The I Love CVille Show With Jerry Miller! - Katie & Ben Mullins + Chris Coiner Interview; 919 Druid Avenue, $699K, 4 BR, 4 BA, 2,197 SQF

Episode Date: March 4, 2026

The I Love CVille Show headlines: Katie & Ben Mullins + Chris Coiner Interview 919 Druid Avenue, $699K, 4 BR, 4 BA, 2,197 SQF Convert Non Loanable Real Estate Into Loanable How Is The Local Real Estate Market Doing? What Is It Like Doing Business In CVille City? Predictions For The Local Economy Moving Forward Will Albemarle Public Schools Allow Erika Kirk To Speak? What Is AlbCo School Board Doing With Free Speech? Read Viewer & Listener Comments Live On-Air Katie Ballowe Mullins & Ben Mullins of Blenheim Builders, LLC. and Chris Coiner of Decem Design Build joined Jerry Miller live on The I Love CVille Show! The I Love CVille Show airs live Monday – Friday from 12:30 pm – 1:30 pm on The I Love CVille Network. Watch and listen to The I Love CVille Show on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, iTunes, Apple Podcast, YouTube, Spotify, Fountain, Amazon Music, Audible, Rumble and iLoveCVille.com. #realestate

Good Wednesday afternoon, guys. I'm Jerry Miller, and thank you kindly for joining us on the show. It's a pleasure to connect with you guys through the I Love Seville Network. Today's show is going to be a good one. We have a panel of experts in the studio. We have the team behind 919 Druid Avenue, and we'll showcase some photography, and we'll talk about the nitty-gritty of a piece of inventory that is now for sale. It's a $699,000 asking price. Here's the really cool story. of 919 Druid Avenue. Initially, the piece of property

was non-loanable. That means you would have an extremely difficult time purchasing this property through any kind of traditional financing. Now this property is for sale and viable. And this is my favorite kind of entrepreneurial

journey. We call it conscious capitalism or social entrepreneurship, where a business is choosing to run in the black, but doing it in a way where they're leaving the community in a better place than when they first arrived. Social entrepreneurship or conscious capitalism. Judah Wickhauer is behind the camera.

We will welcome the panel in a matter of moments. First, I want to highlight one of the partners that makes this program possible. I'm proud to call these folks friends. It's the team behind Charlestville Sanitary Supply and Charlestful Swimming Pool Company. The Vermilion family own this. They're five generations in Almar County. And the business is three generations of family run. anything cleaning, sanitary, swimming pool related, water testing, pool robots, pool covers, building in-ground pools, above-ground pools, whatever it is.

It's the Vermilions at Charlestful Sanitary Supplier, Charlottesville Swimming Pool Company. And they got an e-commerce website that offers same-day delivery at price points that are better than the big box brands and their websites. I don't see why we would not keep the money in this community. I need to emphasize this how fragile the local economy is and how important it is for, locals in this community to go out of their way to shop local and keep their money local because we don't want to turn into, you know, Main Street, USA. We want to keep being Charlottesville and Almore and Scottsville. And that's charm and locally owned and operated. A ton of people watching the program. Real estate agents jump in the feed. Elected officials jump in the feed.

If you want to give props to the candidates to the folks here on the panel, put your comments in the chat box and I will relay them live on air. to Wickhauer, if you can go to the studio camera without further ado. Props to Katie Mullins for helping set this up. She is the marketing genius behind 919 Druid Avenue. Ben and Chris are

the Braun and Brains, Katie Brains as well, behind 919 Druid Avenue, taking a non-loatable house, making it loanable and adding inventory to a throttled real estate market. This is a success story. We'll start with Katie. Before we get

to the nitty-gritty, introduce yourself to the viewers and listeners. Yeah, I'm Katie Mullins. I am a local, like truly born and raised Charlottesville real estate agent. I have been in real estate now. This is my third year. Last year, ended up doing like around 31 transactions. Nice. Did about 12.8 mil total. So just truly local, born and raised. That's awesome. That is a success story right there. Ben, you're next, my friend. Introduce yourself. Father, husband. I mean, you've got a lot going on that's positive. Important guy here. So yeah, I'm Katie's husband. I'm the owner of Blenelm Builders. We started in 2024. Basically, our goal is to rehab, you know, properties that make them loomable in the

Charlottesville area and also do semi-custom speculative homes. Chris, you are born and raised. Almore County, Charlottesville's in your blood. My friend, introduce yourself to the viewers and listeners. So I'm Chris Pointer, owner of Descent Design Build. Like Jerry said, born and raised in Charlottesville. Now I live in Gutson County, so we go back and forth between Richmond and Charlottesville.

We've recently expanded to the Charlottesville market with this particular job. We've got a couple others coming up, but we're a fully integrated design build firm. So in-house architect, design team, construction side and lucky enough to partner with Ben and Katie on this particular job and hopefully some more in the future. Spencer Pushard's watching the program. He's given props to the panel, says, what's up, Katie? Spencer Pushard has a fantastic AV company, autovisual company,

that folks should consider. Due to Wickauer, my friend, I think we have some photography and some videography that we can put on screen for 919, Druitt Avenue. Katie, we'll start with you here. You are the listing agent, I think for the most talked about active listing on the MLS in Central Virginia right now. Show is yours. 919 Druitt Avenue anywhere you want to go. Yeah, I mean, it is beautiful. It's got a full, either rentable or multi-generational apartment in the bottom with its own kitchen. It is four bed, three and a half bath. It's around 2,200 square foot, beautiful home, fenced in backyard, four off-street parking spots, which is huge for the city. So, feel free to reach out to me for the plat,

but there's two parking spots directly in front of the house, and then the lot goes up a hill, and there's two additional off-street parking spots as well. I drove by there. My wife and I are two sons after visiting the farmer's market. We easily could have walked from the farmer's market to 9-19 at Druitt Avenue. We could have walked from the local, from Mastapas, from the downtown mall.

