The I Love CVille Show With Jerry Miller! - Keith Smith & Jerry Miller Were Live On “Real Talk With Keith Smith!"

Episode Date: February 14, 2025

Keith Smith & Jerry Miller were live 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.

Thank you. Guys, welcome to Real Talk with Keith Smith. My name is Jerry Miller. Thank you kindly for joining us. It's a pleasure to connect with you guys on the I Love Seville Network. This show is live wherever you get your social media and podcasting content. And it's airing on a Valentine's Day in downtown Charlottesville. Thank you kindly for watching and listening to the show.

I believe in our six-year Real Talk with Keith Smith. Judah Woodcarry, you go to the studio camera in a two-shot, and let's welcome the always prepared Keith Smith on Real Talk with Keith Smith. Not necessarily on time. I've known you for quite some time. I would never say being on time is one of your strengths. It is not one of my hearing aids are popping out. But you look sharp today. You got the

Valentine's Day red tie today. That is my Valentine's red tie for my Valentine today. Of course we've been so busy. We're like, hold it. Did we pick out a place to go tonight? And of course we didn't. So this will be So you're going tomorrow for Valentine's Day dinner. Apparently I'm going tomorrow for Valentine's Day.

Might pick up a steak or something and bring it home and go ahead and cook her up a little something to eat at home. Why don't we do this? We'll slide the mic a little over so it's right. There we go. It's only been six years. Give me a break. Good Friday morning to you, my friend.

Good Friday. How are you? Cheers. Happy Valentine's Day. Happy Valentine's Day. Happy Valentine's Day. Does anybody know? I put a couple posts this morning.

I saw them. A lot of emojis in that post. A lot of emojis. It's amazing what AI does with emojis. When you tell it, make it a fun and engaging thing. And look, I'll be the first one to admit, I used the heck out of it. And somebody who is a graduate of New York City school systems, something to help you learn how to write a little bit better

is not a bad tool to have. But it started back in 270 AD, and as a Catholic, this was something that was always kind of beat into you around St. Valentine's Day. The basic story goes is, I believe it was Claudius II

said hey if you're a soldier in my army which you didn't have a choice because you got conscripted into it you can't marry what was that word? yes I'm making up it's not even five minutes into it conscripted is that not the right word?

is that a word there? we're going to have the word check that was it conscripted. Is that not the right word? Is that a word there, Jeff? We're going to have the word check. That's the right word. Okay. That was it? That was it? Okay. Conscripted.

I may not have said it right. Okay. All right. But conscripted. Good morning, Jeff. Good morning. Good morning. Right?

You weren't allowed to get married, and this priest, Valentine, was marrying people and ultimately got himself executed over it because he pissed the emperor off. So that is the beginning of the genesis of it. Some people say it goes back before that there was a Roman pagan holiday, but as a Catholic, that's how you kind of, that's how you kind of started it. So I, uh, the real talk with Keith Smith came up, um, uh, let's see in the middle of the week. Um, and in the middle of the week, I was in the locker room over at the Borset Resort. And in walks into the locker room, after I played some squash, the fabulous Jim McVay. Oh, hey, Jim.

And Jim McVay stopped me. He said, I watch Real Talk with Keith Smith. Thank you. And he says that I do a very good job of giving you a little props and hype in the beginning of every show. And he very much appreciates that. Or what he was saying was keeping Smith on track is what he was really trying to say. No, he says I hype you up. He goes, you hype him up every show.

I like it. He does. Like, my God, we're wrapping up almost the end of our sixth year doing this together. A, you think I'd show up on time, but I am prepared. There we go. And, you know, I've said this hundreds of times before. When you first suggested this and I agreed, don't know why I agreed, but I just knew it was a good idea. And you were really good at your salesmanship on it.

I foolishly thought, well, you know, after a couple of months, I won't need Jerry. Well, guess what? I need Jerry. And I need Judah for sure. So it's the three amigos. Without the three of us, this does not make us what we do. Let us know your thoughts. Put them in the feed. We'll highlight some of the folks watching the program. Bill McChesney and Vanessa Parkhill, it's a good Friday morning to you.

Thank you kindly for watching the program. Janice Boyce-Trevillian, Lauren Over and Ivy, hello. Thank you for watching. Brandon Harrop, hello. Thank you for watching the program. Georgia Gilmer is watching the program. Sarah Hill-Buchenski watching the program. Kelly Jackson watching the program. Georgia Gilmer is watching the program. Sarah Hill Buchenski watching the program. Kelly Jackson watching the program. Folks in many states watching the show and the fabulous Stephanie Wells-Rhodes of the Interstate Service Company family, a home's best friend, is Interstate Service Company. I was almost going to say the tagline. That's a fantastic tagline. If I do say so myself. I wonder who made it up. What is on your mind today?

What is on my mind today is a stump to Smith. Ask questions. I did do a couple of posts that I just sent out for my fellow Flavana County flucos, as we call them. We got our tax assessments in. And it's Meltdown City on social media right now. It is Meltdown City on social media. So I did a couple of Facebook

posts in a bunch of closed groups or private groups that Lake Monticello and I just reposted them this morning on my Facebook page. The short version of it is I've done what I did in my first post is I reached out to everybody and say, hey, if you want a CMA, reach out to me. Let me find out if your home is, if they've tax assessed it at market value or not. And I'll tell you, I've done over three dozen of them and all but a handful, three or four, are either pretty much right on market. Or below. Or a little bit below. Yeah. Or just a hair above that it really isn't worth the appeal on it because it also could go the other way. If you appeal it, you know, it doesn't necessarily go down. It can go up.

