope to be able to do at the foundation is be a source of connecting the dots. And just to be straight up about it, I do not, and I've said this publicly, I do not see the city rezoning being substantially impactful on affordable housing right out of the box. This is going to be years down the line. To Greg's point, we need to solve this now. These leeways between the developers doing it, some of the outside counties, the new city ordinances.

Everybody needs to be patient. It's going to take time. I think about when we talk a lot in this community about gentrification and displacement, and I think about if you've got a long-time moderate-income homeowner in a neighborhood like 10th and Page, Fifeville, who wants to stay in the neighborhood, wants to stay in the community, wants to keep their home, right now is being priced out and taxed out. They can't afford to do so, but if you can create the conditions where they are able to add an accessory unit in there, either as an attached or detached accessory unit, not only does that generate more income for them to be able to stay

in their home and in the community, but it also creates additional inventory of affordable rental housing. So it's a win-win, and this new ordinance helps to encourage that. And if we can, again, find those case studies and find those examples and those tools to allow more homeowners to take advantage of that, it could be a real... If I can add a little context on that. Someone who's getting gentrified out of Teth and Page in Fifeville and ADU in the backyard, probably looking at a quarter million dollar to $300,000 price point to build.

If you're talking about a detached, you know, carriage house. But it doesn't have to be that. It could be basement apartment to help subsidize some overhead. I can tell you I'm budgeting out one in my, just in Flavena County. And you're probably at a hundred grand at least, aren't you? I'm at a buck and a half. Yeah, for a basement apartment. For a basement apartment. Yeah. And that's with people I know.

Right, and that's with you having an advantage with you had the structure pretty much you know, and you're a general contractor. You're a classic contractor. Yeah, we took the detached off the table very quickly because it had a two in front of it. Right. And the ROI on $200,000, $300,000 ADU in the backyard is never.

Yeah, yeah. You do it because you love your mother and father and you want them close to him. And you're blessed to be able to do this. But FIFIL, a little off the record stuff, we, meaning the land trust, is working with a homeowner over there who owns their home free and clear. We're actually going to put a land lease underneath it so it's going to be forever affordable and work on an ADU in the backyard, which as a nonprofit, those numbers work a little bit better for us because we can then lean on vendors and subcontractors to be a little bit more generous. Well, it also helps that they get write-offs because we're a nonprofit. Well, that's a great example. One of the reasons, look, it's the foundation.

Those are phone calls we're getting. We have to take a broad look at things. And, look, we're in our first year of having a strategic plan and really, look, we're building out the committee structure. We don't have a website yet. That's in the works. We just hired someone to help us with that. We're getting to the point where we actually start asking for our members. We're in the very early stages.

So we have a very broad. But when it comes to the land, the land trust is a Swiss Army knife of solutions, right, that can create opportunities to make a little bit of an impact here. And one of the reasons we're here and one of the reasons we had an event for you guys is because we believe in it. And we want our membership to understand what it is. Because that really, truly understanding what a community land trust can do is the first step. So the three of us, and I'm not going to make an assumption for Jerry, know what it means to start from the ground up a nonprofit in a 501c3. And kudos to you. To do that in a year?

Well, it's been three. I was trying, you know. But once you took over chairmanship, did you not? This year, well, we got to the strategic plan, and we decided when you have a strategic plan, next step is hire an executive director or build a business plan. The in-between step is get the money to hire. We had the money. That was the blessing.

We were a working board before that, and I can tell you we went from driving 10 miles an hour to 100 miles an hour when Dave showed up. His reputation and his experience is impactful in ways we are still starting to understand ourselves. There was a moment in our board meeting yesterday where someone just stopped to say, oh my goodness, thank God we have Dave. You realize he's sitting here, right? I know, but he hears it and he should hear it again. The realtors have always wanted a louder role in the affordable housing conversation, and we haven't ever actually achieved it.

And I think with the foundation creation and this leadership and the knowledge that Dave brings to the table and the history that he brings to the table, it's a shortcut, honestly, for helping our, you know, I can talk about all the things I do, the other board members can, but when Dave lays things out from his perspective, it's easy to get a faster understanding of what we need to do. There, and I'm saying this because he's here, but there's a skill that you need to have to manage boards, and you definitively have that, and it resonates from being mayor.

I've got a question for you, and I apologize for interrupting you here. The new zoning ordinance, the affordable housing requirements, if a developer is building a unit, building a project of nine units or more, 10 percent of those units must be tied to 60 percent AMI for 99 years. Can the foundation act almost as a policy or lobbying or encouraging group to talk with local government and say,

hey, some of these elements of the NZO need to be tweaked because they're actually doing the opposite of creating affordability? Because what developer is going to want to do a project like this? I've already had conversations. It doesn't pencil out. So actually

Charlie Armstrong from Southern Development was over at our building recently for a meeting and he and I put our heads together afterwards like these tools have potential but there are flaws. And if you really want to see impact and additional inventory in a real meaningful way, we've got to fix some of these flaws.

