The I Love CVille Show With Jerry Miller! - Keith Smith, Scott Morris & Jerry Miller Were On "Real Talk With Keith Smith!"

Episode Date: January 16, 2026

Keith Smith of YES Realty Partners, Scott Morris, Branch Manager at Envoy Mortgage, and Jerry Miller were on “Real Talk With Keith Smith” powered by YES Realty Partners and Yonna Smith! “Real Talk” airs every Friday from 10:15 am – 11 am on The I Love CVille Network! “Real Talk With Keith Smith” is presented by El Mariachi Mexican Bar & Grill, Fincham & Associates, Inc., Free Enterprise Forum, Intrastate Service Co, Mejicali and YES Realty Partners.

Good Friday morning, guys. My name is Jerry Miller, and thank you kindly for joining us on Real Talk with Keith and Keith. It's an absolute pleasure to connect with you guys through the I Love Seville Network on a show presented by Yes, Realty Partners. Yes, Relity Partners, a boutique brokerage led by Keith and Yona Smith has been in this game we call real estate since 1987. They have personally, Keith and Yona Smith and YRP, helped our family buy and sell a number of homes and a handful of transactions. Very positive things to say about the experience of working alongside YRP and yes, reality partners. Judah Wickhauer is behind the camera. Keith Smith and special guest Scott Morris are in the house.

Scott Morris is a mortgage broker that is a household name in this market. And a lot of developments have happened in Scott Morris's professional life since he has last been on Real Talk with Keith Smith, including a new, company he is partner with. Judah Wickcar, studio camera, then three shot Keith Smith. Good morning. Scott Morris, good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning, gentlemen.

And if somebody can turn the temperature up outside, this old body would appreciate it. 17 degrees this morning in I be. Walken max, the German Shepherd was no fun. Yeah, when you reach a certain age and you have a certain volume of fractured bones in your body, when it gets below freezing, your fingers don't move, your toes don't move.

You'll find out when you get there, you guys. I mean, they see this whole ice bath thing is supposed to be good for you, just walk out and absorb it. There you go. So tell us what's going on in your life, man. This is a big move, and where Envoy can help folks out a little bit better than in the past. And again, a shout out to you for helping the Smith family because we were up against the wall and you made it happen.

So thank you, man. Thanks, man. Yeah, so just a lot of similarities as far as we've, you know, we're still going to be, you know, three weeks or less on a quick close, you know, as fast as 10 days in a lot of situations. We underwrite our non-QM product or the majority of it. That means, like, if we're talking bank statement loans, DSCR loans, I-10 loans, we're going to underwrite those in-house.

So I've got more control of that process, which makes for some faster turn times and for an ease and underwriting. It's just a better all situation for partners across the board. Along with that, like I was mentioning earlier, I've got a friend. We're looking at a fix-and-flip product for three properties that we'll control and can turn those around pretty quickly. That's where he's going to go in, borrow the money, fix the house, and then immediately sell the house within the first 180 days. days. Outside of that, a lot of this is standard, but they've got a great process, along with our team's great processes, really give us a lot of advantage for somebody who's looking to move quickly, whether that be contract time or literally move quickly like, hey, we're

here, we're ready, let's go, and then getting them from pre-approval through contract to clear to close and a fast amount of time that everybody can rely on. So I can testify, you know, you're working with a couple of our clients, very complicated transactions, and you're engaged, you and your team and Tover in particular are engaged with them. Tova's amazing. Tova's amazing.

That's who really makes it all happen. Well, we know that. I'm just trying to be kind. You're sitting here with me, but Tova kind of does everything. You just sit around and flash that beautiful smile. Me people. Scott Morris Moves Mountains. He's a problem solver.

So where is the interest rates today? Right around 6%, give or take. So if we have a... Is the interest rate different in the jumbo environment than a non-jumbo environment? Yes. So you're in the fives for a lot of jumbo paper. Certain situations are going to dictate that as well. But there's a lot of best-case scenarios that are in the...

the five with no discount points right now, depending upon, you know, the exact circumstances. Like, there's a lot of VA that, you know, it's all advertised at 5.375, but that's paying around 3% in discount points depending on how it's advertised. But it's still there. We're added below 6%, give or take, any given day lately. For those that are watching that may not be in our world, discount points, or you buy it? 1% of the purchase price, or the loan amount in this case. loan amount, yeah. And if you

pay these discount points, therefore you discount your rate? Essentially, yes. And what matters? Credit score, right? You've got to be... Credit, debt to income, more so, DTI can matter, loan to value, meaning if you're borrowing all the money,

you may not get the same terms as somebody who's say putting 70% or 30% down and has a 70% LTV. All right, so I got magically there, we're bounced bouncing with a five handle, what happens to the market? So that's interesting.

