The I Love CVille Show With Jerry Miller! - Katie West & Bill Tucker Joined Keith Smith & Jerry Miller On "Real Talk With Keith Smith!"

Episode Date: September 13, 2024

Katie West of Charlottesville Settlement Company, LLC and Bill Tucker of Tucker Griffin Barnes joined Keith Smith & Jerry Miller on “Real Talk With Keith Smith” powered by YES Realty Partners and Yonna Smith! “Real Talk” airs every Wednesday and Friday from 10:15 am – 11 am on The I Love CVille Network! “Real Talk With Keith Smith” is presented by Charlottesville Settlement Company, LLC, El Mariachi Mexican Bar & Grill, Fincham & Associates, Inc., Free Enterprise Forum, Intrastate Service Co and YES Realty Partners.

And here we go. Good Friday morning, guys. My name is Jerry Miller, and thank you kindly for joining us on Real Talk with Keith Smith. We are live across all social media channels, wherever you get your podcasting content, and what has become the water cooler of real estate in a market that's 300,000 people strong. We love to spotlight the comings and goings, the trends and the dynamics, the nuances and idiosyncrasies of a business that some would say is the second largest driver of the economy in central Virginia. A white paper authored by the Chamber of Commerce and commissioned by Albemarle County and the city of Charlottesville

said the defense sector had a $1.3 billion impact on the local economy. I'd be very curious to see a similar analysis done for real estate to see if it supersedes that $1.3 billion impact or not. We do know now that tourism in 2023 had a $957 million impact on Charlottesville and Alamo. 957, 7,000 jobs, 47 million in tax revenue. I would bet you real estate's going to surpass those totals. Judah, if you can go to the studio camera and let's welcome a panel of experts, Keith Smith, Bill Tucker, and Katie West. Keith, an all-star panel this morning. So I dubbed this as Lessons from the Legends. That would be you two folks on that. And we're going to kind of kick off a little bit talking about okay we're a

month into decoupling what the hell's going on right maybe it's the right question uh for it but you guys are pros and but quick katie just introduce yourself and then we'll let bill introduce himself and then we'll we'll kind of move on real quick i am katie. I am the general manager of Charlottesville Settlement Company. We've been in business since, what, 2007? And I've been the manager that entire time, and we do real estate settlements, title searches, title insurance. We do anything and everything to do with closings. How many transactions do you do a year, roughly? Oh, Lord. Across all of my companies, probably a thousand. That's important to also talk about. You just don't do Charlottesville, so let's talk about that a little bit. And if you don't mind, if you could just get a little

closer to the mic. Sure, absolutely. Because everybody wants to hear every morsel of word and syllable. Oh, absolutely. Especially, I mean, Roger Voisin, I love Bill, love Katie. Literally giving you some props right now. Well, we have an office in Lynchburg. We have one in Nelliesford at the base of Wintergreen. And then we have one in Withville, and we have a new office in Crozet. Wow. Don't you have one on the other side of the hill? Mm-mm.

No. No. Withville, that's a bit of a, that's like way out there, isn't it? Yeah, it's interesting. Where is Withfield? It is down. It's in Virginia. Barely, barely.

Literally, it's barely in Virginia. Yes, in southwest Virginia down towards the Tennessee line. It's on 81. Okay. It's on 81. What made you set up a space there, just out of curiosity? Well, when we purchased the Lynchburg office, it was buy one, get one, and we got that. Got it, got it, got it.

And it's actually been a great office for us. We've really enjoyed having it. I didn't realize there was buy one, get one opportunities. I thought it was only for, like, shoes and stuff like that. So how many transactions? Let's focus on your Charlottesville operation. How many transactions a year do you do? Well, I mean, this year, of course, it's down.

We're going to talk about that here in a minute. Yeah, yeah. Not as many as we would like. I don't know. We probably do 120 a month, somewhere around there. That's a lot. That's pretty good. And I want to say that for a reason, right?

Because the reason I've got you two guys here is you do a large percentage of the transactions. So you're doing 120 a month. How many do you do, Bill, a month? This year and last year, we average about six new contracts a day. So you're doing 180 a month? No. Business day. Business day. 100, 120 a month.

So roughly 250, we'll call it. Yeah, my Marine Corps brain, 250 a month. That's a good number. That's a hell of a number. That's a good number. That's a hell of a number. And that's not counting what Katie does, but she issues title insurance for things she's not closing. Yeah.

There's a lot of that. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. And that's important to understand that you do that. So, Bill, quick second for the two or three people who don't know who you are. Bill Tucker. I'm a partner with Tucker Griffin Barnes. We're, I think we're 13 lawyers, four offices.

We have one at Lake Monticello, the main one in Charlottesville, one in Harrisonburg, and one in Stanton. And it's not just real estate. The firm's a full service firm. Full service firm. Full service. You don't handle divorces, right?

I'll not tell Yoni you do. Not mine. Yeah, anyway. So guys, we're well into a month into it. I can tell you from the real estate agent perspective, it tends to be all over the map on how people are tackling this decoupling. For those who are listening that may not be aware of this, this is a bit of an industry geek. As of the beginning of August, the Charlottesville Area Association of Realtors are decoupled, which is part of the national settlement with NAR and the plaintiffs, that we cannot

have real estate commissions in the MLS any longer. So what are you guys seeing in contracts? And is there any best practices? Well, how about this question? Has there been any change? Oh, gosh, yes. OK. Well, that's a big question.

