The I Love CVille Show With Jerry Miller! - John Ralston Joined Keith Smith & Jerry Miller Were On "Real Talk With Keith Smith!"

Episode Date: January 23, 2026

John Ralston, Associate Attorney at Ralston Law Group, joined Keith Smith of YES Realty Partners and Jerry Miller were on “Real Talk With Keith Smith” powered by YES Realty Partners and Yonna Smith! “Real Talk” airs every Friday from 10:15 am – 11 am on The I Love CVille Network! “Real Talk With Keith Smith” is presented by El Mariachi Mexican Bar & Grill, Fincham & Associates, Inc., Free Enterprise Forum, Intrastate Service Co, Mejicali, Ralston Law Group, The Scott Morris Team at Envoy Mortgage 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. A pleasure to connect with you guys through the I Love Seville Network on a show that's presented by Yes, Realty Partners. Today's program is going to be a very good one. If you're in the real estate world, grab your iced coffee, grab your hot coffee, grab your hot tea, whatever you're drinking, and sit back for the next 45 minutes to an hour. We're going to have a fantastic conversation with a pros pro, and that's John Ralston, an attorney, who helps a lot of people, a lot of professional, get to the finish line through the closing table and beyond. He is a problem solver, a fire extinguisher. He's a gentleman that understands the concept of getting from path A, point A to point B, with the least amount of resistance possible, if possible.

I should caveat that with if possible. Keith Smith, the star of our show, one of the principles of yes, royalty partners. And Keith, you got news for the show. and you also have a special guest that you need to introduce Judah Wickhauer studio camera and then let's welcome the distinguished gentleman Keith Smith. So a special guest is sitting to my right because he's special. You know, you know, in a good way. In a good way.

So, you know, the other thing you were you were listening out, you'll actually pick the phone up. Right. And that's huge. And huge, particularly, you know, in the world where we're beyond the unicorn years and everything has a little bit of a crooked path to it to get to the closing table. Either it's a residential or commercial, we were chatting off air about the struggles on commercial. And I'd love to get into a little bit about that later because some of my fellow real estate agents that are in the residential world say, hey, let me try some commercial and we'll kind of tell a few horror stories about that on it. But what I wanted to do was on Thursdays, I'm starting a new thing.

I'm kicking off this tempo on the market. So Thursday evenings I'm doing on my Facebook post. And what I'm doing is I'm tracking week over week active versus pending. We've been talking about this for a while and I never actually did it. And this is what I'm starting to do. And it's pretty interesting. This last week, the absorption tempo. was 1.5 unit homes.

So in other words, there was 1.5 more homes went pending that came active. And we're in this. This morning, it was 66. It just jumped up to 68 new homes. So I'm going to be tracking that to find out what the rhythm of the market is starting to feel like.

I think the spring market kind of sprung last week. And because we jumped from in the 20s to the 30s of homes active. and now we're up to 60, almost 70 units, tempo and that. So keep a track on that. I'm going to be doing that. Later on the show, I've got some stuff I want to announce about some stuff I'm doing in February. But tell us a little bit about yourself for the half a dozen people who don't know you.

Well, first, thank you for the kind of words, both of you. Really appreciate it. I would say I've been doing this for about a decade and on your point about picking up the phone. I think generally I find issues rise when people just default to email always. And there's a lot that can be picked up in a phone call, whether it's tone, whether it's just understanding what that closer or attorney may be handling within the moment. Because a lot of times there's this tendency to think of a transaction and a volume, and it could be that closer's tenth or that attorney's, one close,

again they have five court cases that month they're preparing for. And those are little things that people can share in a phone call, but generally don't in an email. It's sometimes almost too robotic. So just... Do you find when you do have that voice-to-voice communication, you get through the struggles versus if it's memorialized only an email? Do you find more success with that? Yes. I think because also it's just... I guess sometimes I would have, call, it's kind of like a test, like just seeing what the stress test is, talking to them. If they're having like issues or you're seeing some type of temper and like a basic conversation, like just a hello, I kind of feel like that's like a litmus test of like

what the rest is it is going to be like. So it's, you can glean a lot from one conversation and it's not even just talking about like the basic contract or the terms. It's just how they handle even more interpersonal. issues. So I feel like it's just, a phone call is great because if this person is acting like this in a simple hello conversation, you know how it's going to carry through.

So of all your fellow attorneys, how many actually pick up a phone and talk to you? Actually, a lot. Good. I'm glad to hear that. Chip Royer, Bill Tucker, and again, I think it's what makes it kind of easy in Charlottesville is I can normally get through

with all the attorneys. And if I can talk it through, it, I can get their perspective, and it really cuts through some of the issues, because it's like, okay, well, here's the concern. This is the legal argument that you would see you formed in an email, but you can get the secondary concerns or, like to say, like the non-legal considerations. That could be, you know, the client is concerned about money. The client has some other stress in their life happening, and you

normally don't see that in an email, but you can't get that information on call. Well, they dig their heels in. Yeah, talking about email. I literally, I just wanted to put in perspective for the viewers and listeners, the significance of John Ralston to our firm and the ally he is. I literally just put his email address in the search function of my email inbox. And I see from the end of 2024 until now 678 emails that have been corresponded with Ralston and clients of ours and me. Literally. That's the total amount of emails that have been corresponded here throughout all the chain. This guy is a pros, pro, even keeled guy that would be an asset to anyone that is watching and listening to this show.