It's really, you know, like everything, let's go location, location, location. So regionally it matters. In an area like where we are, we're going to continue to face some adversity from an inventory standpoint. And I say that as we have an equal amount for the first. time of people above 6% as below 3%. Wow. So we're at 22.2% of people with a 6% or higher mortgage,

and 22.1% of people have a mortgage of 3% or less. So we've kind of hit this middle ground, which is great, and you could suggest that we'd be moving into a buyer's market. We're also in an area now, finally, where it's going to be a great year for fixed income. The bond market is, primed with what we see in the administration and what we see pending in the job market for continued gains this year means lower yields higher bond values as we had through the year so do we see rates in the mid to upper fives by September

or October heading into say a midterm election cycle I think that's probably the case a lot of that's going to happen post-Juron Powell. And I don't think that's really that it is somewhat politically influenced, but I also don't know that it stays this way as we go into next year. But I do think third quarter of this year, we're between late spring and early fall, we're going to have a really great rate environment for a lot of people. But that's not to say, wait, because if you are a buyer and rates do considerably come down, And we're in an area where we're not building more houses. So I'm later in the show, and I'll jump into it.

I actually did some math in Green County where new construction is actually impacting the market. But I wanted to pick that apart for a little bit. You know, I think you're right. I think you're going to see, you know, rates fluctuate. Some folks at the National Levin saying the magic number is 5.8, right? We hit 5.8. Flood gates open. and my comment is this floodgates open, great,

but what are they going to buy, right, if we don't have an inventory change? But I think you're going to see the rates bounce, right? I think it's more of a psychological thing. I think... It's absolutely psychological, but I think there's also a huge number of later, older Americans who...

Hey, watch it. Who have a home that is paid to a certain balance, and they can't get out of it and get into something comparable or even downsize at a reasonable, at a reasonable cost, I think you see a spike in reverse mortgage activity. And so that traps that inventory as well. We can get into that if you want.

The Tom Selleck pitch, the reverse mortgage. I mean, it's, you've seen 40% increases in value for people who've probably spent a lifetime in paying down their house but don't have a 401k to lean back into. Christopher Ketchum, hello. Conan Owen, hello. Dave Alley, the realtor, hello. Matt Nees, hello. Aaron Moody, the custom home builder, hello. Cully Baggett, the developer and builder, hello and welcome to the program.

Viewers and listeners, Jay Wyant, the gentleman farmer, the titan of Troy watching the program right now. Keith Smith, you have something, but I got stuff on the feed for Scott. Yeah, so I just quickly pick apart the importance of why we hit this 6% mark, this ratio that we have, which if we had this conversation a year ago or two years ago, you would have heard 80% of the loans or 60% of the loans. 3%. So that's telling me this market is moving, right? And there's folks selling that have 3% mortgages and buying it. But what impact does that have on the market, you think? The evening in, so it just shows that people have, in large part, not just been waiting for rates to come down before taking action, because a lot of people don't have the option. You know, their, you know,

death, divorce, jobs, they're the things that drive a lot of our activity has continued. to push people to make life-changing decisions. What's the five Ds, Jerry? Death, divorce, diapers, diamonds. I always forget the hell of it. Downsizing. It sounds a lot better if you start with diamonds, not death, just saying. Diamonds?

Okay, so what is it? Diamonds, diapers. There you go. What was it, Scott? Downsizing. That's divorce. A divorce, yeah, because of the kids. divorce

and then my kid gave me a black eye I have a black eye so if we do this again just remember death lasts just so we don't

we don't start with the negative we kind of end with the negative but that's the reason why and if you take a look at the data

that NAR put out something like 80% of the folks that are and I can't remember an exact number that are moving is because of family

and friends and for different different locations but I I think if we start seeing a high 5-point-something, and it's bouncing between a high. 5-5-something and maybe just... Well, he's saying we're there now.