You could have walked from the Locust Grove neighborhood. could walk from mid. I mean, it is so strategically positioned in Belmont. And I think that, Ben, is one of the most appealing aspects of 919, Druid Avenue, is the convenience, the live-work play that it would offer. My friend, before we get into specifics of how this came to market, what stands out to you about 919, Drewwood Avenue. Just to piggyback off what Katie said, I mean, if I had to drive home two points, it would be we probably have more parking than anyone else on the street. So that's great. And then the ADU in the basement is huge. I mean, just having the ability to have generational living on the property and share that, you know, and kind of strengthens

the community there. And it's just with those two things, I think it really stands out on the market. I wanted to add to the basement has a walkout, so its own entrance, which I think is huge for the city, too, in the heart of Vermont. This basement, Chris, we're going to throw it to you. This ADU folks is picture perfect for Airbnb or short-term rental, and it's picture-perfect for a long-term rental. As someone who makes his living in real estate, we have 24 doors. It's screaming 1,500 a month to 2,000 a month easily,

conservatively, 1,500 to 2,000 a month. And I think in certain circumstances, you're probably knocking on the door of 2-250 a month. My two cents. Chris, the show is yours, 919, Druid Avenue, and then we'll talk about the team and how we got to this point. So from my perspective from the development side of things, there's another opportunity there that we didn't actually dive into, but considered is with the new zoning ordinance that's in process, there is the ability to add an additional structure in the rear, and having those additional parking spaces can play into it.

It's also a staggered lot, so you do have parking up top with its own gate, which could access the garage with a living space above. it or whatever you wanted to do there. We did look into that but feasibility right now wasn't there for that with working through the nuts and bolts of that particular zoning case right now. But I think that's a big point that people might not understand is there is opportunity to expand on that usability for that property. Melissa Jones watching the program, she says, OMG, this is so cool. Melissa Jones right now on the show. Viewers and listeners put your comments in the feed. We'll relay them live on air. Realtors, if you have questions, folks in the financing game, if you have questions, put them in the feed. We got builders watching the program. The new zoning ordinance has been green lit. It's approved. The whole concept with the NCO is to, I guess, lessen red tape or to relax zoning, so there's more inventory. And the concept is with more supply that could potentially stabilize prices and create affordability. This house at 919, Druitt Avenue, with the

upside of the basement apartment, the ADU is a short-term rental, whereas an opportunity to offset in a mortgage with having a long-term leasy is huge. The backyard upside with an additional piece of housing stock is even more significant. That's why I'm confident that this is an $800,000 plus home in a very short period of time in a market like Charlottesville that's throttled from a real estate standpoint. I would love to know how the team got to this point first as a team anyone take this as a lead and then the second part of the question is the courage

that goes into buying a home like this initially to say it needed TLC is an understatement and then to bring it to market the effing risk that you guys are taking here I mean this is risky first the team and how you got to this point

who wants to take that one I'll take that because I think I kind of stumbled upon this but Katie and I we went to high school middle school together and this deal, I think, I don't remember if Katie had sent it to me before, or I stumbled on Zillow, but once we found it, I reached out to Katie, had her, you know, I knew she was in the area, had her come look at it, and I knew Ben, obviously, he's in the industry. Previously, Ben and I had worked together at another firm, so I knew, you know, the quality work that he does. I didn't have what we call boots on the ground in this area yet, so I needed to, you know, partner with somebody like Katie and Ben to, um,

make this deal come together. Obviously being from Charlottesville is I keep my eyes on the Charlottesville market I'm super curious about it and this was the perfect opportunity for us to get into a high disability area being Belmont walking distance to everything and so these two were you know willing to join in on the adventure and you know kind of risk it for for this particular deal and I think it turned out great. Katie, I don't know if I missed anything there with chime in. Yeah, no, I think, so Chris and I, like he said, we grew up together, middle school, graduated high school together, and then my husband Ben was looking for a job applied and got

hired, and I was like, wait a second, you said you met like a Chris Coiner. I went to high school with Chris. So Chris and I hadn't communicated in like 10 years probably, and then they like hit it off and worked together, and that's kind of how the team came about. Comments are coming in quickly. Put this in the background so you can start thicket answers. here. Vanessa Park Hill, who's in Earleysville, has the question that's a very good one. What makes a property non-loanable? Bill Hamrick is watching the game, watching the show. He's in the game.

I love Katie and Ben. Our bank does quite a bit of business with them. Ben is currently starting a kitchen bathroom renovation for me. Great people, Ben Mullins and Katie Mullins. Norah Gaffney is watching the program. I live just a few houses up the hill from this house. This home looks absolutely fantastic. The quality of craftsmanship, A-plus, nice job. That's from Nora Gaffney, who's a neighbor of the home. Colleen Tyler is watching the program. Olivia Branch is

watching the program. Print radio and television are watching the program. Melanie McDaniel Napier is watching the show. This is an absolutely beautiful home. Show the photos again on screen. Why don't we get a contract today before the show is over? Folks, I'm telling you right now, this is just the upside

of this listing is significant as someone who is in real estate. say it again. I think it might even slightly be underpriced, but she's fantastic. She's a pros, pro. She knows cops. She knows what the home across the street sold for. I have no doubt that this is an eight handle in a short period of time. Ben, why don't we start with you on this one? Anyone else jump in? Four people at the bar shooting the stuff about real estate here. Non-loadable. You want to start with that one? Yeah, I mean, I just want to go back to the previous conversation. When Chris approached us about this project, Katie and I had previous

walked it. With a client. My first thought was you're nuts. Like there's no like it was the nastiest house I've ever been in. I mean just the smell of it was atrocious. Put it in perspective. What did you see when you walked it initially? Oh, I mean it was just

dilapidated just scents, just everything had been destroyed. You could tell like pets had been in the basement. Like the like pet urine smell. I mean it wasn't somewhere like that I would clients that went in and immediately walked out. We wouldn't let our kids go. I'll put it that way. Like that's always

the sign, right? Yep, 100%. That's the sign. Would you let your kids sit on the carpet? Will I let my kids walk in this house? In short, no. So just when Chris brought it up, I mean, he's just crazy enough to find these things and come up with these ideas. Fortunately, like, that's not, you know, my forte necessarily as risky as Chris is, but I mean, his vision worked perfectly. It was his design. You know, and I just implemented the muscle in the field and just kind of did what I do best and just built it out. So it was just interesting because I had the opportunity to see it before he didn't brought it up. And I was, I was impressed with how it turned out. It's awesome. My wife said it and she's got, I mean, I rarely meet my wife's standards and a lot of things here. She holds me accountable all the time. And she said, this is adorable. Those were her exact words, adorable. This is absolutely adorable.