So is there a change that buyer agents are still getting paid? Or is there a change that buyer's agents are not getting paid? No, they're still getting paid. So that hasn't changed, right? So that's an important thing to get out there. It's just there's no – my complaint about the whole thing is there's no good form to let everyone know who's paying what part of each commission. So is that a Virginia Association of Realtors form that needs to be created? let everyone know who's paying what part of each commission.

So is that a Virginia Association of Realtors form that needs to be created? Well, we've actually created one, but that's beside the point. Well, we're going to talk about that in a little while because I like that form. What we're seeing with contracts is somewhere on the contract, typically sometimes an addendum, we'll set form 500, addendum form. Well, the, sometimes an addendum. Was that form 500, addendum form? Well, the 500 is an interesting form. That actually is not relevant to this at all. Okay, but anyway, we've been seeing in the contract, sometimes under the financing paragraph, sometimes under other terms,

where the selling agent is putting in what the commission is that the seller is going to pay. Well, it becomes, Katie, it becomes a negotiation. It always was a negotiation. So let's get that out on the table. But now what's happening in offers, right, you're seeing this. And to Bill's point, it's all over the map in the contract right and there's no uniform way of doing this you want to chat about that a little bit

well yeah I mean you have to kind of look around and you still need a commission disbursement because sometimes there's other stuff like HOA or whatever that has to be reimbursed there are other items on top of just the commission that we need to know.

So that creates a whole other problem because then you end up with maybe it's in the contract and you need a commission disbursement or you have the form that Bill and them created and there's notes on the side or there's a commission disbursement. I mean, it's just. So this is making your job way harder. Well, yeah, yeah. The closers have to track it down and make sure that they have everything. So they've got to really read the contracts and make sure.

So from your perspective, we'll talk about the form that you and John Ralston created. Maybe somebody might have pushed you to do it. I have no idea who that person was. And John sat in your seat, and we talked about this form a couple of weeks ago. But, look, we're using the standard 800-600 form. In your opinion, where should it be in the contract?

Probably in paragraph, if it's going to be in the contract, probably 29 other terms. Other terms. Great. Katie? Yep. So one of the troubles for those and just to geek out a little bit, if you start putting it in the concession portion of it and the language in the contract is very convoluted and that's part of Bill's problem and Katie's problem, definitely my problem with this. If you put it in under concession and Katie's problem definitely my problem with this if you put it in on the concession and there's additional concessions you actually could cause a problem because certain loans only allow a certain amount of

concessions is that right Katie so but how would so if you put it in other terms it keeps out of concessions and it it's pretty clear. Yeah, much better. Is this going to be the norm for a while? You're going to be hunting peck on where you've got to go? And how can we fix this? Well, you know, it's really funny because I just gave a seminar at one of the local real estate companies, and it's a class that we do sometimes called Ask a Lawyer. I call it AAA for lawyers, or for realtors maybe. No, I think the lawyers part is right.

Anyway, and that's probably what we talked about for three-quarters of the class, the seminar. Katie and I gave this class. And this was about where does it go in the classroom? Where does it go? What are people seeing? I mean, are we seeing this still 6%? Are we seeing some reductions? Are we seeing reductions? Yes.

According to the class we did, they are. What are we talking about? What kind of clips? Maybe 2.5%, so 5%. There's still a lot of 6% contracts coming our way. So that's an important thing. So you're seeing ratios you haven't broken down. One of the struggles I have as a data geek, now that it's the buyer's agent's percentage. You don't know. Now you don't know. I can tell you prior to them pulling out, because I ran a spreadsheet on it, it was

5. The it was 5. The average was 5.78% out of all of it. So we've been kind of going below that three number for a while. So this is kind of nothing new. Nothing new here. But you're 100% right. We're seeing more stuff in the 2.5 range. That seems to be where things are settling out.

Not that we're supposed to steer or whatever. Just the fact of the matter is it seems to be settling at somewhere around there. We had a panel. We had Jay Dominick and John Ralston here. And one of the problems I have with the listing agreement is if you do not put in other terms, what happens to the balance? You've helped us out before where if we negotiate 2% but the contract is 6%, excuse me, the listing agreement is 6%, then the listing agent or the listing brokerage gets 4% in that unless it's specified in the contract.

So the people out there that are watching and listening to this, you've got to make sure you're reading your listing agreements pretty thoroughly and have a conversation. What I've done before, and thank you for the help of Bill, what I did is I took my 1% of whatever I was not doing and I gave it to my buyer to pay for closing costs. Are you seeing that at all? I have not seen that, but that certainly makes sense to see it.