I agree. And I think if you look at nationally, isn't mortgage applications up? Mortgage applications are up. Like 30% of some big number, right? December was the highest increase in new purchase activity in like two years. Yeah, there's actually. activity, but in places where you see more inventory and better value, you see even more activity.

And I think, and that's not to say that, you know, we're not going to see an influx. I'm just saying that values are going to, I'm saying if you are a buyer and you could buy right now, as opposed to three months from now where the rate might be half a percent lower, we're going to get back into some capacity of value of multiple offer situations, which are already out there and continued competition. Yes. The five is an emotional thing, right? I think people are just going to go out and bite toilet paper.

I think 5-5 is an emotional thing. I think there's seeing a lot of 5-9-99-apportized. We'll have to bet on something. I think if you're seeing a consistent five in it, I think you're going to see the emotional pendulum swing a little bit, and I think you're going to start seeing people jumping in the market one way other. We'll see. Maybe we'll have to bet a bottle of water on it or something on it. But you've got some stuff over there.

This is coming in from Crozet. Can he explain buying points? Yeah. So when you're quoted a rate and the rate is par or no cost on any lender's rate sheet, depending on what their margins are, they're all going to be very similar. And then generally as a rule, roughly 1% in loan amount, is the equivalent to approximately a quarter point in rate. So you could spend 3% of your purchase of your loan amount and lower your mortgage rate by 0.75% approximately.

That is not always consistent, but it's generally kind of a rule of thumb. I'll throw this as a follow up. My question, the expectation is we're in a declining rate environment. In a declining rate environment, why buy points? That's a great thing. Exactly. Why would you pay discount points if you think that you're going to refinance the loan next year? And one of the easy ways to work that out is you take the difference in the payment between the par rate and the cost of buying down,

and you divide that $50 into the amount $500, and it gives you 10 months. That's just an example. He's basically saying the breaking-in point is 10 months. That tells you how many months it's going to take you to get there. Yeah. So you've got my wheels turning on this reverse mortgage. I don't know if we want to take a deep dive into it, but I've got some specific opinions on it. Why do you think you're going to start seeing more of that?

Because I think there is an increased number of Americans who don't have retirement in place outside of Social Security. who have home values that are greatly increased over the last seven years, and it gives them a way out without having to exit their home or rely on a family member who doesn't want them there. So what that doesn't do is help increase inventory, and it doesn't help on the sales side. But what it does is you're projecting to see a lot of that to help people stay in their houses. I see an increase.

I think there's an increase amount of it. Do you think it's a good thing or event? depends on each individual situation. I think it's a survival mechanism. He's saying the boomer does not have the disposable income to cover daily bills, but is sitting on stacks of equity. They tap into the equity to cover their bills. That's what he's saying.

I know because I deal with this on a regular basis where people that have done that. That's Darwinism. And now they're on the back end, X number 10 years into it or five years into it, and have to go, unfortunately, to a facility. You know, they have to, you know, their life is now changed and they have to move. They haven't maintained the house. They haven't taken care of the house. And you might want to explain the hazards of that and what actually happens to the value of the home

because all of a sudden now we have a $600,000 home 10 years from now that has a loan on it now for 1.2. Right? You have to kind of explain the downside. Again, well, the downside. Depends on the individual's situation. Of course. Their health, what their financial status was when they got involved in it. I'm not saying it's for everybody.

I just said you're going to see more of it. Yeah, I agree. But I just want to add a little bit of caution for those that want to jump into it. Because Tom Selleck has this great mustache. Hey, my motto was like my personality. Everything's not for everybody. Scott, I've missed you. Jesus, I missed you.

Jamie Turner is watching the program. I will not jump in on that. Jamie Turner is also Ms. Scott Morris, the man who reps the pep and call pepper. So glad to see my boy Scott Morris back on the show. Let's go. Ricardo Cruz-Gurand, giving Scott Morris some props as well. So if you're looking at reverse mortgages,

here's the deal. Reach out to Scott and make sure you understand what it is to your individual circumstances. Make sure you also reach out to your CPA and your attorney. That's part of the, okay, that's part of what you're saying. So I've got somebody who, last fall, we were like, we can do this for you, we do not want to do this for you.