Non-loadable. Who wants to take that? All four of us are in this game. Without getting too technical, let's do this in a way that all of us can understand. What is non-loadable? So non-loatable in the real estate market, sub-floor. If the sub-floor is showing, bank won't loan. It was gutted.

The kitchen was totally gutted. So, like, FHA and USDA loans especially are super strict. So if there's sub-floor is showing, again, like no utilities. was like the air condition, like HVAC working in the house. I don't think it was either. That affects loanability as well. So yeah, subflooring is like the biggest. Like if you see subfloor, it's a no-go with a line.

And peeling paint, I know it's really strict to you. Dangerous situation. I don't remember if this one had, you know, where there was a hole in the floor or whatnot, where you couldn't walk, but definitely, you know, stuff like that. I don't remember if utilities were on or working. To be honest, I just remember the red and white checkered, flooring in the kitchen. It looked like a pizza hut.

It did. It reminded me of a dominance or something. But don't you have pictures of that? I do. Yeah, some of the before pictures. You should send them over and flash them on the Yeah. If you have them on your phone, contact at vmvbrands.com. In fact, you have them from my email chain that we're on. I do. Juda, we're literally putting you on the fly here. This is what this man does best. If you can get them, if not totally understand, Judah. I would love to show the before on this property. So that is an opportunity. right? Something that's non-loadable

for folks that have I mean, let's face it, you guys have an agent that did $13 million in sales last year. That's legit. You guys are pros pros when it comes to building and remodeling. So you have market advantages that the average Joe and the

average Jennifer do not have. Is that what you guys saw? You see an opportunity to buy something at a fairly good price. It was still, I looked at the GIS. I think it was flirting with 400 grand, right? What was the number? When I looked at the, it was 390 something. 370. 370.

370. So, ladies and gentlemen, this puts in perspective how costly the Charlottesville market is, that they bought a home in Belmont that Ben just said he would not allow his children to walk into. And it cost $370,000. Absolutely. That is wild. City of Charlottes. That's a problem.

And we will get to that. We'll get to that. We'll get to that. Why that's a problem. First, talk to us about the opportunity you saw, Chris. A lot of it has to come back to like little Charlottesville that I know, being that, like you said, adorable little house. In this market, I've noticed just keeping an eye on there's really high-end custom builders that do a really good job. There's your track builders that do a good job at what they're doing.

And then there's this, it feels like this hole in the market for what I would say is not entry level, not high-end, mid-level pricing, and high-quality. finishes, not builder grade, you're getting tile in the bathrooms, you're getting upgraded layouts, cabinets are upgraded, we've got a design team that put together, you know, on-trend designs right now. And so we're trying to hit that niche, and I feel like Charlottesville doesn't have that. Maybe it's, you know, for whatever reason, but we're trying to kind of penetrate that section of the market. And this house was, you know, I work in downtown Richmond a lot too, and being walkable to certain for me coffee shops I love coffee is great and it's kind of like you know you know that that the market is there for the walkability you know I know there's other restaurants down

there and that I don't know what that little area is called but where the triangle is help me out there you're talking about Belmont yeah yeah so downtown Belmont where the triangle is I mean it's right around the corner it's blown up since I grew up there and it's just awesome to be a part of that community seeing how how far it's gone. So it was kind of an opportunity for us to jump into somewhere that I knew and loved growing up and kind of create a better spot, you know, given the house's condition and see how we can do in the market. Viewers and listeners, if you have comments, put them in the feed. I'll relay. I'm live on air. Rick Gilbert's watching the program. And he says,

I was able to view this home last week. The work inside and outside is absolutely amazing. We're talking high-end work throughout. And this house. shows much bigger than expected from the curbside. That's from Rick Gilbert, who's watching the program. Barbara Becker-Tilly is watching the show and giving the viewers and listeners some love right now. Comments continue to come in. This is what we try to do here

as the water cooler of content and conversation for the area. We're talking real estate here. Belmont is as Tony a neighborhood as there is in Charlott's a piece of inventory that was falling down and turned it into something that's a $699,000 listed piece of property right now on the MLS. Ben, I'll walk you into this. Give us the flip book of how you do it. I mean, it was sketchy and creepy, and you wouldn't let your kids in, and now it's $700,000.

Yeah, I mean, basically it all starts with an idea, you know, a crazy idea. And then we worked with a design team to come up with the selections, and I think Chris pretty much came up with. how we're going to shift some of the walls for the layout and just make it all flow, expand the first floor owner suite. And basically at that point it's just putting pencil to paper and having a really good core group of local trade partners that we work with who can kind of see our vision and help us achieve it. So talk to us about Chris the the market today. You do business in Richmond. You do business in Charlestville and Almaral. You have a good feel for the real estate market across many jurisdictions here.

Open added question first. How do you characterize the real estate market here as we wind down Q1 of 2026? Being, I've got one listing that just went pending, and we've got Druitt Avenue that just went live the same last week. The market's strong. It's gaining momentum, it feels like. Richmond, I've had, you know, more projects in that area. in the last three months, the pressure's on again. It's back to being a seller's market,

and I think Charlottesville's headed that direction. So if you're in the market, now's the time to jump. Rates are down today. Katie just showed me, was it 5.8? Yeah, 5.8 right now. You know, as far as comparing the two, I think Richmond jumped to the spring market a little bit sooner than Charlottesville does,

at least from the feedback I've gotten from these two listings. Overall, I expect that we're getting ready to hit stride here in March. Hopefully, we can see some more action over there. But overall, I think the market compared to Q4 last year is really gaining some momentum now. We got Jesse Rutherford watching the program. Nelson County Board of Supervisor. He's also a design build guy. He's a builder, Jesse Rutherford.