So in my post this morning, the big question I got was why was this such a big spread? And the reason being is in Fulvanaanna county we do this every two years well the 2003 and 2004 tax assessed value is really 2021 and 2022 values so there's basically a four-year spread between when they came up with the current tax value that you have right assessed value you have right now and And today. And guess what has happened? If anybody's been watching the show, what has happened in the last three to four years? Prices have increased.

So the values are there. But I think I did this last year and the year before. We talk about my famous little triangle explanation on this. Yeah. So it is in the year before we talk about my famous little triangle explanation on this yeah so it is in the post but the the property assessment is only one side of that triangle there's two other sides to it there's the budget side and the tax rate side and right now and the basic formula is you know assessed value divided by whatever budget they establish, and then depending if the board makes an equalization commitment, which Flavena apparently is, on doing that, then the tax rate just gets adjusted to make it to zero.

People are upset about this going over some of this 20%, 30%, 40%. Some of them are 50% over where they were in 2003 and 2004. Biden year to year was 23 percent uptick for my personal residence. Yeah. So the thing that everybody really needs to watch is the budget. And it's boring. It's long. But the budget is what you have to watch. So if that budget starts going up, right, and your tax assets are up, then they're going to have to adjust the tax rate to get it to a zero. And guess what?

You're paying more cash out on it. So, you know, those of that are engaging in this on Facebook and in the social media world, reach, you know, get onto Flauvena County's website. They're setting dates for budget hearings. If you can do it, show up. If not, I'm not really sure if they're doing them virtually or not, but attend it virtually if they are. Chris Fairchild watching the program, Flauvena County Board of Supervisors. He's on a cruise ship somewhere. We'll highlight Fitchman Associates, one of the fantastic appraisers in

the game. I'm getting folks asking left and right when Woody Fitchman is going to come back on the show. That's what I said in the response. Fitchman Associates, guys, some of the best appraisers that you can partner with to value commercial and investment property and residential real estate. We have a lot of the Fluco's watching the program. Eric Thompson made this post on Facebook, and he said, I'm watching all my friends report on their property assessments in Fluvanna, which are absolutely skyrocketing right now. And he says the core reason is monetary policy and systemic inflation. No matter what the experts tell you, ask why the why. And the second why is the real answer.

And he says it's massive money printing and inflation, interest rate whiplash, local government dependence on property taxes, housing scarcity, and wage and cost pressure on local governments. Fantastic from Eric Thompson, who is another guy we should get on the program. I hope you hear that, Eric Thompson. diversity and wage and cost pressure on local governments fantastic from eric thompson who's another guy we should get on the program i hope you hear that eric thompson so um i asked neil he's traveling to go visit sent me an email this morning i've been corresponding with mr williamson via email as of 15 minutes ago got it and he's on his way to go see his grand grandchild grandchild um so 2018 just so that you know f Fulvana County only had about 5% from business local taxes. I don't think we're much higher than that. We're maybe one or two percentage points above that. You're talking about a meals tax in Fulvana County?

100%. So that would be other tax ranges. But why this is important in fulvana county is 95 plus or minus percent it's probably closer to 92 of the local budget comes from residential rooftops to answer that post a little bit more directly um when you only have when you have night in fulvana county when you have 95 or just pick that as the number percent coming from rooftops, then your rooftops are paying your budget. Somehow or another, they need to figure out how to grow their business tax base and meals tax and some other things. I don't see the business tax base growing in Fluvanna County. I was just about ready to say I've been doing this.

I've been living in the county since 86 and it's always been this way and I'm not so sure it's going to increase. That may upset some of my folks that are on the phone. Well explain to me how the business tax base could increase in Fluvanna County. Louisa County in a lot of ways and Chris Fairchild I have a lot of respect for is watching the program. Louisa County, in a lot of ways, and Chris Fairchild, I have a lot of respect for, is watching the program. Louisa County has eaten the Fluvanna County business tax lunch and dinner and breakfast and happy hour. So according to the 2018 number, they're closer to somewhere between 12% to 15%, which compared to 5% is rocking and rolling.

But when you take a look at Albemarle County, which hits the 30% mark, that's the panacea. That's what you want. That's another big word, by the way. I don't know what it means, but it sounded cool. So, you know, the people I talk to, you want to have like that 70-30 split, right?

We're like aeons and aeons apart. I know if you ask the question why, and this is not going to make some folks unhappy, but you actually need more rooftops. And folks are not going to like to hear that. But if we're not able to go ahead and increase our tax base, we've got water going to Zion's Crossroads, right? We're 30 years closer to that than we ever have been.

But A, the development area to build that is very small up in Zion's Crossroads. And B, because I deal with this on a regular basis, most companies don't want to relocate in there that are employee heavy, right? It won't come because there's no roof, there's no place for them to live, right? When the medium sales price is out in Flavena County, somewhere around $356,000, $358,000, it becomes very difficult for entry-level positions unless you bring in triple, you know,

high six-figure jobs. I don't see them coming. I definitely do not see them coming. To Flavena, they'll go to... Charles Ford Album, of course. Or Album Art before that. I definitely do not see them coming. To Flavena. They'll go to Shulph or Albemarle before that. So how do you do this? And how do you maintain your services on it? And it's a difficult thing that these board of supervisors have to face.