And so, yeah, our foundation has an advocacy mission and a mechanism. And so that's not one that we've taken up yet as a potential advocacy campaign or initiative. But I think I could easily see us doing something like that. I don't want to speak for our board yet because we haven't talked about it. We want to be in the policy influence space, there is no doubt. That's fantastic because Brian Pixton said when the zoning ordinance was passed, he goes, look, this is a living and breathing document. Exactly.

Which I found encouraging. He's basically saying this could be changed. And it can be. And, again, everybody must be reading my notes. The zoning ordinances are always living documents sure right and lloyd snook was the mayor at the time sat just walked by i saw in one of these seats and said look we're going to tweak this and that's usually what happens right it usually gets tweaked there's two there's another part that makes this difficult is anything above three requires a major site plan.

That's what Charlie said, yeah. That, as the developer... Isn't that why Roger kept it at three? The project he's doing in Woola Mills? That's exactly right, because the requirements are... And still those units that are coming on market are coming in with the high sixes. You might as well say,

okay, I'm going to do 500 units there. The the amount of work maybe I'm exaggerating a little bit but the amount of work and what you have to do and that's some low-hanging fruit they can start tweaking that and go okay let's make it six do something to make it easier to go ahead and go through this but is just the erosion and control portion of that is off the charts. It'll take a year. It'll take a year from this project that we're trying to do.

The land trust is working on a six-unit affordable housing unit under this. It'll take us a year just to go through the site plan process. Which is bananas. The risk and the carrying costs and the market dynamic change in that time of... And we've got excellent... That's so much risk right there.

And we have partners that are willing to wait. If we didn't, you do three units and you... Look, you know, and Dan Rosenzweig talks about this a lot with Habitat for Humanity about... Habitat CEO. Right, Habitat CEO CEO about just the increased cost, the financial cost of those delays. It's not just about... Well, it's back to that 24%.

Right. That's part of that 24%. And if your goal is to create affordable housing, this is acting directly against that goal. There's a realtor watching the program that just left a comment. His name is Luke Cole. Luke, I believe you are with Long and Foster, if memory serves me right.

Luke made some big-time magic happen. 303 Alderman Road in the Lewis Mountain neighborhood. That came on market at a million-dollar list price, and it traded at $835,000 with Evergreen Builders buying 303 Alderman Road for $835,000. I want to follow that as a case study with the new zoning ordinance. Evergreen is a very reputable builder, fantastic builder. If Evergreen takes an $835,000 acquisition and then brings it on market

after some remodel, some improvement at $1.4, $1.5, because Lewis Mountain would justify those kind of price points. $1.4, $1.5. Will they turn it into student housing? Or do they turn it into density? Because how he marketed that property was the zoning potential,

the up-zoning potential, the new zoning potential. If it comes on the market as 1.4 or 1.5, then the new zoning ordinance actually worked opposite for affordability because the acquisition price was higher because of the land, the opportunity associated with the land.

So we're going to eat through this in the next 12, 24 months, right? He has a comment for the panel as well. Go ahead, Keith. Yeah, the next 12, 24 months. You know, this could be a buy and hold, right? Buy, hold it, see what – and we don't know because we're not – I can't imagine they're going to hold this. They can buy it.

Sure they can. I mean, if they got the capital, they can buy and hold it, right? And wait to see what happens with the zoning ordinances and then start tweaking it. Right now, everybody's holding their breath for Roger, for these three or four people or entities that are going through this, so everybody can figure out exactly how to do this. And Roger said the only way he could do his woolen mills project was to partner with, he owns the land, he partnered with Richard Price, the architect, he partnered with a local builder, sold them the lots where the new houses

are going to go below market value as a discount or as no charge for their time, their architectural time and their building time. But that's not going to put something on the market at $225,000. No, it's going to come in at $680,000. Luke says this, to allow for more affordable housing, does the panel imagine

that some of the rules and regulations in order to maximize density on these lots will be revised to work with developers to implement these changes? I almost think it has to. Hopefully there's a subjective level of range of what can be decided based on what's being

done and what will happen. This is the same way other affordable housing gets created. If you hit certain income levels for who you're going to serve, you get more houses. And again, especially where the infrastructure is in place to accommodate it. Local government guy, right? You understand how local government works better than anybody at this table. I kind of look at some of this stuff as similar to like

a non-funded mandate, an unfunded mandate, right? So the state says, this is what you've got to do. Good luck, local jurisdictions figuring out. So this is happening. We've figured out a plan. The market's trying to work together with the city to figure out the best way to tweak this. It

will change. There's no doubt about that. When is the question, right? And once these projects go through and the people that are like Rogers, who's out there sticking their necks out and taking the risk to do this, they should get kudos on a regular basis because they're the ones that are setting the template. I think Roger might be the first one.

No, he is. I know he is. We call that a pioneer. Or maybe not. Roger is an uncommonly good guy. Roger Poisson is an A-plus guy. I like that. Uncommonly good guy. I like that. I've got to remember that.