Love when Jesse watches the program. If you have a comment, put it in the feed. I'll relay it live on. air Jesse from one builder to another real estate group here. John Blair's watching on LinkedIn and this show is literally airing live on every social and podcasting platform possible and in the case of Facebook it's airing on 15 Facebook pages at once right now. John Blair says it's great to see these folks living the entrepreneurial dream. I'm very curious what was the most difficult part of

the renovation from a construction standpoint? I'll take this one. Go ahead. Well so the initial design of the roof we had no space to put, I mean, just upstairs in general, we had to figure out a way to get a bathroom. So we ended up taking the back of the roof off and building a dormer off the back. It was approximately like, I don't know, 22 feet or something long. And that just, I mean, of course, as everyone that's a builder listening knows, every time you do that is at the worst time possible, you know. So what, snow, weather, rain, rain, yeah, everything. and we're all just, you know, the guys in the field trying to make it happen don't want to let us down so they don't want to stop or they don't want to push us off.

And, you know, we just pushed through it. But yeah, probably taking the roof off, doing the dorm room around the back. And then just a lot of the mechanicals weren't meshing, like getting some of the vent, the vent for the furnace out and a couple other things. So just things like that that are a little easier to navigate in new construction. and having an inch and a half of concrete on all the walls didn't help either. People are wondering the question. We talk about it all the time on the show.

This one's come in from Jennifer, who's watching the program. You talk routinely on the show, Jerry, about the red tape and the friction, the super friction process of real estate in Charlottesville. Ask the panel about this, please. Who wants to take this one? And why don't I take what is a broad question and make it a little bit more specific? this could be a good one for you. Charlottesville City doing business in real estate as an investor,

bringing homes to market after extensive remodeling. I mean, you guys have hundreds of thousands of dollars on the line here. Legitimately hundreds of thousands of dollars, this panel has on the line of skin in the game. Would you do it in Charlottesville City again? Let's see how it goes this next couple of weeks, but it's been bumpy to get through the process.

You know, we pull permits. We're trying to do everything we can to follow the rules here, but it did take was it roughly 60 days to get through permitting on a dormer and a engineered designed to open up the kitchen to the living room. So you're talking

something that should have been reviewed in, you know, normally a few weeks where I typically work. Even to days in like Chesterfield County or Henrico, they're quick to get to that. It took 60 days, which, you know, log jammed everybody's money and time and, you know, made it very difficult to get going, which put Ben into, you know, a position where the roof, he's dealing with rain. We could avoid it all of that. So to say, would I do it again right now? Yes, it is hard to navigate, and it makes the ability to pencil a deal and create equity into a project like this more difficult when you have to hold that. house that long. How is another question with my question then I'll get to comments.

I put the comments in the feet on try to keep up with them because they're coming in extremely quickly now. How much of a delay was involved with bringing the home to market first the initial estimation and the first inning of planning we're going to list at this time in reality the list happened you guys went live. Do end of February was it was a week ago tomorrow so so six days yeah I've been on market six days. Okay. When should it have, what did you initially anticipate going live with the listing?

I think as far as that goes, the storm we had held us up. I think without the storm, we probably would have hit our date about a week earlier, but it wasn't delayed by much. Well, Jerry's asking is more of like when we purchased the house. So I think we were at end of the year. Yeah. That's what we were looking at. And honestly, like maybe it's good for us. And, you know, I don't think I want to play that card too much, but it was good to.

land in the spring now versus the end of Q4. But you also had what? Is it 60 to 90 days of additional carrying costs and the mortgages associated with that or the financing associated with that? And I'm not even sure the 60 days like going through the permitting process, even if you did it 50 times, it's something you can navigate and speed up. I think it's just log jam from the city. Yeah, there's a lot of permits and there's, you know,

obviously we've got one plan reviewer reviewing commercial, residential in a city. What can one guy do? Right, right. And it's not, and we're not The one guy involved, it's not him. No. It's the jurisdiction as a whole, the fact that they're not more reviewing permitting here. Spencer Barrett's given you props. Dylan Caldwell's giving you props. Got a ton of builders watching the program here.

Builders, put your comments in the feed. We'll relay them live on air. I'll throw Katie this question. $13 million for you last year. 12.8. That's awesome. That is like ball of it right there. 2026 how do you see the market shaping out in 2026?

Interest rates dropped spring market's already here like Chris was saying Richmond is already seeing multiple offer situations I kind of work the Louisa Guchlin to Waynesboro market so I get you know some of the CVR MLS as well as car and Charlottesville so I get to see a little bit of everything and I would say that of course Richmond hits spring market faster it's a multiple offer situation people are waiving inspections already, waiving appraisal waivers. We're seeing a lot of that in Richmond now.

Charlottesville is catching up, so we are, I've pulled some statistics, like median days on market last week in Carr MLS was about 46 days. And I think Richmond's around like 35. So we'll slowly, I think, meet that market soon. To piggyback on what Katie was saying about Richmond, we jumped, I had a couple deals in the last, 30 days and we're talking tens of thousands of dollars over list price back to that

seller's market which we were not expecting but happened quickly once spring well it's not even really spring but once the spring market hit and Richmond that seemed to hit immediately after the holidays were over it was almost like January hit and everybody was searching for housing I don't think it's quite that far here but now's the opportunity to grab something I see just everyone saw those rates hit below six. It was the first time since 2022. I think I read that last week. And I think that's really like got people shopping back in the market again. I think we live in this wild time where a lot of homeowners are rate locked because they secured

rates in COVID of the two or three handle variety. And they feel almost locked in this home, even though they may not love the home anymore or it may not fit their needs anymore, whether it's more kids, whether it's divorce, whether it's not close enough to the job anymore. But as those rates drop and become more affordable, folks I think are going to probably try to capitalize on the significant equity they have. Maybe they're trading up to a higher mortgage payment. Probably they are two and three percent interest rates versus five and a half to six percent interest rates. But you're trading up in an environment where your savings is going to be big time stuff with extra money. So that's kind of like the scales of justice that homeowners are weighing right now.