I would think if your buyers agreed to pay you 3% and now you've negotiated 2% in the contract, you're still entitled to the 1% from the buyer unless you and the buyer. What does that mean? Well, if you're a buyer, you're representing the buyer, and he's agreed to pay you 3%, and as part of the contract the seller's agreed to only pay 2%, you're still entitled to an extra 1% from the buyer. But that becomes something that you can negotiate with the buyer as part of the contract. Look, I understand why this all happened, and I get it. But they sure as heck made it more confusing, and I get it, but they sure as heck made it more confusing, and I'll just say this out there, you know, if you take a look at the VR

forms, they're just not helping us out at all. Well, you want to talk about confusing? This came up at the meeting. We were told there's one real estate company in town who, as I understand it, the procedure is now if you're going to go show a house, Keith, you're going to call Katie if she's listed the house, and you're going to ask her what's the commission that you're willing to pay. The seller's willing to pay. That the seller's willing to pay. Katie's got the listing.

There is one real estate company in town that I'm told is not willing to tell you that answer. Not willing to tell whom? Not willing to tell Keith that answer. Not willing to tell whom? Not willing to tell who? Tell the buyer's agent. What? Why? That's crazy to me. That is crazy.

It makes the negotiation difficult. If I'm a seller, I mean, you're putting me in a position that they may not show my house because of that. Not only that, I may get a lower offer because they don't know whether I'm going to pay. And so the buyer's looking at it. And there's less eyeballs on the house. Yeah. And the buyer's looking at it as,

I'm going to have to come out of pocket with this money so I can't put that towards the purchase price. So, I mean, to me, it's hurting the seller for you not to disclose that. What's the rationale of not disclosing that? Well, we're trying to figure that out. We can't figure out where it's a plus to anybody. I'm guessing they're trying to figure out, they're going to take a series of contracts that get ratified

and then figure out have they done better by not disclosing versus disclosing. So a good matrix for those who are watching in probably one to two or three months of this year, you can start taking a look at. We will not mention brokerages and names, right? No, no, no. But I have done transactions, currently doing transactions with that brokerage, and both on the buy and the sell side. It's funny how in the contract all the commissions are showing up

when I'm representing the seller from when it comes in. So I think what they're trying to do, and this is just my guess, is they're trying to force the market to be putting these into the contract. You put this in the contract. If this is negotiable, then it's negotiable. But it's very interesting. I sent you guys, and we don't have time to put it up there, but we've been digging into all the surrounding MLSs and their forms.

And Northern Virginia has a box to check in the listing agreement that says, as the listing agent, it's okay for me to tell the buyer's agent how much the seller's willing to pay. And something simple like that adding into the listing agreement that we use, we'll just remove that from the thing. The seller gets to make the choice of, do I want the buyer's agents to know that I'm offering X dollars? And the other hand is, hey, fellas, we've got folks.

We're in the middle of a shifting market. In certain markets, we're going to a buyer's market, right? Wait till sellers start offering incentives, right? And that's going to happen. Maybe not next month or six months or whatever, but that shift is eventually going to happen. So to your point that we were talking before the cameras came on, this is all over the map. Everybody's doing it different ways. This is very similar to commercial transactions, right? But if I'm the buyer's agent and Katie's

unwilling to tell me because they've been directed by their seller to do this or whoever, then I just got to have a conversation with my buyer and go, okay, look, we're going to negotiate this in. I'm going to do my very best to get it. If I don't get it, ultimately, to your point, my buyer broker agreement says you've got to pay me X. And by the way, in our shop, we've done three transactions so far where since this has been decoupled, where the buyer's paid the buyer's agent at the table, buyer brokerage at the table. I'll highlight Carly Wagner watching. She's a realtor. Ray Cadell watching the program. You've got six real estate firms on the show. How many of the 250

average transactions you guys do a month, your two firms combined, how many have compensation for buyers' representatives coming from the buyers themselves? I have only seen a handful. I haven't seen many at all. I don't see a lot either. We've done three, and they all had a one in front and a bunch of sevens after it in the transaction, a bunch of seven zeros after it. So these were million-dollar. and up that the seller refused to pay,

and we ended up having the buyer pay at the closing table. And that was in the clip of, you said, 1%? No, no, no. Was that based on a percentage of sales price? So it was based on a percentage of sales price in whatever was in the buyer broker agreement at that time. So they were very different. But the buyer broker agreement, and then ultimately that's what happened. We enacted the buyer broker agreement. We told the buyer, okay, we can do this. This is how this is going to go. And as long as they understood it, they had zero problem

with it all. And back to what's going to change, nothing but everything at the same time. And I suspect, Keith, those were probably cash buyers, those million plus buyers. So we're talking a different buyer. Yeah. We aren't talking

the first time home buyer that's trying to come up with their down payment money. When you get into that situation, that is where having to pay that commission becomes a big deal. And so how do we do that, right? You're saying the seller, that becomes a big deal. Or the first time home buyer, you're saying. The first time home buyer, you're trying to come up with your down payment money, your 20%, so you don't have to pay PMI. And now you're supposed to come up with this other payment money, your 20%, so you don't have to pay PMI, and now you're supposed to come up with this other 3%? I mean, that's harsh.