Again, I'm a housing advocate, so naturally I'm going to want to promote more housing. And I'm about working on a post, which I can pull up some of the data on it for you, where areas around the country where they increased density, increased new density, the percentage increase of value year over year decreased. And while you talk, I can pull up the data and actually give the numbers. I don't see the tax revenue tied to businesses increasing. I don't see the rooftops incrementally

increasing in Fluvanna County. All I do see happening in Fluvanna County is flucos will be taxed more on the real estate that they own. I don't even see a meals tax having much of an impact in Fluvanna County. We don't have enough restaurants to turn it, right? Right. So it, so somebody,

Folks are brisk and a bristle on that. It's just reality. It's, the situation is, is people need to get around the table and figure.

And the intriguing dynamic with all this is that days on market for listed homes in Fluvanna County is starting to uptick. 100%. So you're seeing this very intriguing dynamic play out. 100%.

You're seeing taxes on real estate get more expensive at a time when days on market for real estate is getting longer. And as the taxes on real estate get more expensive, at the same time water bills are getting more expensive, at the same time insurance, home insurance bills are getting more expensive, at the same time DOMs are getting longer, you've got some headwinds here. At the same time, interest rates aren't dropping. No, but I want to be clear. Homes are trading and selling in Fulvana county they're not trading or selling what do you got in the lake monicello

how many i have 30 26 25 30 which is ridiculously low uh historically ridiculously ridiculously slow why it's a little slower than the rest of the jurisdictions is the price point to your 7% mortgage payment. But you remember a couple of shows ago, 300,000 and below in the car footprint was somewhere around, I can't remember the exact number, 42, 45% of the sales were cash. Here's a reality. 2023, 2024, my personal house, because I brought the ticket with me, I actually paid the same amount of cash that if my house was in Glenmore. We talked about this in the past. Unless there's a substantial drop in the budget, right?

Let's assume this. I don't see a huge adjusting of the pool of tax assessment. Let's get this out there. There'll be maybe somewhere between 0% and 5% of homes that might qualify for a reduction in tax rate. I mean, there are some homes out there that are not valued correctly, but the pool, the big pool, isn't really going to change that much. A few percentage points or a fraction of a percentage point should change. But the pool, the big pool, isn't really going to change that much, right? A few percentage points or a fraction of a percentage point should change. The budget is the one, and I keep on saying this, that everybody has to watch. So if the Board of Supervisors, and through their budget process, which is, if anybody's ever been through it,

is a very unique process to be part of and watch it because everybody's after them for dollars right from the little old non-profits to to the fire department the police department and all that kind of great stuff schools to try to get more dollars out of them i've only seen one jurisdiction actually lower its budget would be nelson nelson county flavana balanced it they keep it flat i've never seen them lower it. I've never seen them lower it. I've only seen one jurisdiction I've been here 25 years lower it, and that's Nelson County. That would be Nelson County. That's the only one I've seen lower.

And I'm not so sure they're going to be able to do that this year. I don't. I 100% agree that they're not going to be. Bob Shotta, Joanne Mackey, Yonah Smith, Greer, Nate Kibler, Rob Neal in the game watching the program. Folks are asking me to clarify what I just said with some of the headwinds in Fluvanna County. I will clarify it again. Right now in Fluvanna, and I follow Lake Monticello because this guy over six years

has drilled Lake Monticello as the litmus test with 4,300 homes as a good baseline for following real estate in the Central Virginia region. There's somewhere between 25 and 30 active listings in Lake Monticello. That is a number that is, since COVID, and historically that number is extremely low, 25 to 30, extremely low. But from 2020 until now, that number is at its highest point. From COVID to today, it's at its highest point or damn near close to its highest point since the onset of the pandemic. This is what I'm seeing, which I think is a pretty accurate read of what's happening. You have days on market getting longer in Fluvanna. You have real estate taxes becoming more expensive in Fluvanna. You have utility bills like water becoming more expensive and in the news.

Everyone's homeowner's insurance is going to pop. Everyone's, not just Fluvanna's. So I'm going to stop you there. Remain that train of thought. Next weekend, I've got two insurance aid next weekend. Next Friday, I have two insurance agents coming in to talk about that and how important that is. I don't think we've even truly seen the impact of what insurance is going to have with our household budget because we haven't seen the collateral damage of the California wildfires or the disaster that was the hurricane or the floods in North

Carolina, Southwest Virginia, Eastern Tennessee, and in the Georgia Mid-Atlantic area. That's going to be passed on to us folks. So there's two, 100%. So there's two things that make up your, three things that actually make up your mortgage payment, right? It's your PI, your principal and your interest. The second part of that is taxes and insurance. Right. So we're now talking about taxes, and now we're talking about insurances. So when you get your yearly bill and the tax. Who's funneling a little more every month when they make their mortgage payment with their bank online to escrow?

Anybody doing that right now? Well, you should. Who's doing that? Raise your hand in the air if you're doing that. I certainly am. And? And why are we doing that? Because we know down the road that our taxes and our insurance are going to become more

expensive. And? And I'd rather budget for it now than get sticker shock when this becomes reality. And as I bought one of these, buy one less of these and start putting it aside to your principal. For me, it's five bucks. Five bucks is five bucks. I mean, I'd make mine at home. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I like chatting with the young people. I don't do. It makes his old dude feel a little high. I'll let you finish it because I'm going to run some numbers for Savannah while you're doing that. So 25 to 30 homes active in Lake Monticello at a time when the days on market are getting longer, at a time when the interest rates are not falling.