I'll throw this to the panel. Chris, why don't you take this one here? If you had to offer, the whole panel take this one. If you had to offer any kind of kind advice or feedback to Charlottesville City after going through all this, what would you say? I think the staff that's there is doing what they can with the hand they've been done. dealt but I will say it's been much tougher to navigate the system than even Richmond City. I think what I heard yesterday on a meeting with the Richmond City staff is quicker to yes. So if we can get quicker to yes for the developers that will help this log jam of housing

activity or lack thereof in the Charlottesville market. But it was a pretty cool thought process from the, this was from the overall like utilities department in the city of Richmond. And they were saying their whole goal of 2026 based upon the leader of that division was quicker to yes. How do we get quicker to yes for the developers so that within reason they're able to do this development,

increase property values, help the market, help these houses that are, you know, we're taking this house where nobody's gonna live in it, until it gets fixed. How do we allow them to do that? Maybe it's multi-generational, maybe it's ADUs, and Charlottesville's getting there. But I think quicker to yes is a big point

that I took away from the meeting yesterday that Richmond City is trying to integrate. Last red tape, I think, is quicker to yes. Same question for Ben. I mean, you're in the game here. If you offered friendly advice, what would it be? Yeah, I think I just want to start off by saying the inspection the actual inspectors for the city were phenomenal they had a I can appreciate

that our common sense approach to the process which helped a lot and that was a breath of fresh air so I wasn't expecting that after going through planning and the delays we had but yeah I mean just I guess I don't know if it's like a staffing issue but yeah I mean I think getting things through to market and letting us get to work faster is going to help everybody because you know at the end of the day, there still is a lack of homes. So any kind of anything we can do to get more builders involved and get more product out there is going to help everybody bring the prices down. Logan Wells Claylow watching the show. She's a real estate agent.

Jeff Gaffney, the broker from Real Estate 3 is watching the program. You cringed initially when we said $370,000. for a home that you want want your kids to walk into in Charlottesville. And you said that's a problem. Absolutely. Put that in perspective. What you mean? Yeah, I mean, think about it.

I mean, if you wanted to live in this area, I mean, you couldn't, even if you had, like, the house wasn't loanable. So even to approach the 400s for a home that's not loanable, I mean, that's an issue. And that goes down to lack of inventory, ultimately, which can be remedied by the process. We were just talking about improving.

So just that point of entry, and it's land too and everything's so competitive. I mean, I tried to buy a project recently and I went over-asking to have, I didn't get the property and someone else did. In Charlottesville? In Flavanna. Right over the line, closer to Scottsville side.

And, you know, so I was curious. I said, Katie, you know, I'd like to know, can you find out what this thing went for, just out of curiosity. And it was really close to my number, but I was appalled to see the person who bought it, instantly put it back on the market for double. More than double.

More than double. So here you have, I know multiple builders that tried to buy it and went over asking and didn't get it. But here you have someone who went in with a beat us by, the skin of their teeth to just double it. And I understand everyone's out here to make money and stuff.

But what that does do is it's going to keep a house from being on the market longer. Like now there's no margins. I don't want it. And I want to add on a piggyback off. that the buyer of the property is an out-of-state investor, and they literally bought this property. All cash? All cash.

And then immediately relisted it for probably a 110% increase. With no revitalization at all. They did nothing. They still have it stolen? Does it go on under contract? No, it's on the market right now. Why would someone like me in my position buy that now? Yeah.

Because there wasn't, there wasn't. I mean, I think there's a misconception in our community about builders. Like, there wasn't that much money to be made on that project in the first place. Well, put in perspective, the margins you guys were operating on. Yeah, I mean, if, like, I mean, what would you say? I mean, if you did 15%, that's great. You're doing great. You're making 15%.

A lot of the ones we're working with are like, if we're hitting 10%, we're happy. Yeah. Yeah. And you've got to think, I mean, three people for since, what do you say, May or whatever, on Druid, or? I don't remember what we. Yeah, I mean, like, you know, the amount of time and energy for those margins, and, you know, everyone's like, oh, that price is too high or this and that or whatever. Like, you don't understand, like, there's, like, we have to do a lot of these things to make a living. So, in all we're-

Yeah, and all we're trying to do is put more houses out there for you guys to buy. So, and have homes and make memories in and, you know, we're a community first-minded. Yeah, absolutely. That's the goal. like and that's again like Chris said like you know some of these track home builders I mean they're they're doing a justice by putting up these new homes that are affordable for people you know what's track home building or you know like um you're talking pre-fad building no just production building like you're bigger builders I worked for a production builder in my early 20s for a long time

and we turned out a product people could afford and it was good and I felt good about it you know I've also built, you know, $3 million custom homes, and those people wanted that product, and they turned out great. But these little ones in between, like Chris and I are filling the gap on, I mean, it's just so important to get those, get them fixed up, get them back on the market and get people homes. And that goes back to being, you know, quick with, you know, how we're getting through the process. So holding them for 60 days, I mean, that puts tens of thousands of dollars back on the deal that. that we might not necessarily accounted for, which we have to account for for the next deal. So maybe we bypass a house that we normally wouldn't bypass because it doesn't make financial sense anymore. So kind of rapid-bens thoughts up there is being able to be efficient through the process is a huge part of fixing and flipping a house for sale.

I'll throw out to Katie. How's 919-Drewd Avenue foot traffic? We had 14 people in the open house Saturday, and we've had, it's 17 total showings in six days. That's awesome. Yes, I mean, that's solid. An open house, I mean, I've sat open houses before and had no one walk through. So, to have 14 people, and the feedback was all great. We were kind of hoping for some negative feedback so that we're like, hey, let's get in here and let's fix it quick. But everybody was like, oh, I feel like the house is priced right.

It's beautiful. Lots of neighbors came by. I will say that neighborhood, especially. The neighbors have been wonderful. Anytime we've been there, and I know Ben's been working, neighbors are coming outside, talking. Everybody's just super friendly. And a lot of them came by the open house to check in and wanted to check out the house. I love that street.

Everyone's so cool. Everyone's so cool. Yeah. I'll sit there and just talk to the guy at three hours and down for an hour from porch to porch. Yeah, yeah. It's absolutely. You can tell it's family-friendly neighborhood vibe. Is it Belmont Park right down the street?

What is that park? You go up Druid towards Avon. That's Belmont. part. Literally, it's like a hop skip and a jump to the park. Yeah. Yeah, it's my, that's the thing that struck my wife because we have two sons. Like the parks right here.

The park's right here. We're 45 minutes in. I think you guys are on to something. What can we, here's a great question. We'll close with this. What can we expect from this team moving forward? TBD, keep looking. We'll have some more properties coming on the market.

it and I mean, you know, we're just going to continue to create long-term value for Charlottesville. Jared, can I flip the script on you real quick? Please. Entry-level housing prices, affordable housing in Charlestville, what number is on your mind for that? Affordable housing for, are you saying for like frontline workers for folks in the trade? Just entry-level housing in Charlestville, what's the number? Is that the first-time home? Okay.