It is beyond harsh. And that is where the struggle is, and that's where the rubber is meeting the road to the first time. These folks have been getting hit left and right. No inventory, prices are climbing. We're going to talk about that here in a little bit. You've got brokers and agents chiming in. You want me to throw them to you? Cynthia Hash offering some perspective. In those cases, Keith,

Bill, and Katie write the buyer-broker co-op fee in the contract offer. She also says NAR's clear cooperation policy is already on the chopping block. I personally asked NAR to get rid of coming soon clear cooperation back in January. Carly Wagner

conversating with Cynthia in the chat and on our show. So the program is truly dynamic right now. In fact, the comments are coming in quickly. Cynthia also says, as the principal broker and owner of Fine Homes Realty, I've been training my agents about this for years. I want to

get to Carly's comments responding to Cynthia. She says, what are Keith, Bill, and Katie's opinions on clear car operation and pocket listings? It sounds like this may be going away. Ultimately, does this take more power from the MLS? Realtors and even owners themselves could sell without listing on MLS. So where's the incentive to pay all the MLS fees and association dues? So I'm going to pick that one apart. Yeah. And there's a hell of a lot more comments coming in.

So let me just get this out real quick, because last week I was part of four days at a CEO summit up in D.C. I was fortunate enough to be on a bunch of panels. These are all the major CEOs from EXP all the way down to Keller Williams, Howard Hanna, so forth and so on. The CEO of Compass did a one-on-one interview. Coming soon is going. It's just going to take time. It's going to be probably the end of this year. DOJ is going to make it happen. Department of Justice is going to make it happen. MR. You're saying coming soon is not going to be allowed? I would predict by the time we do

this show next year, coming soon will be out of circulation. But could the sellers themselves utilize their social media for coming soon with language and marketing collateral provided by the seller's representative? So as the real estate agent on the thing, the answer is yes and always has been yes. So as this – yeah. There's the workaround right there. But with the caveat, you can't put it in the MLS. Well, I mean, let's cut to the chase. I would imagine most of buyers are now finding homes and opportunities not on the MLS anymore.

I mean, the MLS is becoming a dinosaur. Well, I'll pick that apart. Realtor, Zillow, Trulia, social media, Instagram. What you're forgetting about is all those aggregators are aggregated. Yeah, RSS feed from MLS, yeah. So what do you think, Bill? Next subject? Yeah, next subject, good idea.

I just saw, by the way, I just saw scrolling across the TV, across the room, interest rates for mortgages have hit a 19-month low. Yep. Do you think the rate cuts baked into this number? I think there's still more cut coming. It's got to be.

I think we're really going to see the impact Q1, Q2, once this election is behind us. Then you're going to start seeing that number move. Historically, after elections, mortgage rates drop. Right. That's right. I'll throw this. How about this question? The chat is on fire today. You guys bring the engagement from the viewers and listeners. If you can sell and market homes directly from your social media or any website independently from MLS, will we see similar moves like commercial real estate where not all available properties are positioned on the MLS?

That's from an agent there. I'm going to put a pin in that question only because next Friday. Such a touchy subject, this MLS. No, no. I'm going to dive into that next Friday. I'm actually going to talk about what I heard in the room from CEOs. And when people that had to spend $50, $70 million to settle this thing, they're a little opinionated. And I'm going to share that next Friday. So whoever

is asking that question, tune in for next Friday, because I'm going to make some predictions next Friday for where this industry is going to be a year from now. Okay. Okay, no tease? It's going to be different. Okay, it's going to be different. All right, I'll throw this. Let me put it this way. If you think the decoupling of commissions was a big deal, wait until next year.

Okay, that's a tease. How about for Katie and Bill? Katie, for you first. How do you characterize the market now as we head into the final quarter of the year? We're 15 days away from Q4. It's a little slow to us. I don't see as many transactions, and the ones that I see are pretty much cash.

I think Katie's right. It's amazing the number of cash, million-dollar-plus contracts. They're floating out there. And, again, I just saw one the other day. It was $700,000 or $800,000, and the guy was putting down only barring 40%. So people have a lot of cash going on. You don't have to look this up, but but judith can you put slide number one on so what i do is i've been running every month now we're up to eight months of this and looking back

to 2016 so i wanted to kind of see what we're doing so on that slide just a real simple simple numbers on it we're six we're roughly 6.8 down down in sales volume versus last year. So we're down 6.8% in sales volume. We're down 14% lower than 2016. But that being said, we're up 74% in value over 2016, value dollar amount over 2016 and oh by the way year over year we're up this is the whole footprint

we're up 7.6%. You want to hear an insane number? In 2016 the median value for all housing stock was $275 8 years later it's $480. That is bananas right there. But we're up $34,000 year over year just from the same eight months of 2013. Do we make – we like crystal ball predictions here for Katie and Bill and for all our guests.

If rates drop Q1, Q2 of next year, which we think they will, and historically they fall after presidential elections become decided or get behind us. If rates drop, does that create another bonanza market? No, because I think the prices are still going to be there. I think it will get us maybe more back towards normal, but I don't think it will be a bonanza. What I see happening is, and this is good for the mortgage guys out there everybody's gonna be refinancing yeah oh yeah that started already yeah if you track that and read

that there's been a boost in in in refinancing I think you're not gonna see the 30-year mortgage go much below where we are now definitively until after the election probably first quarter I think whatever number we've got now has been pretty much baked in. It's going to float up. Where are we now? Six? Like 6-2? I did a 5. That was a Sterling applicant. That's exactly right. That was a Sterling applicant. Near perfect credit score. What? Significant down payment of north of 25%. And what do they have? 5-7 and change?