But a lot of the people who are in this situation, they don't have a CPA and they don't have a financial planner. That's why they're in the position. 110%. Okay, how about this question for Scott then? Instead of the reverse mortgage, why not a refinance or a he lock instead? because they don't they don't income qualified to repay that money it's about it's about getting them a payment plan in addition to what other benefits they are already collecting based on the equitable amount of value in the home

what they expect in the longevity and quality of their life and how their family supports them in the process as that goes forward and i'm dealing with one right now that there was a passing the is the children who's got the estate of it, is trying to sell a home that is a couple of $300,000 more on the debt than the home is worth. So we're now back in a kind of a weird short sale scenario because we're now negotiating with the reverse mortgage company because they're not gonna get their money.

So it just becomes this, you just carefully reach out a trusted advisor and talk through. In certain cases, it's a freaking awesome, Certain cases, not so much. Sarah Williams watching the program. Sarah Williams says, Scott Morris, thank you for all your help. She's watching the show. Viewers and listeners, realtors, anybody in the game,

if you have questions, put them in the feed, we will relay them live on air. This question's come in the feed locally from Charlottesville. So you guys are saying that we're not going to expect more inventory in the market come spring? I'm saying we're going to see, you'll see more inventory. There's, but we'll, we'll see. also see, I love Charlottesville. Let me not say anything that anybody can get upset about.

But the traffic difference in five years, like if you were to ask me what my feelings are about that, they're not good feelings. So define what you mean by traffic. Traffic. Traffic. No, vehicle traffic. Drive your- I'm the same way, dude. But up 29 at lunchtime trying to get some, it's crazy. It's crazy. If I don't go north of Barracks Road anymore, literally. What I'm saying is there are more people, more human beings. and with more human beings, even if we get more inventory, and we get lower rates, you're going to see more competition.

That's all I'm saying. We haven't even seen AstraZeneca's impact. Yeah. $4.5 billion, $600 employees coming in the next 24 to 30 months at an average individual wage of $125,000. So you know traffic is getting a big challenging when people have a funny accent like me

that move here or start complaining about it. They either been here too long and forgot about the traffic back. in New York or it's starting to get a little bit better. That 29 bypass idea from 60 years ago. Sure sounds good now. Yeah. Yeah.

You think? 100%. That was weird how that all of a sudden ended in like minutes. The difference is, however, Keith, like we didn't, you know, we understand traffic is big in Manhattan. My wife spent 10 years in Upper East Side as a Long Islander. You didn't get in the car. You just hop in a subway.

Well, you didn't move. You don't move here for that. If you want to deal with that, you just go to Northern Virginia. But the reality of it is, people are coming. People will continue to come. The 5.8 will increase inventory, but it's not going to increase inventory enough to make a difference. If there's lateral moves, right?

So if somebody is living on one end of Charleston wants to move to the other end of Charlestville and they've been waiting for this rate to happen, well, that's not helping inventory because it's a balance one for one. Now, if the person that wants to move out, is moving out and going down to wherever outside of the state, then that kind of gains inventory. The only real way inventory is going to make a difference, and we have the whole traffic infrastructure conversation,

is just to increase supply, right? It's that simple. It's a supply and demand thing. The 5.8 will increase prices. The 5.8 or 5.8 whatever will increase demand. We will never go back to the unicorn. I don't think. We won't go back to the unicorn years with multiple offers and crazies.

You buy that, Keith? You buy that, Scott? I mean, the right property already creates that environment right now. Now. But it's not as insane as it's not as insane. Because you've got, I think, a lot of traumatized buyers out there over the last couple years who've said, who were willing to say no. We went through like this weird psychological period when rates were so low that people would, they four, they didn't, whatever big problems, I don't, I'm not worried about problems. If it had four walls, a roof and it was barely standing, it was good to go.

But you're now starting seeing normal tempo flow in the marketplace, in my opinion. You know, you don't see that many transactions without home inspections, at least in our world. You know, so, you know, you're seeing this normal tempo. You're not seeing this insanity where people just did silly things. By the way, the people that are doing it now that are trying to sell it, kind of regretting they move that way. You know, I've got one right now. We're trying to sell that they closed on it, never did a home inspection.