And Jay Powell was all over the national news two days ago. And he said, look, stuff's staying sticky. We're not going to cut the rates anytime soon. Straight up said that. And then this is where Keefe says what he's going to do does not have a direct effect on mortgage rates. Well, it has an indirect effect. 100%. Indirect effect. It has an indirect effect because what that man is saying impacts or not saying or trying to say without saying it, the man should be a politician, even though technically he's not, impacts the mortgage market because the mortgage market,

which is a free and, you know, it's a market, will adjust accordingly. So you've got a neighborhood that in a lot of ways is a neighborhood that historically has been for first-time homebuyers. I've got data now. Sure. And first-time homebuyers are right now facing 7% interest rates, insurance costs that are going to skyrocket, real estate taxes that are going to skyrocket, and sellers that have not adjusted price. Yep. and sellers that have not adjusted price. So January 1 to today, right? Because I'm just looking at it real quick.

Lake Monticello, 13 homes went pending in those number of days. So January 1 to today. So what are we talking? That's 45 days. Right. 13 homes have gone pending in 45 days. And the median days on market is 19. Okay.

Now, compared to four and five, that's a huge change. I'm also taking a look at, I haven't looked at actives yet. I'm taking a look. I got actives in front of me. I'm going to take a look at solds. So what is actually closed. So these were contracts that went probably December. Yeah.

December. Because 45 to 60 days on a transaction. Something like that. Eight has closed. Median days on market were 44. 44. I understand that. But I think you're going to see the ones that close next month be substantially less

because the ones that sold in that time frame was really in November-ish or so, and the market was slow. Remember we talked about I watched this market monitor, and I'm going to look at it again here in a minute. The second week of January, we were in 30. I'm going to look at it right now. We're at 30 new homes that came on the market. Let's see what came on as of this morning.

69. 83 went pending. So we're back to this, this is car footprint, not like Monticello in particular, but we're back to this point where we're getting 60 some odd units per week coming on the market, but we've got 80 going off. So we've got more going off than that's coming in. I think you're going to see

when I run the numbers by the end of the first quarter, the days on market in Lake Monticello, it's not going to be five. It'll probably be in the 20s, which is not, I mean, that's a healthy market. That's not unusual. But when you compare it to five, it's a huge, huge difference. It's like when your taxes that you've been, your tax assessed value for 2023 and 2024, which is really 2021 numbers, and you have, in my case, a 30% increase, it's shocking when you look at it. But that's basically four years of value pumped into that. So I'll go back and look at some more numbers while you're at it. This comment comes in to Jerry's point. Price cuts are happening at the lake right now. They're price adjustments.

I wouldn't call price cuts. They're not going below market value. People are still, from a seller's perspective. Yes, the sellers aren't in touch with today's reality. 100%. I mean, you take a look at my former stomping grounds. Glenmore's gotten softer. Well, they're adjusting prices big time there. 100%. 100%. 100%. I haven't dug into that. I'm not so sure. There's homes that are coming on the market that a year ago would have traded for hundreds of thousands of dollars more than they're trading now.

And so what matters? Micro markets matter, right? Timing. Well, that's number five. Timing is everything. But if you go ahead and take a look at the numbers side by side, right, how we were doing this January versus last January, which I haven't done yet, right? We are, as far as Lake Monticello goes, we are increasing the median sales price. There are single digit increases, you know, 2%,

3%, somewhere along those lines. And if you go back and watch previous shows, compared to the six jurisdictions, Flavana is not the fastest growing as far as appreciation goes. Charlottesville's 15. To your question, why is that? Well, they're at this below 400 market. A lot of them are mortgage, you know, people have to get mortgage.

But in Flavena County right now, the 13 that are impending, these are under contract, is a $375,000 median sales price. The end of December, that number was 360 something, 365. So they're growing up. The sales price. So they're going up 1.5%? I won't know until I look at it. 2%?

But I'll look at the close value, though. The close value of the last, from January 1 to now, the first thing that actually consummated, closed, and owned, the median sales price was 512. Now, there was two very large waterfront lots in that, right? I think if you were to take those out it would be a little bit a little bit skewed the minimum sales price uh for those eight was 370 and the highest was 875 which again was a water front waterfront property there was a 669 which is another waterfront property um there was one at

the acres in my neighborhood at 525 on that end of it. So, you know, 45 days is a short window to kind of crunch the crunch numbers. We'll know a lot more at the end of the quarter. But I'll tell you, prices are going up. It's the tempo is slowing down in Lake Monticello. But the rest of the tempos are increasing. I mean, when you've got 69 coming on and 83 going off, tempo's going in the right direction. Who's coming on the show insurance-wise next week?

I've got Jeremy Rowe. Oh, fantastic. And then one other person. The Jeremy Rowe Agency. That's fantastic. Goosehead, yeah. Yeah. This question's coming.

Can you put in perspective the uptick in water? Basically the monthly bill. Yeah. We don't have. Can you put in perspective the uptick in water? Basically the monthly bill. Yeah. We don't have to go deep down the water. Yeah. So it's not water you're paying more for, it's sewer that you're paying more for. We talked about this before. Short version of that, because I've been involved in it for a long time, and I'll try to consolidate this down to something a little less. Way back when when Lake Monticello Owners Association sold it to a company by name Acrosource which was

an Enron company which went bankrupt they cut a deal that Lake Monticello that is is that rates couldn't increase I think it was 15 years. I can't remember the exact time frame, but it was a long time. Aqua Virginia bought it, made the fixes, and now are starting to get the money going in the right direction. Here's something, Jerry, most people don't know about this. The SCC, which controls Lake Monticello you probably know this the SEC which controls Lake Monticello us comes aqua Virginia actually requires them to make a certain amount of money believe it's 10% over their cost of that and

actually sometimes forces them to raise price to raise. I don't know if this cycle is because of that, but I was asked the question, why do they do that? Well, it's pretty simple. It's the reason why Lake Monticello Owners Association was selling it at the time. They were under consent order from DEQ, which meant they had to shut their facilities down if they didn't spend $16 million. As we know the history of Lake Monticello, sometimes they don't have enough cash for these things, which they didn't, and they sold it. And the company they bought it was Enron and went bankrupt.