Yeah, they're real close to 5.5%. It was really good. You're seeing a lot of 6.2s out there for non-Sterling. Really good applicants, non-Sterling applicants. You know, look, 6% is an awesome rate. 6% is a damn good number. This is the time I tell you. Here we go, Keith.

18% when I bought my first house, Keith Smith. We've spent way too much time together. I can see that. Mine was 10.15. Yeah, and you know what? You were probably happy to secure it, weren't you? Oh, yeah. Right, yeah.

What was yours first house at? I assumed someone's mortgage that I wasn't supposed to. On your first one? Wow. There's a story there, I'm to. On your first one? Wow. There's a story there, I'm sure. There was, there was, and I learned never to do that again. Usually how those things go. Yeah.

Have you seen any five-year adjustables? I'm surprised I haven't seen those. No. Because the Delta is not compelling enough. Is that why? It's not. There's just not, you know, it's not a two-point spread, right? It's not really there.

And the arm got such poo-poo during the time of great unpleasantness. We've almost been, like, ingrained with, like, arms are scary. That's Neil Williamson coined that. Yeah. Would you agree with that? Yeah. The delta needs to be different, and then everybody still remembers 2007-8, as we refer to it, or as Neil Williamson refers to it, as a time of great unpleasantness.

It was a time of great unpleasantness. But speaking of Neil, first of all, he did a great, for those who attended the CAR Summit, Charlottesville Area Association Summit yesterday, just a shout-out to him. He did a zoning presentation that actually made zoning fun. And for those of us geeks in the zoning world, that's a pretty hard thing to achieve on that. He also shout out to him because I was running some numbers by him yesterday. He said something to me and reminded me, you know, volume makes a difference in data. Right? So when you take a look at this large picture, right, we've done

that first eight months in the car footprint. We've done one thousand one hundred and thirteen transactions. Right. Last year we did twelve hundred and thirty eight. But you got to take a look into these micro markets. Right. So big picture wise, you know, some markets a little bit better than others. So highlight which ones. So before I do that, is there jurisdictions or localities that you're seeing more contracts in or less recently? Well, I tell you, I can, my Fluvanna office has seen less contracts. Yeah, we'll talk about that here in a second.

Big time less. Big time. Big time less. So we'll pull out the one sheet that I gave you guys. It's B, excuse me, A, if you don't mind. Why do you think that is, Tucker? I think there's just less inventory there. Oh, I would disagree with that.

You think there's enough inventory? No, no, no, no, no. Enough is a different word. I think the Fluvanna market is more of an entry price point, and that buyer is strapped with the rates that are at this high and the values at that high, which is causing sluggish sales. And if you take a look at this, slide number A is the total number of homes sold year over year. So these are closed transactions, eight months. Fluvanna is down 14.5% year over year. But if you flip it over and you go to slide B, if you don't mind, Judah, we're up about 1.7%.

It's not a huge number. And value. We're up in value. But when you go back to slide A, and I'm sorry, Judy, to do this to you, but just look at, to Neil's point, look at the volume of Albemarle County versus the rest of the jurisdictions. I mean, clearly Albemarle County is the 10-ton elephant in the room. But they were down 10%. So talk about that year over year.

Albemarle County was down 10%. The city of Charlottesville was down just a skosh, 1.3%. Green County, and this is my conversation with Neil yesterday, is one of the stellar folks there, up 15% right now. It's only 181 units versus 157 units, so it's not even a little over 10% of what Albemarle County does. Flavana is down 14. Nelson's flat.

When we look at the numbers on Nelson, it will be really interesting. Louise is up 7, right? So, you know, certain jurisdictions are up in transactions. Well, why do you attribute Flavana being, I mean, this really puts it in perspective. Flavana's down 14.5% in units sold, and it's neighbor, Louisa County, at the

same time is plus 7%. And the values are essentially flat. What do you attribute it to, Fluvanna? Me? I think it's a lack of inventory. Look, real estate, whoever's listened to the show knows my standard speech. It's six things, right? Location, price, features, conditions, timing, and who's on the other side matters.

We put a $375,000 listing, single family, ranch, three bedrooms, two baths. We renovated it. At $375,000 sold it in a day. Literally sold it in six hours. Now there's other homes that are in the same area that may not be the same features, that may not be the same conditions that have been sitting

on the market for a while. So having those first four right, Flavana, Nelson, Green, it doesn't matter, that's what makes the difference. And you have to have a trusted advisor to bring in there that can help you through it. This particular case,

I brushed off my Class A contractor's license, which I swore I would never do, and helped them renovate the house because it was a wonderful couple and they needed help. How many of the buyers, Katie and Bill, are out-of-market buyers of your 250 deals on average a month? I would say like, what, 20% maybe? Damn. Yeah, I would have guessed a quarter.

That's a lot. You know, it's funny. I always ask people that are moving into the market, you know, what brings them to Charlottesville? How many answer UVA? Some of them UVA. A lot of them, well, my kids were in school before, and I just always loved it, and I wanted to come back. Or I've got kids in Richmond and didn't want to live in Richmond. But we

are still a market where people want to come to. Here's a follow-up question. 20 to 25% of your deal flow is an out-of-market buyer. How many of those are cash? A good many.