Roger and I traveled to Africa together once. Really? Yeah. Jason Howard on Rio Road. Has there been any talk of expanding this is right up your alley here Road. Has there been any talk of expanding? This is right up your alley here, Dave. Has there been any talk of expanding the real estate tax relief program to help keep long-term residents in their homes as prices and corresponding taxes increase? Yeah, that was one of Mayor Walker's big pushes when she was in office was to make sure that that tax relief program was robust enough to allow long-time renters to be able to stay in the neighbors. They did expand it significantly.

Can it be expanded more? Can we get state permission to expand it more? I think that's an ongoing conversation. I know I have a feeling this council would like to see that expanded. But we're a deal-and-roll state. Exactly. So, yeah, I think that's one of the tools in the tool chest. They have a unique, Alba Morrow and the city of Charlottesville have a unique ordinance that's already on the books.

Because if they wrap it into their affordable housing project, they can actually do that unilaterally. You'll notice, I don't know if you've noticed this before, but the way it's framed in the city code isn't necessarily tax relief. I forget the exact wording, but it's a grant program. Yeah. And that was deliberate because the state code, state law allows localities to issue affordable housing grants, but it doesn't allow them to have explicit. So it was a little workaround, isn't it? It was a workaround, and we got it done. And so, yeah, again, it's It was a work around and we got it done.

So yeah, again, one of the tools certainly will be helpful. So as these things usually go, we are up a little bit. I know, the show is fantastic. We're usually- We're an hour in. We're an hour in. You guys are great from chatting. We can continue a little bit longer if Jeffrey's good with that.

But I have a 11 1145 meeting that I've got to make so I've got to wrap up here in about 10 or 15 minutes but as we kind of wrap it up here you know I first of all want to say thank you gentlemen for joining us absolutely thank you for putting the time and energy

in for the foundation for car you know again this is one of these tiny little pellets that are in this silver buckshot. There's not a silver bullet here. Keep up the good work, and I'll let you guys wrap up on whatever you want to say from there, and Jerry will close us out.

You know, the foundation is just getting going. It's in our first year. To our realtor colleagues out there watching and listening, we want to engage with you and we want to help you understand what we're doing and what we're trying to achieve so we can earn your trust and support both from a volunteer standpoint and a financial standpoint we're already lucky enough to have a board that's a little bit competitive to get on we're not a board where we're sitting around waiting to see if we can find some people to fill the seats and and that's a real positive.

To the other nonprofits in the area, we want to hear from you and we want to understand what you're doing. We are trying to get a holistic view of the entire landscape so we can collectively work together and learn about places where we can be the most effective, where we can be the little bit extra an organization needs to get something done or to get the word out or to be supportive. We are not hyper-focused on any model. We're just hyper-focused on being a part of finding solutions. And if you're a member of the general public and you are interested in the affordable housing conversation and you don't know where to go with your resources or where to donate, we would be happy to consult. I've got a place. Right. You've got a place. But maybe it's the foundation at some point, right?

I could put out a bank account number. You can wire anything you want. But we hope to earn the trust of the community in general to be a place where we collaborate and pool resources to do the things. We have done the research. There are real estate association foundations across the things. We have done the research. There are real estate association foundations across the country, and most of them are able to do good things

by raising money and doing things in the $5,000, $10,000, $15,000 grant world, and hopefully we'll be doing some of those things too. But right now, at this stage of the game, our vision is much larger, and our goals are much higher, and we're trying to get the word out. Yeah, I'll just add to that. word out yeah i'll just add to that well said i'll just add to that um you know the housing affordability problem in our community in our region is not going to solve itself you know and particularly

when you see what's happening with the market uh particularly when you see the opposition the not in my backyard opposition that comes up when you talk about things like rezoning and folks that are opposed to some of the changes that are coming down the pike, it's not an easy problem to solve. And so it takes courage, it takes dedication, it takes money, it takes collaboration, it takes vision. And so I'm just proud to be at the table with these two gentlemen who've been doing that work and been fighting the good fight and I think we're never going to solve it overnight but I think working together

and again with the support of the realtor community with the support of the broader community we can make a real impact and again there's so many people that are struggling for lack of affordable housing having to make very difficult life choices for lack of affordable housing. And we need to make it better for people in our community. So for everybody who's watching and listening, I've been trying to figure out and welcome a text or phone call from anybody.

I've been trying to do a YIMBY, NIMBY roundtable. Yes, in my back time, not my back. To have two folks from different opinions and then have it moderated by us and move to discussion. So anybody in either one of those camps, reach out. We'd love to schedule a show. This is an awesome show. I just saw on the feed from Roger's

beautiful wife, Jessica, that today is Roger's birthday. Happy birthday, Roger. Happy birthday, Roger Voisinet. An uncommonly good man is a perfect description from Dave Norris. Judah Wittkower behind the camera is another uncommonly good man. Love Judah Wittkower. For Greg Slater and Dave Norris and our star, Keith Smith,

this is Real Talk with Keith Smith on a Friday. Thank you guys for joining us on the program and so long. Excellent. He will let us know when the program and so long. Thank you.