And Aqua came in and agreed to fix it. So just a little food for thought out there. This is not all public service companies operate under the SCC, and they watch their numbers quarterly, and if they are not bringing enough money to pay their bills or to operate their facility,

they, in some cases, could be required to increase the rates. I don't know if this is the case. What are we looking at? Uptick. Roundabout. For us. Sewer.

It's going to be what it's going to be. It's going to be keep on. As expenses go up, I mean, it's just going to. This will be very flimpant. It is what it is, right? Here's one piece of thing just to talk a little bit about Lake Monticello, let's say versus Louisa County. Louisa County Service Authority, which is run by the county,

your real estate taxes goes to offset the expense difference. Louisa County Service Authority does not bring in enough money from its connection fees and its usage fees to pay for its operations. A portion of the budget or of your real estate taxes you pay actually goes to offset that. Well, you can't do that with Aqua Virginia because it's a private company. I was at one point in time, some odd years ago for Savannah County to take it over and that was shot down. If you live out in Fork Union in Fuzdy,

my tax dollars that I pay that we're talking about right now, my 30% increase in whatever my tax dollars are, actually goes to pay to offset operations in Fork Union Sanitary District because it doesn't pull in enough money to make it. Same thing's gonna happen out in Greene County, right? They've gotta do all this improvements

and guess who's gonna end up paying for it is ultimately the developers and connection fees and the property taxes. Where would, if business wanted to expand in Fluvanna, where could that go? So the question would be what, right? There are a couple of availabilities open. There's some Colonial Circle has some commercial space for like a gas station, that kind of thing.

But, you know, what one needs to do is they need to look at what is the highest revenue type of business to bring in and try to attract that. And look, the economic development folks over in Flavena are doing a great job. They're doing the best that they can, but their hands are somewhat tied, right? Got two problems. One, you don't have your, we have a promise of water, but we don't have water there yet. And secondly, if you're employing something like another Walmart distribution center, where are all the people that are going to work there live? And that's generally when it comes down to it. When I have my one-on-one conversations with folks to grow into Fulvana County, that's where they're at. You know, retail is good. There's some basic taxes that come in.

But generally, you know, the Walmarts, the distribution centers and so forth and so on are big revenue producers. We don't have the space for that either. The development area, and I've been a proponent of expanding it, that's probably not going to happen, but expanding the Zion's Crossroads Development Center, much like the conversation we have about Almar County and growing the 5%, it's probably not going to happen. So it's a pretty tight footprint. Not so sure we're going to get there. On point, Keith. Boy, I'm Mr. Happy on it. No, you're realistic. This is what it is. This is the truth.

This is what it is. What I wanted to really make sure that the people watching and listening, particularly my folks in Flavena County. This is what it is. I've got a couple dozen more. Because, I mean, it's Meltdown City right now with the taxes on social media. Got it. So I've got a half a dozen more CMAs I'm going to do this weekend. And I'm going to do them and connect it to people.

The reality of it is probably not going to change with the post that I just did this morning. I would imagine very few, if any, will actually be off versus market value. In other words, way above market value. It's either going to be under, which is a lot of the cases are. They're going to be balanced a little bit close but i want to make sure we get out to the folks watching and listening to this is get engaged in the budget process it isn't sexy right it's boring as as heck uh to quote uh ned galloway if you really want to know how your

your elected officials are going to vote this coming year, watch them and listen to what they say during the budget season, which we're in the middle of. So check in, make sure that you're following the budgets, let your voices known. Everybody that's been on Facebook upset about that, reach out to your supervisor. Well, I been on Facebook upset about that. Reach out to your supervisor. You have supervisors that are as of now running

unopposed in Fluvanna County and supervisors and friends of the program certainly very good friends of Keith friends of mine. Supervisors that have been many terms on the board of supervisorsvisors in Flavana. Elections matter.

Contested elections really, at the moment, I don't know. Chris Fairchild running for a second term for Chris, right? Tony will be...

I don't know if he's running that. He hasn't announced yet. Is this third term for Tony? That I can't remember. It's either third or fourth term. He hasn't announced yet, but his seat is up, right? I would imagine Tony and Brian's going to run again. I would imagine, too. His seat is up.

This is his third term. And then the last one is Mike Sheridan, Coach Mike Sheridan. And, you know, he's been on the board as far as I can remember going back. He hasn't announced yet that I'm aware of. And nobody's announced to run against either one of the three seats that are open. There's a lot of time left. If you're running. There's really not that much time left.

If you wish to put a D. It's the 14th of February. If you wish to put a D or an R the 14th of February. If you wish to put a D or an R in your name, your window is awfully short. But if you're going to run as an independent, it's all the way to June. So what you'll see is somewhere around April, May-ish or so, that's the months to watch if somebody is going to announce the run. If not, if they run uncontested, they just got elected. This from Jason Howard, he says, did anything Keith ever come of the new Harris Teeter at Zion says that was in the works pre-COVID?