I cannot speak more highly about that. You have a good pulse on maybe even the local economy as a real estate attorney, as a broker's attorney, as a guy that does a lot of business transactions. How would you open-ended question? How do you characterize the Charlesville-Almoral economy right now? Well, I think what's a little awkward is there's sort of like a stratification of the market where I've been very consistent on commercial and surprisingly consistent on deals that are reaching or over a million dollars. But I'm kind of missing on the quarter of a million dollar buyer or less. It's like that market, at least for me, kind of disappeared. And maybe they just went to closing companies because cost is always a thought.

In a commercial transaction, I'll just say it. That's a mistake. You should have an attorney involved. Maybe the bottom line is, and Jerry can jump in on this. They're just not there to buy, right? Much like the residential side of things, they have bigger handles on them. Yeah, and where I see that come out more is when I have a 1031 client who has 45 days to identify. property and they're asking me for ideas.

It's a weird thing, right? So for those enough, 1031 is a tax exchange and it's just kind of tied to the capital gains and maybe at some point they'll change it and things will get better at the federal level. But how many 1031s are you do on a regular basis? I feel like it comes up at least once every month or every other month. Yeah. Like it's just... Find me something.

I've just sold something. I need to put this money somewhere. So everybody knows in 90 days, you have to recognize what you're going to buy. And then I think 180 after that to close. Yeah, you have 45 days to identify an 180 to close. You can identify a certain number of properties. Thank you.

But, you know, oftentimes I'm just telling clients, like, just don't sleep on it. Yeah. Because you could kind of undermine the entire objective. So just... The problem is, you know, with a lot of commercials especially, is you need a study period. Yeah. And you very quickly could find yourself running out of time on the 45-day period if what you identified initially was junk.

We're doing a study period now with one of our guys, one of our clients, and getting the people just to come out to help facilitate the study period has been challenging. Oh, yeah. Like literally the engineer, the elevator people, the roof people, the chiller people, the foundation people, then their preferred contractor walking through, scheduling all those and getting them out is been extremely difficult. And you're running out of time. Yeah? Yes. Because you've got this clock, this federal clock that keeps on ticking that you need to go ahead and do this. So residential commercial, which one do you enjoy doing the most?

I would say commercial because I feel I can be more helpful. It's more flexible. There's a lot more to do, at least from the attorney's side. Residential, it's fine. I'll do residential. It's just I just feel like it's very check the box, move on. There's only so much the attorney or settlement agent can do when there's like a lender that just they have to comply with the requirements. And it has to be their paperwork.

There's just less, I find less to do. There's more busy work and there's less for me to do. You got a box in there and it goes, oh, damn it, Smith. You got one of those? It's more like a red indicator. I'll tell you, we've done some challenging deals together, right? And, you know, I'm honored when you pick up the phone and you call me and go, I've got a challenging deal, I need your help.

So it's rather honoring. I think of the one we did in Scottsville. on a regular basis without getting into details. But that was a divorce between a brother and a sister. And this isn't a West Virginia thing. That was a very complicated. But we got it across the finish line. Yeah, we did.

Kit Ashley watching the program. Kit, we love you. Rob Neal watching the program. Jason Noble watching the program. You have one, two, three, five residential brokerages watching the program. and three commercial brokerages watching the show right now. This is a question that's come in asking for some discretion, so I won't utilize their name.

Can John put into perspective how much money is coming to Charlottesville and Almaro County from outside the community? That's a good one. I would say pretty decent amount. Yeah. I don't know how to quantify it, but yes. I do run into Richmond developers or developers from, actually all over.

No, it's a good question, but like, yes, I can think several times. You see an influx of outside money because that's where the money is, right? And the process has gotten so complicated locally that some of the more small of the mid-sized local folks, it's hard to compete because they just don't have that cash, right? They don't have that runway

to throw cash at the study period. You know, I see this. I do a lot of acquisition and development work and consult for folks around the area on the residential commercial development side. And you'll see the folks with the deeper cash pockets are the ones that are able to be more successful because they can flex that muscle a little bit more. Well, what I was also going to add is I think there is a hunger for deals, but they're having the fan out broader than their normal or local market to do so.

And I think that's one group I'm seeing where they just can't find deals anywhere else and What would seem like a very pricey deal in Charlottesville from their market? That's fine Like they can take a Different cap rate be happy with it But also I've seen a lot of national tenants or much larger I should say Organizations looking to Charlottesville for these developments like just to tap the market and I think it's an extremely hot market. Extremely hot market.

What's the put in perspective cash transactions that are happening, all cash transactions? I mean, that's another high point. I can't give you the exact number, but yeah, I'm seeing a lot of cash. I mean, they're still doing some loans, but I just, the amount they're bringing, it's just...