Because they sold something up the eastern seaboard and brought the money with them? Yeah. There's that. While you guys are talking, I'm going to... I don't think people realize the impact of what they're saying is going to have on the dynamics of our community.

It's becoming extremely wealthy and homogenous. I printed it this morning. I didn't get a chance to send it out to everybody. Inman, this is a real estate trade. I was going to say magazine, but I don't think we do that any longer. Can you pass the phone book over there? Do you have any Morse code you would like to use?

I just have it with you, Keith. If you would just to use? The yellow pages. I'm just having with you, Keith. If you would look on my desk. He's got the yellow pages on there? No, I've got a Rolodex. Oh, he's got a Rolodex. There you go. I do, too. I kid because I care.

No, no, no. You're 100% right. Baby boomers own one corner of all the large homes in the U.S., and they ain't selling. Yeah. own one corner of all the large homes in the U.S., and they ain't selling. Fifty-four percent of boomers who own their own homes said that they plan to live in them until they die. I won't read the rest of the article. So the reality of it is there are inventory forces here that we've never seen before. We're not building enough.

The boomers are staying. Frankly, I was part of the problem because all the houses I built out in Lake Monticello, the 600 I built, we were back in the 80s and the 90s, if you probably remember, age and place, universal design, right? We were building all these homes that people in their 40s and their 50s were buying

that they don't have to move out, as some of them will say, until you put me in a pine box on that. So that's not going to change. So the inventory, in my opinion, is in a 10-year level. We might see a small increase, but the buyer pool is going to get deeper and deeper and deeper, which is going to put pressure on prices. But while Jerry asks another question, I want to tell you over the last 30 days

of all of car footprint, how many transactions were cashed? I'll tell you that in a second. Viewers are coming in. Comments are coming in. How about we throw this to you guys? One variable not always mentioned in surging home prices

is that from 2020 to 2022, many people actually did add substantial value to their home by investing in renovations, additions, pools, et cetera, during COVID. So while supply is definitely a huge factor, there is an additional bump that cannot be fully quantified because it's so unique to each home and can't be tracked or separated. I know we put over a hundred K in improvements to our home in these years. That's from Carly. Carly, you're making the program better here. A lot of people are blown away by the 20 to 25% of buyers are coming in from out of market, and most of them are using cash to purchase that are coming in from out of market. Do you think that trend continues? People are asking that question. So how long have you been doing this in this marketplace, Bill?

40 plus, maybe, yeah, 40 plus years. Katie? 17, almost 18. So I've been doing it since 87. We've always had people from outside our marketplace. But at this clip, though? I think so. I don't think it's, yeah. I think so, too.

And we also, a lot of our sellers are leaving the area because we have a lot of flow in and out in this market. You know, and over the years, we've had Ingecom. We've had, you know, UVA is always hiring and such. DIA, all of that. The defense industry has added. We're just a great market. I look back over my career and I really could never remember a time that things were slow. Even in 2007 when things went south, lawyers like me ended up with more work because there's more problems. And you guys did a great job with that short sale stuff. Your short sale program was pretty awesome.

So last 30 days, car footprint, we had 298 closings, actual closings. A hundred of them were cash. Wow. And I'm not sharp enough to do the percentage. That's one-third. 290, you said. 298. Yes, one-third. $290, you said. $298.

Yes, one-third. So one-third. So we've been holding about 33% to 40% somewhere in that range. But 100 of the $198. $298, you said. $298, excuse me. Thank you for keeping me straight, Bill. You do that regularly, by the way. It's good.

It's a job. It's a good job. So we don't see more inventory coming. We see interest rates going down. We see buyer pool getting up. To Jerry's question, is this insanity of 2001 and 2002 going to happen, or we're going to act more like a normal market? And much like the time of great unpleasantness is gone, the unicorn years are gone,

are we going to see more normalcy in the marketplace? Is that making sense? I think so. Yeah. I think that's where we're going back to. Yeah, I agree. I agree. Of course, normal here is still different than normal somewhere else.

True. Does the pendulum swing to a balanced market in 2025, or is it still the seller in the cappert seat? Unless the inventory improves. I think it's still the seller. So I'm going to do this. So I belong to Altos Research. I pay a little bit of money to do that. They are like the national brand. They make the breath mints? Yeah.

Thank you, Jerry, for saving me. They're the ones that everybody looks to. So you put in zip codes, right? So 22901. Oh, this one's cool. I like this one. 22901. And I don't know if Judah can do that live. We tried to do this once. I'm not sure if we can do it. But they have a matrix that they've created, right? And it's a zero to 100. 100 is pegged all the way over to seller's market. Zero

is a buyer's market. And they've determined in their matrix is that 30 is the is the difference right when you are above 30 you're in sellers when you're below 30 you're in a buyers 22901 right is um at currently at a hold on a second here i'll read the number make sure 45 excuse me 47 my apologies 47. Last month it was out of 45. So 22901 zip code is actually very strong in the seller's market. But 22902? So those who are tracking that, it's like. That's Charlottesville.