Yeah, not on the Flauvena side. I mean, it's just, you know, these entities need to guarantee a water. Now, the water is going to get there. We know that, right? We finally know that. But is it tomorrow or Tuesday or next Tuesday? day and they're not going to make just just to do just to do the due diligence to decide if this project is going to come here is extremely expensive and they have a couple quick boxes they check i deal with this all the time right is not not is it coming is water and sewer there and what is the capacity and how much how much of the connection fees how much to do that and

the second thing is is what is their, you know, there are tax incentives on it. And the third thing is, if I'm hiring 100 people, where are they coming from and where are they going to live? If you can't answer those three basic questions, and right now, Flavena can't, they maybe will answer the middle on the tax incentive one, but if you can't answer the two other ones,

you're never going to get to that third question of they're just moving on to other jurisdictions that check those boxes. This is from our good buddy William on my Facebook page. He says, do you see a potential Fluvanna migration to Louisa County? Yeah, that... Is Fluvanna expanding the development area? Excuse me? Fluvanna's expanding the development, or excuse me, Louvanna expanding the development area? Excuse me? Fluvanna's expanding the development, or excuse me,

Louisa's expanding the development area. So this is going to be a topic for Friday's show because I'm going to have data with me on exactly that. But the answer is yes, right? Fluvanna over the years, and some of my dear Fluvanna friends may not like what I'm about ready to say, but I've been living there since 87,

so I've kind of got a little authority to say it. It's always been eating our lunch, right? From first getting the water there, they now have Amazon data centers in there, so they have these additional tax bases that do it. They also, at the moment, are letting projects happen, come in and develop and move folks to it. To answer your question, look, I noted in my Facebook post, why is this happening? Why is these rates going up? Why is my taxes going up?

And it's a simple supply and demand problem. The problem is we've got about 10,000 rooftops. I had somebody post on my page that where are the 2,000 new homes being built in Fulvana County? And clearly that person is misinformed. There is not 2,000 more homes. So we have a fixed number of rooftops. It's roughly 10 to 11,000 residential rooftops. That's why 95 percent of our tax dollars come from these rooftops. The math is not that complicated. Our tax amount of cash we pay out is going to continue to increase. I just don't know without growing that base, if we're not growing our tax base, right, a commercial tax base, and our rooftop base is fixed and our budgets are either staying flat or growing, my tax dollars are going to keep on going up. When I said my value, my

dollars I pay matches, and I love Flavana County. I'm not moving. I love being there. I love my neighbors. I love everything about it. We're blessed to be able to absorb this, this amount of money at the moment. And there's many people that can't, and that's the real problem out there. But the services I get from, and I pay an HOA dues on top of that. The services I get from Flavena County is not the same as Glenmore, not the same as Albemarle County. Longer drive. 100 percent longer drive. But just the services I've received are much greater because they're at that 30 percent mark. Mark, right? That's the reason why my cash out of pocket that I pay for Favana is almost equal to Glenmore.

It's because they got this 30% tax base that's dumping dollars into the budget and they're not weighing heavy on rooftops. And I know it's counterproductive, intuitive. Intuitive? Intuitive to say build more rooftops. Well, you got to build more rooftops for your budget to

divide against, but more importantly to stabilize the pricing going up. Look, if we only have 10,000 rooftops and we've got people coming to our county, guess what's going up? The prices. And it may be at a slower pace, right? This is when Smith, I'm reading your mind, this is when Smith comes in and says, well, when I first got there, there was 300 houses out of 600 houses and there was days on market for a hundred days. Is that your voice? Is that how your voice goes? That's exactly how his voice goes. That was a long time ago. That was a different era though. I believe that was a couple of generations ago. That was a long time ago. Yeah. Folks have short memories and the memory folks have right now is from COVID until now. A hundred percent. There's no pre-COVID memory anymore.

Whether that's right or wrong, it's just the case. It's reality. It's what's before us. It's why this jumped 30%, right? If you went and compared it to, if you went and compared it, if they went and, and I did the math. Hold on a second. I got it right here. Fulvana County only went up 0.25% last year.

So if they would have been tax assessed each year, this 30% would have been, you know, a couple of percentage points depending on how they do their math, right? Not 30% because they're going back to 2021. 2021, we went up 15%. 22, we went up 15%. So that's 30% in two years. 23, we went up 5%. So that's 35% since 2020. And then 2024, we went up

about a quarter point. Lake Monticello went up 2.5%. This is all of Fulvana County. Actually, Lake Monticello outperformed value increase than the rest of the county. Keith Smith on point today. Is this boring? No. It's factual.

You got a follow-up question on what you just said. Uh-oh. When is the earliest a major project could get a definitive answer on water and sewer, if it wanted to come to that? Yeah, you're talking about if I have a client that... Yeah. Yeah. So if it's not there now, it's an extremely difficult sales job to keep them on the hook. Just to be totally frank about it and direct about it.

I have commercial folks that, you know, we're looking at Goochland. We're looking at other jurisdictions, Green County, one of them, other jurisdictions that, you know, kind of have stuff ready. Green County is in flux as the water thing. I think ultimately they've got a path there. But unless right now Lake Monticello, excuse me, Flauvena Service Authority can say, we have 500,000 gallons or 400,000 gallons of water

that's now parked in the pipe ready to use, they're just going to move on to jurisdictions that have it. Because they're just not going to spend the years. The reconnaissance. Well, just the years to go through the site plan process, right? The cost to go through all that, unless there is a couple of quick, you know, you're a business guy, that's how this is. You look at your top six bullet points.