Throw a little bit of a residential component into the commercial component. What about multifamily? I've seen some of that market cooling down quite a bit. Are you seeing that in your world a little bit? Larger multifamily projects? I think it's just a little more nuanced. Like I would say compared to a year ago,

I think there's a lot of excitement about the rezoning in Charlottesville, but you still have to get it built. So I think that's where the... No, you've got to get it approved. We can't even get it built. It's trying to be nice. But yes, you need to get it approved. You need to get it past site plan first.

They go ahead and even get it done. So, you know, we'll have to see how that goes. You got Bill McChesney, Johnny Ornales, Chris Allen, Logan, Wells, Claylo, Vanessa Parkhill, watching the program. Viewers and listeners, let us know your comments. Put them in the feed. We'll relay them live on air. I got so much for you, John. As someone who's in this business here, talk to us about deal flow tied to leases.

what you're seeing leasing-wise. Are you seeing incremental lease signings? Are you seeing folks choosing to exit or not renew leases? I mean, just put in perspective deal flow with leasing, commercial leasing.

I do. I haven't seen the exit so much but I think a lot of it's going into, like where I see it is, like the there needs to be a new lease or they're buying a lease or essentially a building with a lease

and huge question is what's the term left, what's the CAM charges, common area maintenance charges. Oh yes, all right. No, that's okay, I'll fill in. But I think where it can get a little

difficult, so much value of a commercial building is the lease. And all right, at the lease, I just had this discussion last week with a commercial clients like, well, there's three years left to a lease, the tents stable, they're great, but if they leave, whatever reason... What's the value?

I'd say $1.5 million. Okay. And it's in an area that has a population of just shy of 2,000 people, but it's in an area where like there's a lot of tourism, but nonetheless, it's just shy of $1.5 million. And that's one of those clients where they need to put their money somewhere, but it's coming down to, all right, there's three years. years left to the lease, what is the value of this property if the tenant doesn't renew. And, I mean, otherwise, it's a great property otherwise.

Sounds like a risky deal right there. It can. And that's where I, it can be hard to counsel a client where it's like I can tell you the ins and outs of what the lease says and what the cost may be and who's obligated for what, but there are limits. A big difference between the commercial and the residential side in that conversation. you're having pretty in-depth conversation with your client, how much you owe on it, right? You know, a little bit more than you would do a general residential transaction, right?

Yes. Because you need to see the bigger picture in order to advise, because it could be, you know, they have a huge debt service on it, right? And I think you're starting to see folks that bought commercial when paper was zero, right? Now it is not zero, and they start hitting their five, seven, 10-year balloons, and they now have to refinance, and what does that look like? Oh, yeah, that's been another area of drama, like the reset rate, because when they got it, maybe it was like 3%, but now it's easily double, tripled, and what made sense at this

interest rate no longer the case, at a higher one. And it's just that question of, like, were they looking at the projections that far relative to what increases? there were under the lease. And on the back, 100%, so does that dovetail with the lease end of it? So it could happen in the middle of it. So a lot of people don't know most of these leases, they're not one years, right? They're five years.

They're 10-year, 10-year leases. So this interest rate fluctuation can happen mid-lease, and your lease doesn't allow you to increase it that much. It becomes a bit of a struggle from a property owner's respect. Well, that's also where I've seen some creativity about, increase of rent. So for example, I know there's the typical 2%, like just making up a number obviously, but like it can have a set percentage increase. I've

seen discussion about sending it around inflation. Typically. Because you know, the fixed percentage is just I don't know. Landlords lose the money at a 2% increase year over year. It should be tied to prime in some capacity. Right. So and that's another consideration of both back and forth between the tenant and the landlord, especially when it comes to new leases, it's like, all right, well, I find so often a give or take, you know, the landlord, or excuse me, the tenant, just needs to make sure they're not going to get killed on costs and rent relative to the business that come in, especially first

or second year when they're still getting established in an area or a market. And as the landlord or the property owner, it becomes this navigation of math, right? Well, you know, what happens if this person or this entity goes bankrupt? Now I've got a vacant facility that is now costing me money. So it becomes this bit of a bit of a balance. So for the few, for the residential agents out there watching this that think they would like to get into trying to do some commercial stuff, what would your advice be to them?

I would say first and foremost, you need to know your client. in the sense of are they buying this to use for their own businesses, in which case, I would say the question is, the questions often become, all right, is this zone correctly? Does this have the facilities necessary to meet whatever use you're trying to do with it? Does it have the parking? If you need to do renovations to make it fit for use, what needs to happen, whereas with, let's say, your client just wants to buy a property and be a landlord,

that's when it goes into, well, what's the current lease, what's the current tenant, where the cam charges, what is the order and flow of that, but going back to if this tenant just goes bankrupt. You know, let's say they get bought out. I had to deal with a lease situation where the company got bought up by a much larger company, that company put all the debt, assigned all the debt to the tenant, and just set them off the die in bankruptcy.