It's Charlottesville, but the way they split it is 250, right? Yeah. North and south. Watch this. Literally, literally it is at 32. We are two points away from a buyer's market by Altos' data. And, by the way, it's below last month's. So, again, you'd have to get on the map and figure out where the two zip codes are, but it pretty much runs west of 250, right going towards Crozet is 22901, and then south of

that is the Charlottesville-Belmont, further south into that, into 22902, is right at 32. And last year, excuse me, by the way, last month index was 34. So we're going backwards. It's a really interesting matrix. You know, you can't send it out to folks that get to belong to it. But you don't feel like it's a buyer's market in Charlottesville, or it's becoming more of a about your market. So my tagline that I have is micro markets matter. And like politics, all real estate is local. And a lot of this is street to street.

We talked about an example at Lake Monticello that we did. We sold it literally in a half a day. And there's similar homes at similar price points, similar layout that have been sitting for weeks. So why is that? It's because they didn't catch the other they probably are a little overpriced based on the features and the condition. Now, I have a rule. I just broke it. Never talk about a deal until it closes. Which you guys are helping us with. It'll close.

Can they put in perspective what's happening with refis? Refis are starting to pick up, but not hugely. But do you see a lot of them? Most of them are done internally, right, with the lender? Some of the lenders do them

internally, but a lot of our local lenders, so to speak, that we deal with all the time still send them to us. Got it. So that business is picking up a wee bit. Yeah, I think lenders learned when they did used to close them internally, they made so many mistakes that they're still correcting. I think that's not good. We're not going to see that. Well, to me, it's like in my world doing dual agency. Our shop, you're not allowed to do dual agency at all on it. It's almost like a dual agency situation where they're closing.

It's always better to have a third party represent and go ahead and take care of you. Talk about Lake Monticello. You want to plug in 22963 just to see how that's going? Absolutely. More comments coming in. Go ahead, Keith. Tell us 22936, please. People are asking. 2296.

Okay, I will write that down. So we are at 47. Last month it was 50. So we're still in a strong seller's market, but we're down a few points where we were this last month. What was the zip code? So two zip codes have been suggested. 22936 and the fabulous Siona Smith.

22903 is asking. Yeah, I think 22903 won't happen because there's just not enough data for it to aggregate it. But I will tell you here in a minute. 22903. I like this little subscription you have here. Yeah, it's pretty cool. It's in a seller's market, but, or and, it's, thank you, it's at 39. So we're just, you know, we're under 40. You know,

we're not in a strong seller's market. They call it a seller's market. What was the other zip code? 22936. Any help on what area that is? I'm trying to. I don't know. Earliesville. Okay. There you go.

Pretty much the same as the last zip code. We're at 39. Actually, it's flat. We're at 39 this week from today going back when last month it was at 39 so so we're we're creeping towards the 30 number right last week or two weeks ago i bet you that number was closer to 50 we're just the market is shifting and it's a buyer's market that none of us have ever seen before right normally buyer's right, inventory is ratcheting up. That is not what's happening here,

and it's really street by street, house by house, block by block, subdivision by subdivision, in my opinion, on how that's going to work. What you got there, Jerry? This question's come in on buyers, what they can do to get a stronger position on purchasing houses. That's a good question. That's a good one for you, Keith. What can a buyer do to get a stronger position on purchasing?

Well, first off, make sure you get pre-approved, right? Absolutely. Obviously, if you could put more down payment down, right? You know, this particular one we were talking about was a 35% down payment, which actually beat out a cash offer because the rest of the terms are better. So the second end of it is make your terms right, hire the right people, get in the house. Home inspections are happening, right? So get in the house, make sure you know what you're looking at. But that's pretty much it.

And, you know, hire people that have been doing this for a while, to be honest with you. I'm probably just going to get myself into trouble. I tend to do that. But, you know, you've got to be a pro to really do it at this market at this particular point in time. This question is a very good one. This is for the panel as well. Mrs. Smith is probably going to yell at me. Yona's watching the program right now.

We love when you watch Yona. I think I'm going to get yelled at. How many of the deals are happening are tied to open houses? We see open houses seem to be back. I don't really have any way to know that. So I will tell you the whole world of open houses have come back again. People are going back into them. Again, if you're at the right location, right price, right features, right condition, you generally never get there.

The market will move that fast. But if you're not in the right location, you're overpriced, the features aren't right with the markets looking for, and the condition isn't there, and this condition thing is important to talk about, particularly at these rates. People do not want to buy homes that they have to fix up. Yeah, they don't have the money to do it. That's exactly right. My daughter's... Look at 2-2-9-6-8 for me. My daughter, talking about open houses, my daughter's thinking of moving back from Richmond to Charlottesville, and she's been doing a lot of open houses, my daughter's thinking of moving back from Richmond to Charlottesville. She's been doing a lot of open houses.

She says it's kind of fun to do that. Open houses galore. It said Katie West lives here. I can't do it. You're strong. We've been talking about Greene County for a while. Greene County is going to be the rock star going forward. It's about, depending on who you talk to, a couple of thousand new construction units that are going to be cycling through the way. Well,

as long as the traffic doesn't interfere with between Sheets and Ryer Road, I'm good. A couple thousand new units coming to green. You're at 44. Last month was 44. But you are literally defining it as a slight seller's advantage. When you start getting to 50, it becomes a strong seller's advantage. And it depends on the location.