Is that what the actual number is now? Yeah. What do you think? What comes to mine? Well, I do all work backwards for that answer. The median family household income in the Charlottesville area, according to HUD, is 125,900. And that number is going to be updated again here in a couple of weeks, and it's going to be higher. The first property that I purchased, which was in about 20 years ago, called 2006.

I got a condo at the Villas at Southern Ridge. That's the only thing I could afford at the time. and I purchased it for $182,000 and I could barely afford it and if I was mid-20s and if I did not invite two buddies to rent two of the rooms for me at below market rent, I probably would have lost the content.

So 182,000 that. I would say, I was first time homebuyer. I'd say now it's 2xed. Anywhere 360, 400 easily and finding something at that price range in Charlottesville, Amar County, good luck. Yeah. That's livable.

I mid-force that's something that's livable right yeah yeah no you're right so I pulled the statistics on car this morning the median sales price in car so that's you know all our surrounding counties

that's not city of Charlottesville Alamoire County it's $401,000 was the median sales price for last week and again that's not Charlottesville City that's not Alamore County that's really car footprint car footprint

And that number, if it was specific to Charlottesville and Almaro County, would be higher. Because the car footprint is being influenced by some of the outer counties where the price points are a bit more affordable. Oh, yeah. I mean, I pulled Harrisonburg, like there were 19 listings from Harrisonburg on car last week. And you know what's wild to me? And you guys, we should just grab a beer or a bourbon. We got the bar over there. If you guys said, let's start now, I probably would.

The crazy thing is, and this is me talking, you guys don't have to touch us. You can touch this if you want. Charlottesville's raising the real estate tax rate a proposed two cents. This went before counsel, the city manager, on Monday night. And he said, this is wild to me. This is absolutely wild. Let's raise the real estate tax rate, two cents, to help fund affordable housing. And I'm just like, this is an oxymoron here.

This is a hypocrisy. How do you make housing more expensive for lower, class, middle class, upper middle class, upper class people in the name of housing affordability. Like make that make sense to me. And it doesn't make sense. And it's like, we'll, if this continues, we're going to have this dichotomy in Charlottesville now more specifically where it's going to be the super, super wealthy, and then folks on the opposite end of the spectrum with very little people in the middle.

And that doesn't even even consider AstraZeneca, the biotechnology company. building a $4.5 billion world headquarters in Northern Amarro County. If I was you guys just offering some pro bono consultation here, I would be looking at Northern Amarro County and the Green County line. I would be trying to buy anything humanly possible. Stanley Martin, partner of the program, Stanley Martin Holmes will give them some love. They're doing 2,000 plus units just over the Amar Line in green. Is it Guglin getting a new?

Like they're bringing a bunch of... Eli Lilly is coming to Guchlin. You've got Merck is coming to Augustine. County, there's nearly $15 billion with Fortune 100 companies investing in a 60-mile radius of

Charlottesville. And if I would just write the code, what do they say follow the builders and developers? Because the builders and developers are doing stuff on a timeline that's like years out. So if a Stanley Martin who's huge is building 2,000 units

years from now, that means that's going to be a hotspot. It's like the people that ride the coattails of like Harris Teeter or Walmart or Lowe's with opening up their restaurants? Like the Zions Crossroads did that? Yeah. With Rets in Mexico, was it Mexicala? No, it was the, what's the one at Zion's Crossroads?

You guys just had margaritas there, right? You know. Ben knows. He loves tacos. The Arnalis family owns it right there by Lowe's in Walmart. Yes. Yeah. They are stacking paper.

Oh, it's delicious. You know what I'm talking about? Yeah. Yeah, I should know this. Your Nalus family owns this? You know this. El Mary Hachian. There we go.

They get you to Wittaker. Saving the day of it. Well, I've eaten lunch there 5,000 times. Yeah. Genius to open by Lowe's at Walmart. Oh, yeah. And across from Zion,

what's the gated community? Spring Creek. Spring Creek. Yeah. So, you know, I love this. I love you flipping the script. I could tell, this is my favorite topic to talk about,

is this stuff. I would, how many of those, and I'm not going to keep going on this, but how many of those are non-loat-dollar properties in that $400,000. That'd be really cool statistic to know.

Yeah, I would love to dive in deeper and luck. I know that, like, last week, 85 homes went under contract and 54 homes closed in car. You guys could make, and you guys are obviously doing this, you guys could make a really, really good business buying non-loatable properties. And then I think you, if you buy non-loatable properties and bring them to market for sale, the marketplace will look at your team and your brands and your businesses in the most positive life.

That's the goal. I mean, that's our goal. I would love to be, you know, provide a solution for sellers that are, stuck thinking they can't do anything with their homes. I would love to be that solution. And you're local. And we're local. We're true Charlottesville locals.

Yeah. It's not like one of these nondescript LLCs out of market that's just going to go, like you said, the Fluvana example, just try to flip it again. Like we see that happening everywhere. All right. Kristen Barber, Tom Powell, the founder's Toy Lift watching the show. Why don't we close with this? Final thoughts.

Katie, want you go first? Ladies first here. Anything that needs to be, and then Ben and Chris. I've enjoyed this. Thank you for having us. Anything that we haven't covered that should be out there. Yeah, I would love to say your last question that you threw at Chris, what do you expect our team to do in the future?

I mean, follow along on social media. I am on social media. I'm posting what we're doing day to day. Whether it be projects throughout the renovation project, I love showing everyone the process along the way, so be sure to follow along, and I'm sure we'll have something coming to market soon. Sincerely, I mean this is the third time I've said this,

the show, your social media game is on point. It is like someone who does this for a living. It is crushing it. Uh, Ben Mollins, my friend, the show is your sir. Yeah, I guess shameless plug. Contact us. If you have anything you want to get rid of, we can help you. Um, Katie's phenomenal. And, you know, even if it's just a question, like open door, just ask us and, you know, come check out 9-19, Drew at Annette. I'm pushing Katie to get a coffee truck over there this weekend for everybody. Enjoy some coffee and see the house. On a lighter note, I have to give a shout out to, because we're local, the 07 Monticello High School State Champ football team. I love it. I love it.