So it's just, you just never know. It's hard to say that's going to happen, but there's companies that are just buying other smaller companies just to do that for accounting magic, I'll call that. He's a much nicer person than I am. I would say the residential agents that are thinking about doing commercial,

don't do it. You are not set up to do this. So let me add more color to that. I get asked this question all the time. I do a fair amount of commercial because I've got the development background and so forth and so on. It's like where it's similar to residential, know your client,

create the right team. The right team matters. Attorneys, engineers, that, but the big hang up is time. Right? If you're looking at 30, 60, 90-day turnovers, that's not going to happen. It could be three, six years. It could be years for the term.

So you need to be prepared for time and patience. I usually tell folks that say, hey, I want to do a few commercial deals. Don't make that your primary business. It could be a secondary. The resi brokers should not get into the commercial game. Well, that doesn't mean they're, I'll push back a little bit. There's some agents out that I can do it. I'm in both worlds.

I can do it. There's a handful that can do both sides. Throw this to John. How many commercial brokers at your office are doing the deal flow? If you give us a number, back of the napkin. I mean, obviously, it's probably not even a fifth. Like, it's a very low amount. We'll be the numbers.

Commercial brokers locally that are doing deal flow locally. Oh, it's like a handful. Yeah. It's a dozen. I think it's like eight or nine. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is that what you see? But I just want to push back.

Blanket, let's say a residential real estate agent can't do that. It's a little bit, but the percentage is extremely strong. Eight or nine commercial. Total people at his office. And that's local, but you also have the influx of the out-of-state broker, which is huge. Yes. Right? The big national firms that push it one way or the other.

But going back to, I'd say they can do it, but the problem goes back to, oftentimes the value of the property is tied to the use or the lease. And if either one of those is wrong, it's not like you have, well, let's go back to, let's say, a house. You know, people always need to live in a house, live somewhere. I would say there's less barriers to resell a house than to cut your losses and resell a warehouse. And much easier to price and value a residential house than a commercial building. We can pull it off this any day of the week, right? Off of our parents.

You can't do that. You got comps everywhere. You can't do that in commercial. And commercial is typically closely held, closely held, thank you, Smith. Closely held. Information isn't shared very freely. It's a very difficult thing to go ahead and evaluate it. My biggest advice to agents to follow up that train of thought, residential agents,

is find the commercial agent that you trust and can work with and refer to that person. and out and step back and let that commercial agent who that's what they do all day long to pick the ball up. Well, you should put in perspective for the viewers and listeners, John, how commercial building is valued. Like, let's start lease first and then go from there. Well, I would say maybe the more useful starting point is, especially the client that needs a loan, what the bank is going to look at is cash flow relative to the expenses. They're going to look sometimes deeper into.

the actual clients, I guess, their own finances. Their history? Yes. And commercial loans, that's where I would just caution where it's almost like the old-school way maybe lenders used to operate where you can make every payment and still be in default. Because going back to it, maybe you have a client that can pay the loan absent a tenant, but a bank may look at that and say,

well, this is impairment to the collateral. And in accordance to the loan documents you sign, we can call the note if we're not happy with the cash flow. Let me jump in here. Residential, the loan documents are pretty standardized, right? One lender versus the other lender. In the commercial world, each note's a little different. Each note is very specific to the deal.

and to the lender to your point, you could have a, I mean, I've, raise my hand, been there, done this, lost it, right? And there's stuff buried in there

that if you don't have a really smart guy or person, look at it, it can bite you on the tush later on. But to your point, you know, you have to have a tenant

in there all the time. It could be a clause in that. And even though you're making your payment, you're a violation of the loan terms. Right. And I think to not go a tangent. A lot of times

with the commercial loan, that's where you'll see an event of default can be insecurity of the borrower, meaning they look at your taxes and they're like, well, your income's dropped, and we're concerned. It could be impairment of the

collateral, meaning it lost its tenant, or it's another 2008 and everything's tanked. They don't have to stick around. I just got chills, thanks. And another one could be this always feels arbitrary, but let's say you have a partner or business partners and one of them die, that can be grounds at fault, where the death of a member of an LLC or the death of the guarantor can be caused, called the loan. Even if your operational agreement has nothing to do with this and it's 100% in good shape to loan doctors, it can say timeout, we're calling them.

Yeah, they can. I'm not saying they will, but that's where there's this weird dynamic. where you can have a great, great relationship with a commercial loan officer, but just understand that, you know, the back office is who has these loan documents and who's doing compliance, and if there is a downturn and they need to save themselves or live another day, they just pass it off to her attorney, and you're not dealing with a nice loan officer anymore. Yeah. You're dealing with a contract that says if there's an impairment to value of the collateral, it doesn't matter if you made every payment.

So a shout out to our friend Woody Fincham here, just to put it in perspective, you know, a typical residential appraisal, you know, $500, 800,000 to $800,000 somewhere in that range depending on it. I have paid tens of thousands of dollars for commercial appraisals. So the number is multiple times more larger, which shows the complexity of the transaction and how we can move into it. My wife is watching, you'll get a kick out of this. My wife is watching the program, and John, she sends me the text. Oh, this is the guy you're always talking to other phone. It's nice to put a face to the name here.