If it works, great, we'll pursue with it if not we move on to the to the next jurisdiction and that's what's happening they're doing it you know that i wanted to give hats off to the you know economic development department it is a very difficult thing for you've had some turnover in that department we've had and it's very difficult and this is the reason why it's very difficult to be in sales if you've got nothing to sell. It's really hard. My fellow real estate agents kind of understand that now. Folks making this comment, this is what we want Fluvanna County to look like, Keith. And that's great.

That's not a problem. Now, the folks that are making that comment have some money. That's not a problem. Chris Fairchild, this is what he wants to do. And that's okay, right? I don't think everybody wants to look that way. I'm blessed to be able to say, okay, I'm going to live there because, frankly, I can afford it. But there's a lot of people that can't.

And if they want the county to look that way, that's great. This is the result. The result is you're going to be paying more for taxes, and that's okay. Your budget at best will stay balanced. I really doubt it'll ever go down. Is the budget even going to stay balanced this year? No, because, and I've been tracking that, and there's some things in the CIP budget that the county's got to spend money on. This is capital improvement budget for those who don't know what CIP stands for, that have to get funded some way, right? And they're either going to get funded by federal grants.

Oh, geez, what just happened? That's probably. People aren't talking about that. Oh, I've just got a text from a couple of my non-profits. People don't understand the significance of this. 100%. Right, wrong, or indifferent. Federal.

So Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission, because it was a public meeting, I can say this. 98% of what funds that is federal dollars. Now, I don't think they're going to go away. And under the tutelage of a certain treasurer, we have about a year of operating cash, maybe probably more than that. Who's the treasurer?

That'd be some guy named Smith. And the executive director, Christine Jacobs, who does an awesome job. But over the last 10 years, who does an awesome job. But over the last 10 years, cash has got built up. Because any business, look, a lot of times these governments and these nonprofits, and I'm going to get myself in all kinds of trouble here, don't think about their... They're running on shoestring budgets. They don't prepare for a rainy day.

They don't operate as a business. Yeah. What's the first thing that you do in your business with your business plan? Prepare for the worst-case scenario. By diversifying your income streams. I'm always building business plans that are, this is the worst-case scenario possible. A hundred percent. A hundred percent.

It's never the best-case scenario. A hundred percent. If the best-case scenario happens, it's great. 100%. So, yes, these organizations that rely, that their soul, I mean, I'll just say this publicly. I've been pushing the Piedmont Community Land Trust for two years, and we're slowly moving to get away from government and federal dollars and focus on private grants. Private fundraising. private run and corporate money. But that's a challenge.

There's a lot of people in that space. In our market. The low-hanging fruit is the federal grants. In our market, there's more non-profits per square inch than any place in the country, I think. They have a very different, they have the reverse. To the point where Lloyd

says on the dais, stop coming to us and asking for money yeah yeah figure it out on your own well and that happened a couple of years ago when he was chairperson and guess who listened to it yeah i mean you guys used yours truly and we're now starting to figure out different methodologies the one thing i've known and being in business for 40 years, guess what's going to happen? Change. Whatever situation you have now is going to be different X number of years down or months down the road. So planning for that is what a CEO and what an executive really is supposed to be doing. Not worrying about the day-to-day operations.

Worrying about what is going to happen down the road. But, you know, certain – it is not being talked about, but certain organizations that rely heavily on federal dollars – Woody alluded to this a few real talks ago where he said if the federal funding starts getting cut, curious to see the impact it's going to have on real estate around here. He also talked about some of the government entities and the government agencies being cut. Yeah I'm not, I'm not and I've been tracking some of the bills that are in the legislature which I'm not quite 100% read into. Some of that will will impact what's going on here. I don't, look the the thing that is

going to impact housing in our region it's's Econ 101, which is supply and demand. Our supply is extremely tight. It is not set to grow except for our friends in Greene County. You're going to find, I think, over time, in the next two years, if you have me for another two years, you'll find that I think the price appreciation in Greene County will stabilize to the normal 2% to 4%, 2% to 6%, depending on the individual years. The years that the localities

that keep a tight restriction on growth, we'll see double-dig digit increases, 10% plus. To the comment about this is the way we want it, that's the way you want it? That's cool. The question is, does every one of the 10,000 rooftops want that? And my evidence of saying I'm not so sure about that is how this stuff blew up. He's talking about assessments. That tells me

that's not everybody. But guess what's going to happen? Those voices are not going to get heard unless we have contested elections. Those voices that are upset about the assessments are look at the voter turnout. It's poultry. 100%.

The folks that are frustrated about assessments I've taken aren't showing up to vote. So I won't go into any specifics, but the several dozen, well, I'm talking about four dozen I've done so far, I've researched each one of them. You should ask them, did you vote? Every time you do a CMA

and someone's upset about the assessment, did you vote in the last board of supervisors, Fluvanna County election? And are you going to run? Would you be interested in running? And I would bet you the answer is no. They did not vote. Most. I mean, because it's over the top anti-growth.

Well, I think they just don't vote, period. No, the political sentiment in Fluvanna is over-the-top anti-growth. 100%. And that's okay. That's how this works, right? People elect people to sit there. This is the mandate. Not that we make this about national politics,

but the people that are very upset about the current national thing. Elections matter. Neil Williamson. 11 million people didn't show up to vote. This is what you got, right? And the only way to change it. You're saying the turnout for Biden had 11 million delta.