That's where we know Jerry from. Was it 07? I thought it was 08. Well, we rose. We've graduated. That was a year. We've graduated 2009, but okay. Let me see if I can remember some of the people on that team. Oh, I'm sure we can. Is that in downtown Mike Brown? He graduated. Was that Mike Ram? Okay. Tequina. Uh, Hedgeman. Hedgeman, the running back. Mike Graham's quarterback. This guy was a key contributor to that football team. Was that Broad McNeill? Broad.

Broad McNeill was class. Yep. Like, just like the classiest guy was. Rodney Red. He was there. He was in a high school. He was class right there. That Monticello athletic department across the board,

Mark Mace was the baseball coach at one time. Then it went to the gentleman that was a school resource officer and a police officer. Peter Malley. Pito Malley's the man. He's a man. He's a man. This is a basketball. blast from the past year. This is 19 years ago.

Yeah, I don't say that. You're testing me. You're really testing me here. It was a good time. Mr. Hahn. Mr. Hahn. He's the man. Billy Hahn is the man. I think he works for the Virginia High School League now. He's the head of it. Yeah, the Virginia High School League. Fitzgerald Barnes, athletic director at the time, now at Louisiana County Board of

Supervisor. That football team is someone who first job in Charlestville and Al-Morrow coming out of UVA was working sports for Jerry Radcliffe at NBC 29 at ESPN radio. That football team legitimately was like Friday night lights out of West Texas.

You captivated the community. Yeah. Like people would follow you guys in like a traveling automobile like vehicle line. The cowbells at the game. Yeah. Like people would like tailgate at the, like we, so as like the cheerleading squad, we had our own like

cheerleading tailgate and all the parents would come and stuff before the games. Like it was it felt like a big deal. It was definitely like Friday night lights. Yeah. You know, I miss it for sure. Reminishing back on it now. Now we've got out grace. Tell me about it.

I think that's because of kids. I'll close with this. And then, Judah, we'll head over to the school topic after this. Because you guys, we'll head that way. That is what makes this area special. Yes. And that's why I'm so, like, proud to showcase what you guys are doing because you guys are born and raised, you're local,

and you're leaving the community in a better place. This should be champion. So props to you, we should do this again. I sincerely mean this. Let's do this again. Anytime. That's fine. Good to see you guys.

I appreciate you. Thank you. You guys have a good one. Judah will go. Studio camera, then a one shot on me when you can. That is Katie Mullins, Ben Mullins, Chris Koiner.

They are conscious capitalist, social entrepreneurs, leaving this community in a better place than they first arrived. I encourage you to check out 919 Druid Avenue. I work in real estate. I'm telling you right now, 919 Druid Avenue will have an eight handle on it

in the very near future. Take care, guys. Be easy. Have a good one. Judah, we're really putting you in a tough spot here as we get a two-shot set up for you in a matter of moments. I want to talk about on the program. We'll get you on, when you're ready, when you're ready. Judah Wiccar is behind the camera.

He is moving mountains as the director and producer of the show. We're going to now transition from this, if you want to put me out a one shot with PTIs on screen. Thank you, Judah. To what's going on with Almar County Public Schools. And we were the first to break this news, if you remember. We broke this news this past week on Friday. On Friday, I passed along to you the news that Western Amaral High School is looking to have Erica Kirk, specifically, the Turning Point USA chapter at Western Amaral High School. This is a student organization to have Erica Kirk as a special.

speaker before the T.P. USA chapter at Western Amar. Friday we talked about it, news went wild. Today, we got even more confirmation on it. Now we know the Almore County School Board is doing its best to keep Erica Kirk from speaking before the Turning Point USA chapter. This is not a school sanction event. This is not Erica Kirk speaking in front of the entire school. school body. This is Eric Kirk, Charlie Kirk's wife, the late Charlie Kirk's wife, speaking specifically in front of the chapter of Turning Point USA at the high school. I'm going to ask you a couple of questions, and we're going to cover this at length on tomorrow's episode of the I Love C, Volsha. At length. Here are the questions that I want to ask. If Almaral County Public Schools encourages, supports, puts processes in place for its students to participate in a ICE truancy student protest. And we saw this at Monticello High School.

We saw this at Henley Middle School. and we saw this at Almoral High School where students left school during school hours walked down Rio Road to Stonefield protesting immigration and customs enforcement, Border Patrol enforcement. And each of those protests, Monticello, Alamara, and Henley,

there were processes in place and in two of those protests, students left school grounds truancy to protest during the school day. This also happened at Charlottesville High School, but I'm going to speak to Almaro specifically. If the administration and the principals and the teachers are supporting that kind of form of freedom of freedom of, you know, First Amendment expression, shouldn't that same latitude or leeway for freedom of speech and First Amendment expression be offered to Turning Point USA

chapter members at Western Amarro High School? Explain to me the difference. And this is not about the material that's being discussed. It's not about Erica Kirk. It's not about Christianity. It's not about Charlie Kirk. It's not about the motives and missions of Turning Point USA. This is not about Border Patrol.

This is not about immigration and customs enforcement or the murders of protesters in Minnesota. It is simply about doing what's right from an equal standpoint. You let hundreds of kids leave school to protest immigration and customs enforcement under the umbrella that this is free speech. And students are allowed to express their First Amendment right of free speech. And on the other side of your mouth, these same very people, teachers, administrators,

principals, superintendents, school board members are saying, no, we can't allow that kind of free speech at Western Amaral High School with Erica Kirk speaking to a small group of kids. You know what that's called, right? That's called hypocrisy. That's called Judah's word, which is fantastic. Selective outrage. The playing field has to be even. You know why the Montchello high school football team, Chris Coiner just talked about that, that state championship run in 2007 was so special. Because Brod McNeill and Mike Graham and Dekeem Hedman and this Mustang football team, they won football games on an even playing field with the same set of rules amongst football teams and high school teams across various districts in the Commonwealth.

The rules didn't change. There were four quarters. If you got into the end zone, it was worth six points. If you kick the ball through the uprights after a touchdown, it was worth one point. If you kick the ball through the uprights any other time, it was worth three points. When the final horn sounded, the game was over and whoever had the most points won. Even playing for a set of rules. Are we in a society in 2026 where students on one playing field can skip school, by the hundreds,

walk to a privately owned shopping center, Stonefield, and protest, and everyone's okay with it. Yet students by the dozen, maybe two dozen, somewhere between 10 and 24, the members of Western Admiral T.P. USA cannot have a speaker, offer a short presentation. And then to Allison Spillman, I had some commentary about, Alamaro County school board member, Allison Spillman.