I didn't know what he looked like. She's watching right now. And he's wearing khaki. Yeah, she goes, oh, this is, I always wondered. She goes, I always wonder what he looked like. Literally, he's wearing khakis. That's what she says. How about this question that's come on the feed?

Can your guests put in perspective how many of the deals are done in seller finance capacity? My favorite kind of deal, the seller finance deal. I do see those. Oftentimes not in the million-dollar-plus range. Normally, where I see that is you have a sole proprietor or sole owner who has this building. this is where they've done their business, and there's no succession plan. They just want to off-ramp. So sometimes I'll see that of like they just want to stop.

They just want to retire, they just want to slow down. So to kind of grease the wheels, they'll owner-finance it under better terms just to get it done. That unto itself can create some issues. I can give you an example where my client thought they were buying a mature business and a real estate to go with it in a package, and it was underfinanced, and the seller just, he just couldn't do it anymore. I guess it's hard to say, but allegedly he just stopped taking calls or business.

And when the new guy stepped in, it was barren, it was flat. because I ever assumed the business just closed. So they thought they were going to step in there with momentum, and it was the opposite. So that's where if owner financing is nice, but that's where there can be a little more nuance. If it's owner financing real estate, okay, that's great.

It's a leisure. But if it's a business and real estate, I would just check. Those are where those issues can arise. It's like, well, what next? I will say I kind of like the owner of financing sometimes too, where if that does happen, at least your client didn't give all the money, and there's something to maybe set off against an argument,

but that's not a given. That's really going into the weeds and potentially that's the point where you're getting litigators. And on the seller's side, the good news about that is as if the tenant and the borrower goes away, you still own your asset, right? You can still move forward with it. residential, commercial, right, real estate. You do other things, and I know personally because you've helped us with our trusts and our wills. Because business brokerage.

And the business brokerages. So you've helped. So what other lines of law or legal services you can help folks with? I mean, leasing, I've had to sit on both residential and commercial leases, answer questions about enforcement, terms, provisions, drafted it, management agreements, business and corporations, partnership agreements, joint venture agreements, I mean, just goes on, whatever to be helpful. I would say the one thing I don't generally do is just litigation because that is kind of its own animal. And

I'd say like anything else, you just need someone specialized who's comfortable with the other place in town, or at least even the courts. That familiarity really does pay for itself. Well, I know personally you helped us weave together a rather complicated family structure. So thank you for doing that. And it's, I think, working well. I haven't been voted off the island yet, so I think it's working well. But if I could circle back to maybe an earlier question about like a residential going into commercial, I think it's more than doable.

But just that's where those considerations of, What is the value tied to for the client, whether it's the use of the property or development of the property or the lease of the property? And then if they need a loan, then there's that whole other avenue. And where I would tie this back is having a team of people. I don't think there's ever an expectation you're going to know everything. But it is important that if you don't know something, ask or find someone who can. because that's where I've seen a lot of realtors get into hot water where the client's asking these questions that they should be asking,

let's say, a CPA or a tax attorney. And the realtor is trying to be helpful, and they want to be helpful, but they're almost getting railroaded because the client didn't want to bring on more professionals to help out those type of very niche questions. And then at that point, that's when the real estate agent needs to walk away. because if they're unwilling to hire the experts, then that's a recipe for disaster or going through it in the commercial world.

How about the, John, what you, where with your consultation, you obviously offer legal consultation and try to minimize as much exposure as possible for clients involved in the deal. When do you start taking it into the conversation of value and offering like strategy outside of the law. Do you do that?

Do you try not to do that? Well, especially if there's a realtor, I feel like that's kind of their sandbox and I'm not a realtor, I'll say first, but where I normally weighed into a general question of values going back to those commercial loans and I say, well, look,

if the value is the lease and you're anticipating or you're relying on this rent income to pay the loan, well, what happens if they go bankrupt? Or in that situation where the tenant got bought and then immediately chucked under a bus for debt and bankruptcy. It's like what is the plan there? Or making sure they understand that a lot of those commercial loans

have those events to default for impairment in security, death. And sometimes I will try to negotiate watering that down with a side letter, which is again something I can do in a commercial loan, but good luck in residential. But it's not always a given, and just them understanding there's that risk. And like another thing that can be salt in the wounds is you can have prepayment penalties in a commercial loan.

So it's like, okay, the tenant's out, you need to resell the property, and maybe you do find, the bank does allow it, and you can find a buyer, but the end of the bank is like, well, okay, you needed to pay X percent of the outstanding loan balance because it's a prepayment. You're paying the loan off-headed schedule. And that's where I'll wait into it, just understand, like, I'll ask the client, like, obviously they need to have their own mastery of the numbers and their own understanding of budget. But it's like, here's the risk of not

kind of highlighting the risk of this, if you guys don't have mastery of your own budget numbers, this is where it can go wrong real fast. So I'll add a little bit to that, a little color to that, because I've experienced it, you know, you'll be on one side and then say another attorney on the other side and there is a situation that pops up in a transaction. You will back off and go, okay, let the real estate agents or the other professionals work on the business side of it, right?