Short. Yeah. And it matters, right? Elections matter. This is what it is. I'm a Marine. I salute the flag. Adjust accordingly and move on.

But if you thought all these federal dollars are just going away now, two years ago, they were happening. They're just happening really fast. So anyway, my fellow folks in Flavena that want to keep Flavena the way it is, and there's nobody running against them, and the people that are sitting at the diocese wants that to be that way, then that's what we get. There is not a single contested election at this point in the central Virginia political footprint. I can't tell you how sad that makes me. There's not a single one. I was asked if I was going to run and I said no. Not a single

one. The reason I said no is I wouldn't be able to sit here and do this. Who would you run against? It would be Chris. I'm in his district. Chris has got a pretty good stranglehold on that district. Me deciding to run or not run has nothing to do with my relationship with Chris we have such a relationship that we will

debate these issues and have a cocktail right and hug each other tell each other we love each other because we do I won't run because if I'm elected I won't be able to sit behind this lectern and do this it would tie my hands. Well, you could.

You just have to be careful. It would really tie. You see Ned coming on the show. No, it's not that. It's the time commitment. Ah, okay. It's the time commitment. Okay.

You know, and so why do people don't run, right? That's a great question. Why do people don't run? That's a great question. Why do people don't run? From my perspective, the primary reason people don't run is the commitment it takes. Guys like Chris and Tony and Ned and all the ladies like Diantha and all these folks that sit behind those. Diantha not running. That's just a name that popped in my head. Or Ann Malick or whoever they may be. Or spending tens of hours a week.

20 to 40 hours a week on top of, to do it right, on top of their normal work day. That's why the people that run tend to be either semi-retired, retired. Self-employed. Or have the, well, I'm self-employed, but I sure as hell couldn't cut out another 20 to 40 hours to do that because it's not just sitting behind the people need to understand this it's just not sitting behind the bench at the oh that's prep no it's more than that a lot of reading and they have to sit on all these boards and commissions there's a half a dozen

of these boards and commissions they have to sit on that require reading, preparation to get into. So it's not just the county, you know, the board end of it. There's these half a dozen, you know, the jail, Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission, Regional Housing Park, these are the stuff that I'm on that I get to see these people on a regular basis. So I don't engage with the elected officials at the board level I engage them at all these commissions and boards that I happen to be on that we get to talk on a one-to-one basis and the amount of hours they have to put in is huge just ask any one of them they'll tell you they might be a little humble

about it but they'll tell you. So how does the mom and dad with a couple of kids... Can't do it. We've had this conversation before. If you pay them an actual salary... Yeah, but then you'd have career politicians.

I'm not sure I'm in favor of that either. I'm just saying they'd have to make... The most difficult question I'm going to ask you today. Oh, God, what am I doing this weekend? What do you have planned for Yonah Smith on Valentine's Day? Yeah, so... The fabulous Yonah Smith. Yeah, so...

I don't know how to say this without sounding really arrogant. He's basically going to say every day is Valentine's Day. I love on her every day. Yeah. And today's just... Today's just another day. Today's another day. Okay.

If Yona was sitting here or my children were sitting here, they would validate what I just said. But I'm about ready to say. For 40... Even when we were flat broke, for 40 years, I always had fresh cut flowers in the house every week i buy

fresh cut flowers i will not buy flowers on valentine's day so you know more for her birthday but every weekend i go out and pick up fresh cut flowers where do you get them the food line believe it or not did you know i was a florist did i I ever tell you that story? No, you never told me. Where do you get the fresh cut flowers? I get them from Food Lion. From Food Lion. All the years we've known each other. When I was in high school, I worked in a florist. Which is a really great thing to do to meet girls.

Okay. Yeah, so I know the difference between a good rose and a bad rose. And Food Lion, yeah, i get roses and flowers that last one to two weeks out of food line is that the only florist in fluvanna oh the only place to buy flowers in fluvanna the food line i don't know i don't know i go my family thing is um i my i go food shopping on sund mornings at 7. It's my quiet little time. I sneak out. I go food shopping.

Nobody's there. The deli people know me. They slice my cold cuts right. These are New Yorker important things. I bring home flowers every Sunday. He's a good man, Keith Smith. He's the star of Real Talk with Keith Smith. Online at realtalkwithkeithsmith.com. There's not a single day that goes by that I'm not extremely thankful that that woman's in the house. I love that. And I know that.

And he is speaking genuinely from the heart. Next week on Real Talk with Keith Smith, he's got two insurance experts. I got one for sure. Second hasn't committed yet. So I may end up bringing a mortgage person in which would be a great combination conversation. Big time. I'm working on that because

all this is great. People are not anticipating the impact. Hold on. You ready? It's going to be huge. It's going to be huge. Huge. It's going to be huge. Anyway, it's going to be huge. Next Friday at 10.15 a.m. Real Talk with Keith Smith. The show is archived. You'll like that. Archived online at realtalkwithkeithsmith.com. It's going to be huge. Next Friday at 10.15 a.m., Real Talk with Keith Smith. The show is archived.

Judah liked that. Archived online at realtalkwithkeithsmith.com. It was the New York guy. Click the Partners tab, and you'll see the best of the business. If I can get Judah to smile at one show, then I made the show. 100%. The I Love Seville Show, guys, is up at 12.30 p.m., and we've got a doozy. Thank you kindly for joining us.

So long, everybody. Thank you kindly for joining us. So long, everybody. Thank you.