How about the topic that's coming on the feed? Kevin's brought it up. Yancey price modifications price adjustments i just call them price cuts depending on how they're positioned we're seeing a lot of those now yeah um so that means they priced it wrong because they weren't they didn't go into the market right we we can we can go and look at slide B, Jude, if you don't mind. We have zero of the six jurisdictions in a negative number year over year. The closest to zero was Flavana at 1.75.

The rock star was Nelson at 24% increase, which is a new animal. Green was up 3.3. The rock star was Nelson at 24% increase, which is a new animal. Green was up 3.3. Seville was up 15%, which was huge. And Outmore County is up 7.4%. Those trends are not going to stop. The problem with them is sellers generally react to the market a little slower than buyers do and this is just the ability to convince the seller the market

saying your house is this not this this topic's come in can the panel highlight the age of the buying population are we seeing 20s 30s 40s or older across the board. I mean, I can't really pigeonhole because it seems like we have some very young ones that I'm like,

how can you even afford a house? And then we have older people that I'm like, why are you moving at this age? So, I mean, but I would say probably the bulk of them are somewhere in that 35 to 45 range. And I've seen it all over the age limit, too. It's funny. You see a lot of people. I think we see more people now who have moved into assisted living selling than we have. So that's sort of because people are staying in their houses.

And I don't know if this is just cyclical, right, because this stuff happens. But most of our listings right now are exactly that. They now cannot stay in their age and place home, which I think will impact, will bring inventory on the market, because they're now moving towards, you know, assisted living or nursing homes or something along those lines. Juan Sarmiento saying happy Friday the 13th to everyone. I forgot about that. To answer your question, National Association of Realtors, I've been a little harsh on them for a while, but they are awesome at statistics.

The largest selling profile is young boomers at 26 and then old 26 and then older boomers at 19 so i'm a young boomer not to age you but you're probably in the older thing as far as buyers go, older generation millennials is 21%. Gen Xers are 24%. So the buyers are, at least nationally, are tending to be more younger. The sellers are tending to be a little bit older. It's just a volume problem.

There's just not enough of us selling for them to go ahead and buy. Bill, Tucker, take an opportunity to close the program for a message to the viewers and listeners. The current market, where the market is headed, obviously includes some contact information for the business you're going to scoop up here. Well, we didn't get a chance to talk about it, but there's a form that I think all realtors ought to use when the contract's ratified. It can wait until it's ratified. Then there's a form that can be filled out that will act as a disbursement statement to list who's paying what part of what commission. It'll just make everybody's life easier. So any real estate agent out there that

wants to get eyeball on that, reach out to me or reach out to Bill on that. It's called the commission disbursement addendum. And what it does is it spells out very clearly who's paying what and where. And oh, by the way, all parties sign it. Buyers, sellers, listing agent, and selling agent or buyer's agent. And I'll be sending it out in a future Tucker tip and what I've instructed my staff to do every new contract we get in I've suggested they send this form to the realtor and suggest it now we've got a ratified contract let's get this filled out now so there's no question who's paying what in the commission. And more importantly, it tells you guys what to do with the money.

And that's the big thing, right? Because you guys get to these closings and these convoluted locations and stuff like this, and you go, well, who's getting what, when, and where, and why? Yeah. And pay that commission quicker. Well, that's always good. Same question for Katie. What was the question?

Let us know how they can reach you and some final thoughts for the viewers and listeners on current market, where the market's headed, what they may need to prepare for. Well, of course, Charlottesville Settlement Company, 434-817-0400. Look at you. But we, you know, I think that the market is always changing, and so the major thing is going to be, you know, watching rates. Know what you can afford. Don't shop outside your range because you're going to fall in love with something you can't have. Amen. shop outside your range because you're going to fall in love with something you can't have

and um you know just if you're a seller you know make sure that your property is in the shape that's going to attract that buyer that you know they're putting all their money into this house they're not going to have money to replace the roof or the gutters or whatever might need it so go on and get that done before you put it on the market. And pull down the Partners tab. We've got some awesome people, ISC in particular, interstate service company that can help you with that and get you across the finish line.

But, you know, it is more important now for your home to be market ready. Yes. And if it is market ready, right location, right price, right features, it'll sell very quickly. Real talk with KeithSmith.com, the partners tab. Keith, Friday show, what do you have planned? Next Friday is just going to be me and you, which I'm

looking forward to. We have not done this in a long time. Very nice. It's always fun. We don't have people here to moderate Smith. They didn't control him. But I'm looking forward. You have some bold predictions you're going to make on next Friday's show. I was blessed to be in a room with really, really smart people. And I've learned a long time ago, when you think you're the smartest person in the room, get into another room. Leave

that room. So, you know, we called it this time last year that NAR was going to settle. I'm going to make a couple of bold predictions next Friday, and some people are going to like me for it, and some probably won't. Keith Smith, Bill Tucker, Katie West, Judah Wickauer behind the camera, Real Talk with Keith Smith, online at realtalkwithkeithsmith.com. Click the Partners tab, and it's the trusted advisors that will get you through closing and beyond. He's vetted these folks personally, been in business since 1987, Keith Smith, in this game we call real estate. The I Love Civo show up at 1230 p.m. So long, everybody, and thank you for joining us. Thanks, guys.