Work on the relationship side of it, because sometimes when you and another attorney get in the middle of it, it could get a little bit more complicated. On the flip side of that, sometimes in a transaction, our side of the table goes, you know what, we've done everything we can do. Now it's your, can you jump in with the other side and try to get us across the finish table?

So it's kind of a nuanced answer to it. But generally, the answer is, is, okay, get the business folks to work out the business, I'll memorialize it and work with the other side. Yeah, it's just like a risk assessment, but taking my own advice, you know, I'll have to make clear I'm not a realtor. I don't have the same tools or knowledge. You know, here's, you know, my toolbox. Commercial brokers, 99 out of 100 times, are not realtors.

That's a great point to make out, right? So to Jerry's point, so they're real estate professionals. In order to have the moniker realtor, right, which is a trademark, you need to be bought of the National Homeowners Association of Realtors, right? I will say 99 out of 10, maybe 9 out of 10, or not, right? Mainly because of some of the rules and regulations that come along with it, because commercial is a little bit more pivoting. You've got to pivot it.

I will say, I've been saying this on the show for a while, whatever this lawsuit popped up, it functions, more like commercial than the general real estate in the past. Well, I was also going to say is another nice part about commercials, oftentimes the client themselves. It's sophisticated. Most of the time. Yeah, most of the time.

Most of the time. Yeah, and then the ones that are not, you have to educate and help them through that. If they'll listen. Excuse me, sir. If they'll listen. Put in perspective of business brokerage. Anywhere you want to go on business brokerage here, because we've done something together.

there's a boatload of business brokerage happening locally. There's a lot of folks that took on debt during the pandemic and that are looking to get out. It's just a sad reality of economics and small business ownership. Anywhere do you want to go on business brokerage? I think with business brokerage, what I like to see, and that goes back to what they're buying, if they're buying into a lease or a location,

well, then a lot of it's like, what does the lease say? But if they're buying an operation with, you know, vendor contracts, employees, intellectual property, that's when there's a lot of side agreements to look into, like, all right, if your client's buying a restaurant, what is the status of employment taxes? What is the status of employees? What type of employees? what's the character of the employee, where do they get their stock? Have a case where it's a decent business, but they get all their stock from one outlet in Southwest Virginia.

It's like, well, what do you know about this outlet? A large portion of your product comes from this one place. If that farm or that vendor goes under, or they don't recognize you because maybe it was buddy-buddy. I do run into that too where it's like what made the numbers work was the owner had an agreement, like a long-standing relationship, let's say the diesel supplier. So he was paying 20% below market value for the fuel.

That's great, but that's not a contract. Until it's not. That was like a high-five between the business. Seller and the vendor. And sit here like, I don't think, I mean, do you know if you can replicate it? And that's what I'll say to the clients. Like, this is how they do it. Can you do it the same?

So how they typically respond to that? Well, or push back or say they're smarter than you? That's what I says. It feels like multiple choice. It can be all the above. I've just seen it all. I have some clients, like, no, I am going to look and do that. I'm going to meet with them.

I'm going to talk to them. I have some clients, right, no, it's okay, I'll figure it out, which is, fingers crossed. It really just, nothing new under the sun. It's just in the sense of, it's all over the place. It really depends on the client, because sometimes the client has their own vision of how they want to take it. And that's fine. I think what can be a little difficult is when you have the client who's maybe a little new, or they're not, they're trying to do a lot of it on their own, and they don't have a team.

to help them. They don't have any underlying structure. And that can be hard to counsel because it's trying to surmise what they do and do not know. So I've had clients. No, no, it's okay. Commercials, way more complicated, back to the team, time, and getting it across the finish line is a wavering thing. Go back and forth up and down, not necessarily such a straight line, even though I think general real estate, residential real estate today is definitely the same thing.

But commercial is typically much more up and down and pivot left and right. So have your right team. Be prepared for it to be a little bit longer, right? And trust your team, right? You know, hire the right people, trust them and listen to them to get across the finish line. I found in the commercial that I do that that's usually the best. path forward. You may not get asked this question a lot here.

You're a small business owner. What are some of the goals for your small business? You're firm. Like what do you want to see for your... Are you a father? Yes. Yeah, young father. Right?

How old are you? Do you have one or two? I got a soon-to-be-three-year-old daughter and a five-year-old caveman. Okay, yeah. I'm the same boat as you. So this guy is very much in the thick. We call ours a little terrorist that we love. Our two kids, yeah.

I've never been head-butt. so many times. Yeah, dude, I got a black guy from a tonka truck from our three-year-old, legitimately, legitimate. What is the goals for your firm, your business? I mean, I was what I'd say? First and foremost, survive. Survival, yeah. Get to bedtime each night? Yes, get home. But that's not work. That's not work. Oh, that's work for me. I don't know. I guess to me, the main thing is controlling what type of work I take on. So when I started, it was very heavy into residential and increasingly it's a lot more commercial. And like I said, I enjoy commercial more because there's more to do.

I feel like I'm a lot more helpful on a commercial case. Sometimes in a residential case where I have to deal with a lender where they don't want to pay for their own closer. So they require you to log into a portal and do the closing statement for them. and it's just a piece of crap portal and stuff like that. So I would say that many things is just having the option of what work I get to do. That would be my number one. I'm a lot more satisfied with commercial work, so obviously I like more commercial work. You took over your fault as a business, right?