She's the at-large member. Allison Spillman is the school board member who compared the Western Al-Morrow high school students in September of last year of 2025 to the Ku Klux Klan. She literally compared minors in her school system, a system where she's an elected official that is in charge with allocating hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer. taxpayer resources to schools. She's a school board member. She called these kids,

the clan, the Ku Klux Klan. One of the nastiest things you can call people. And today, Alison Spillman is in a squabble on social media with the Turning Point USA Chapter President. He's a kid, he's a minor. And Western Amoral High School, ladies and gentlemen, is now in the eye of the storm, thanks to Allison Spillman,

again, in the school board again. Judah, we'll weave you in on a two-shot. Spillman late last year, on the record, apologized after facing the wrath of hundreds of people in Amar County and even more people outside of Central Virginia that leached on and latched on to this story. Her apology was one of emotion. and crying and tearful in front of a lot of people. I don't think it was much of an apology.

The folks at the time said Allison Spillman, the school board member, is being disingenuous with this apology, that these are alligator tears and wait. Something will follow her very soon. Here we are October, November, December, January, February, five months later, and Spillman is at it again.

On Thursday, the Almore County School Board meeting, and what's wild is this is not happening, this is happening in a work session on Thursday, that is not open to the public. Amar County School Board in a work session, not during a normal meeting, is contemplating rules and regulations that will policy,

that would significantly limit speakers from being invited by student clubs, it would also seek to control money and fundraising done by student clubs. They are flexing their muscle, the school board, in a private, closed session, not before an open and public session, but in a closed-door session to put policy and new rules in place. They're changing the rules of the game. to limit what student clubs can do

with inviting speakers to speak before said clubs and limiting, restricting, fundraising done by student clubs and how that money is allocated. This motivated by Erica Kirk and Turning Point USA. This should enrage all of us regardless of political affiliation. This should enrage Democrats, libertarians, Republicans, liberals, conservatives, Christians, Jews, atheists, agnostic, blacks, whites,

Puerto Ricans, Haitians, Chinese, Japanese, elected officials, backroom wheeling and dealing, new rules because they think they know better than us, the taxpayers who are funding the budget. that they are allocated. I don't know that it's even that they think that they know better than the taxpayers. I think it's just that they want to shut down anything to do with these kids. I mean, it's, you talked about hypocrisy, but this is hypocrisy all the way down to the bone. I mean, this is like someone has ingested hypocrisy their entire life,

and that's all they know. I mean, this is, they're, what are they doing? I'm curious if Allison Spillman has spoken to a single student in the TPUSA group at Western Albemarle High School. Because I can't help but think that she sees these young people as monsters. And some people out there might agree with that assessment. But do you have any, is there any evidence that you would base that viewpoint on? Or is it just a general, oh, they are turning point USA, so they are automatically evil?

I mean, that is straight out of the, I believe it was the, I'm not even going to get into the basis of it. othering. Othering is essentially taking a group of people and deciding that they're less than human, that they're less than your group, and you essentially

dehumanize them and dehumanize them and dehumanize them until until, I think until you feel you feel like it's your right or your duty

to stop them, to hurt them. I mean, I honestly don't know where this leads. Alison Spillman is singling out one group of students in a school and is trying to stop them from inviting someone in to talk, regardless of how you feel about Erica Kirk, Imagine, if you will, that the Turning Point USA students at Western Albemarle High School decided to meet Erica Kirk off school grounds, and they decided to leave the school to go to this meeting. would that be received with the same cheering and approval as 100 or more students walking out of class and leaving the school to go do something else that they feel strongly about? The Turning Point USA students should do their own version of an ICE truancy student protest, but this version of the ICE student truancy protest, but this version of the ICE student truancy protest,

should be a truancy student protest tied to freedom of speech in the First Amendment. Get up during the school day, leave your class, walk out of school, leave school grounds, and go to this presentation done by Erica Kirk off-site, and then comparing contrast how Almaro County public schools treat your truancy protest to the truancy protests that were done at Monicello,

Henley, and Western. Because if the truancy protests that were done at Monicello, Henley, and Western are not treated the same way as the truancy protest done by the TPP USA students at Western Amorah, then the TPSA students

at Western Amar High School have a lawsuit. on their hands. That's a lawsuit. One they would win. Everything should be documented. Almaro County Public Schools has painted themselves into a corner that is a lose-lose situation. And they've done so because they've allowed a bombastic, disingenuous, keyboard muscle-flexing warrior and Allison Spillman to become the face of the school board, the Derek Jeter of the New York Yankees.

And it's her platforming as a school board member that's positioned Amarillo County Public Schools in yet again another difficult situation. Furthermore, I believe her leadership is now entering the realm of dangerous for the students at this high school. As she continues to attract negative and negative and negative attention for these students at Western,

she is in a situation where teenagers, minors, are potentially in a dangerous, dangerous position. I'll close with this, and I will discuss this in great detail on tomorrow's 1230 episode of the I Love Seville Show. I'll close with this. It was five months ago that Allison Spillman had Almorel County because of discriminatory social media posts comparing minors, students at Western Alamoa High School to the Ku Klux Klan. Almoreal High School and Almoreau County is a totality. We're in an ideological inferno in a firestorm of divisiveness.

We are now heading into an ideological firestorm. a divisiveness inferno that will make what happened in October of last year look tame. This Erica Kirk scenario that's playing out in early April, I think she's scheduled for April 2nd to speak, is going to position Almaro County Public Schools on the national radar. Again. Again. Then Erica Kirk was honored by Donald Trump in the State of the Union two Tuesdays ago, eight days ago, on national television, global television, literally was singled out by the president.

The camera was on her and she was talked about for a couple of minutes. If you don't handle this the right way, Elmore County School Board and superintendent Dr. Matthew Haas, you are going to put children in danger. We will talk about this in great detail tomorrow at 1230 on the I Love Seville Show. He's Judah Wickcarre. I'm Jerry Miller.