Mm-hmm. He was a tax attorney and real estate and whatnot for, I'd say, decades. You don't do tax work, do you? No. I think so. I am. That's a little complicated. Your dad's well known in the community. Yeah, Renar Alston, but now tax work, that's one where

through fear. Yeah. He grew up in a, my dad is CPA and his dad, a tax attorney. Is that right? Yeah. They're, you know, unique individuals. Extremely unique people. That's fair job. Yeah. You know, it's, it's, if you've, if you've ever been around a CPA or have a CPA in your family or have a CPA for a father. It is a unique lifestyle. I've got one in my family. I agree. What do you think about? It gives you an appreciation

for the level of planning and analysis of, let's say, like balance sheets, income statements, the difference between like a revenue statement or a cash statement and tax planning and appreciation enough to know the limits of my knowledge and going back to I'm not a tax and attorney and I know that's where I will find one. So know what you don't know. Yes. Right? And what you don't know, you go out and seek professional advice and a trusted advisor back to the team concept, right? They're bringing the right people. and when you have a commercial person

that is asking very specific tax stuff, you're going to reach out to dad or to a tax attorney to help with that. I think that can be a skill of just saying, I don't know. Like I've had clients come down on me. They're like, well, how do you not know this tax question? You're a settlement agent.

You're supposed to know everything. I'm like, I don't. I just, I don't. I'm going to be honest. I don't know the tax implication of that. That's why I love working with you because you recognize what you don't know, you convey that, and we go out and find somebody to help fill that gap.

Yeah, and I think sometimes there's a pressure to always have an answer, to always know, and to kind of push into unfamiliar territory, and sometimes that's not the wise or even the best thing to do for a client, even if they're pushing for it. Can we pivot a little bit? What county do you live in? Alamo County. Have you been following Jerry's text information about the county assessments and stuff like that?

I was just wondering what your read is on. We're about to know, Amar County. I'm actually really close to my office. I'm a long railroad. Okay. So that's the Rio District? Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Amar County, I'll set the stage here and then you go anywhere you want. 26, the county assessor presented data actually this week, so three days ago. Which I think it was Wednesday. County assessments spiked 6.17% in 2026, the third highest spike over the last 13 years. And here's where it really gets sticky is in that 13-year period of time, county assessments have increased every single year, including one year in 2020, when they uptick 13.46%. So 13 years of compounded assessment increases. And then supervisors last year raised the real estate tax rate, 4 cents. Anywhere you want to go on this?

I mean, I just, you know, some of our folks, you know, friends at dual income households or households where there's a C, someone that has part of a C-suite, or like, this is getting ridiculous. Well, I can say personally, the house I live in, it didn't have anyone really living there for a couple of years. It was, at least on the improvement value, it was going up 20% a year. I was like, no one was there, no improvements, maintenance of minimal. I don't even think they even looked at the house. It was still jacked up, like 20% a year on the improvement value. Did you challenge that?

No, because I got such a good deal on it. It was COVID loan. I got a fantastic price. Seller was an amazing individual. It's like I'm just going to see. I'm just, you know, take it for what it is. Like, I just got a very unique piece of property. Granted, I'm never going to be able to reproduce it.

It's basically my coffin in a joking sense. There's no way I can get that again. You're talking because of the rate and the price? Yes. You're a golden handcuffed. Yes. I mean, I got great rate and it was well below the market price. I would not have been able to compete with other buyers if it went on the market like it did.

I mean, that's even with some things I needed to happen with respect to maintenance and getting it up to date. But I'll just be thankful. But as far as revenue, I think that's just a tough one. I wish I could say I had a good answer on that because it really is just about funding services and how. And I think another question is what is the makeup of development? I don't know if this is a proven fact, but I know something that always gets repeated is every time they had a house,

they add a set of services they need to pay for. And so if you have a county or locality, that's really laser-focused in residential and units and affordability. Kind of the back-in concern is, is it balanced with other type of development that does bring in the revenue? It's a complicated question. How about this? You'll appreciate this.

This is from Carly Wagner, who's an engineer and a realtor. You said in 2019, Almaro County's revenue, $291 million. In 2025, Almaro County's revenue, $642 million. That's a 120% total increase in six years or slightly more than 15% year-over-year increase. $2,645 in per capita revenue in 2019 versus $5,543 in per capita revenue right now. I think that I know we know some of the supervisors. Ned Galloway comes in here all the time. Good guy.

Great guy. I love Ned. Fred Missal, we know. Malick, Anne, we know, Vila Pisto-Curtly we know. Great guys. Mike Pruitts coming here, good guy. They are gentrifying this community. Like, legitimately gentrifying this community by making the overhead associated with home ownership

over this very short period of time, just so difficult to manage and swallow for folks. And, you know, like, we're talking like upper-class folks, like well above the area immediate income that are saying what is going on here. Well, this is my jump in time because I do this speech or do this conversation every year about this time. So if you've been following the show and tracking it, you know, he said 6.1% well, the actual average price in single family detached in Albemar County jumped 6.5%. So the market is driving that by state code. They have to kind of go ahead and do market value.

But this is a three-sided triangle, right? So we're talking about the assessment end of it. So just a little PSA, and I'm sure Jerry's covered this already, but I'll just do it for this show. If you want to appeal it, you've got to March 2nd to go ahead and do it. So that is the assessor's review. So that's a local level. The assessor reviews it.

If you do not like that assessment, you can go to the Board of Equalization, is a formal appeal on March 30th. Every year I do a lot of this. Every year I get phone calls and every year I X or texts and I'm happy to do it to take a look at their property and find out if their property value actually matches what their tax value is. And if it doesn't, you should appeal it.

If your market value is below what your tax value, you should appeal it and try to go through that. The second side of it, which is Jerry's talking about and everybody is, is the budget. So I'm going to do a little plug here starting March every third Friday. I'm going to have Ned Galloway sitting here and two elected officials from all the jurisdictions because it is budget season and that's the time to start talking about budgets. And then the last thing is the rate. So that's the three-sided triangle.

So the stuff that you can influence now is your assessment. So if you believe your number is too high versus market, reach out to a trusted advisor, find out what it's worth, and contest it. The real thing is to watch the budget. I just don't see anybody winning a challenge. You are not going to win it. It's just not going to happen. In fact, the assessment...

Because his number is off. It's lower than what it should be. The assessment is tied to market value, and what he presented before the supervisors is lower than what is actually happening in the market. Where it does work, I've been very successful in Fulvana County with it and some of the rural counties where they do it every two years. Yeah. Right. So, you know.

Almar does it every year? Every year. Yeah. They're pretty darn good on tracking the market. If you have a single family detached home in Almar County, you went up 6.5% year over year. Our district, we're at the Samuel Miller district. We went up assessment, just assessment, 9.8% year. And your market value, if you take a dive into it, probably matches. visit into that. But, you know, if you feel you've got something wonky, you know,

my house should only be worth $300 and their tax assessing it at a million, you know, some huge thing, reach out to whoever. I'll be more than happy to help you and do a quick assessment. It takes me 10 minutes to do it and they're either going to be right or they're going to be wrong. But we want to watch it. I'm excited about this. I've got Ned committed. I've got all the chairs from the six jurisdictions and the mayor.

committed to come in once a month on a rotating basis. This is the time to be asking questions of the elected officials about housing and all this stuff. So I'm really excited about it to do it. And then on February, for those interested in new construction, we're going to be focusing on new construction on the show. Got a couple of heavy hitters coming in during the month. Randall Ralston watching the program and giving you some props right now. Oh, wow. I thought I would pass that on to you right there. You're fantastic, John. You should do that.

I know this guy is extremely busy and always manages to answer the phone despite being extremely busy. You're very good in this setting. Oh, thank you. Sincerely me that. It's very good in this setting. Any closing thoughts, gentlemen?

You first, John. It could be a plug for the firm. There you go. That was the handbook. Oh, yeah. Thank you. Ralson Law Group. We're at Glenwood Station Lane,

along Rail Road. real estate commercial residential business corporation wills and trusts you name it can help out and if I can't help you then I'll try to find a journey you can I really appreciate it I'm going to stop you there I'm going to give you kudos right right we have a transaction that we were doing that you said look Keith I'm just too

too busy to do this because it was a quick transaction please use somebody else to say that tells me all I need to know about you, all I need to know about your ethics, all I need to know about how you do business. So I just want to take that opportunity and say thank you for doing that. Instead of taking it on, disappointing everybody and not performing, you recognized that you couldn't do it in the time frame. I needed it done to my client and you handed it off.

So I just wanted to publicly say thank you for doing that. I'm happy to. Like I said, whatever gets it done, right. Do you, Smith? I'm excited about February, even more excited about March. This took a little politicking to get everybody to agree to show up in it. So it's going to be a lot of fun. It was something about I needed to get more bourbon for those chats.

So we're going to go ahead and do it. But I'm excited about it. Let's be safe out there, folks, right? It seems like we're kind of dodging a little bit of a bullet here. We're still going to get a bit of snow and ice. if you don't have yourself prepped up, make sure you're prepped up. You know, the fun candles, lights, blankets. You know, if you've got propane, make sure you've got enough propane to turn the fireplace on, a wood for the thing.

And, you know, maybe a bottle of a red wine and a little bit of a blanket and snuggling in front of a fireplace is a good thing to do. But be safe out there. Key Smith, John Ralston, pros, pros, pros, fantastic people, make the job easy. Keith Smith of Yes Relative Partners and John Rawson with the Rawson Law Group are A-plus guys, professionals. Judah Wickcower behind the camera. One quick thing if you don't mind. Sure. Back on the snow thing.

If you've got somebody in your life that's homebound or neighbor, check on them, please. Thanks. Well set. Judah Whitcower behind the camera. My name is Jerry Miller, the I Love Seville Show at 1230. Thank you kindly for joining us. So long, everybody. Thanks, John.

Thanks, John. I really appreciate it. Thank you, guys.