And now we've got issues in the house that they've never addressed, that we're going to have to address, even in a multiple offer situation. You've seen a lot of home inspections back? We went through a phase where we did, or people releasing over them. We're seeing less, I'm seeing less release over the home inspection. They're still having the home inspections.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's the point I'm trying to make. There was a while people were just jumping out for any reason. We're seeing more offers come through with concessions. We're seeing a subtle shift to a more buyer-friendly market. And higher rates for a longer term have been part of what's been able to create that. And I think in order for the market to really normalize that this is, you know, it's healthy medicine. So for the non-real estate folks that are watching, describe what a concession is.

That means John found something. thing on Joe's house that he's buying that he didn't like, and they were able to negotiate a cost back to the buyer from the seller, from something found in the home inspection, or Joe's house had been on the market for so long that he was willing to accept John's offer and help assist in paying his closing cost in order to get the home off of the market, i.e., we have a $400,000 house, and John is selling. Joe needs $15,000. Closing costs.

Closing costs. So rather than taking a reduction that's advertised, he goes ahead and say, hey, I'll sell at the $400, I'll net $385 and give you $15,000. And we're starting to see a little bit of that. A little bit of word of caution. What's the maximum percentage typically people? It depends on the, so if it's a conventional loan, 3% unless they're putting more money down, then that can go up.

On a VA loan, it's 4% in air quotes because we can be pretty creative with that, and FHA is 6%. So that means if we're doing a conventional, the maximum amount that you can work with is 3%. 3%. That's correct. Unless they're putting 20% down, then you can go higher. Brittany Gray watching the program. She says, I don't want to go back to a market with no inspections. That was a terrifying time.

She's a realtor. Thank you, Brittany Gray, for watching the program. I couldn't agree more. This comments come in the feed for Scott and Keith. You guys have talked about how some buyers utilize all cash to purchase, but before closing, they use a financing vehicle with somebody like Scott. Is that still happening? And can you offer more insight?

It happens occasionally. Somebody who is capable of paying the cash. The main thing is that, one, it gets closed on time because at the end of the day, if there's no appraisal, if we get a PIW, an appraisal waiver, the sellers may never even really know until there's an addendum near the end. But occasionally, if an appraisal is involved, then you have a listing agent who questions why we're doing this as opposed to doing that. And the client's already shown that they're going to pay the cash if they can't get the finance situation taken care of in time. but it does occasionally happen. A little word of caution, you know, on the contract side of things, yes, you can do that.

You can do a cash contract and you can convert over to a loan product to close at the end. You cannot change the basic terms of the contract. Why not do it after closing? So because then you're cashing out, the rate's going to be different. If you used any money that's not your own, you've got delayed finance terms that you've got to meet so you could have to wait potentially a year before you could get the money back out. Like if you took your mom's money and did it as opposed to using your own, you couldn't then cash out and pay her back.

You'd have to wait a year to get that money back. You could immediately cash out if it is your own money, but you're still getting less. The terms aren't as good as opposed to using purchase money. And just a little caution, right? You can't change, like I was trying to get it, you can't change the terms, right? So if all of a sudden, you know, you can't qualify for a loan, you're still committed to do this because in a cash transaction in the very beginning of it, you've got to do proof of funds. You've got to say, I've got this amount of money.

So some people do it. It becomes a great tool to secure the right piece of property. Usually these are well-heeled folks that are able to go ahead and pivot out and make it happen pretty quickly. What about an African print sent me an email, and they said that they would pay for it all if I wired him $10,000? Yeah, the African print sent me the same email that he would send me $135,000 if I wired him by the end of the day, $5,000. So you guys, like, opened up those emails? I like delete, delete, delete. What I usually like to do is correspond with them and keep them online as much as possible.

But then I'm like, am I just wasting their time, or is it an AI bot on the other? other side of the seat. I tell you what, you have no idea how good the AI is right now. It's insane. So I had a call. I've got a VA loan on a property and I get a call and I picked up it was AI immediately, but I didn't realize how good it was until I started asking it questions specifically about the loan. And then I, you know, hey, what time is it? actually I'm in California. Oh, actually I'm in Houston, Texas. Well, what if I didn't want to do the loan like this?

I wanted to do the loan like that. And I got responsive answers every time that then it was trying to move me to a licensed human to qualify and talk to. But if it is as good as it is now, I mean, it's going to be burning somebody's grandma up in another six months. It's good. I think he's alluding to this, what it's going to do to the job market. That's the terrifying proposition. Specific jobs. I use the heck out of AI, but I just use it as a tool to help me do things faster than what I normally.

Well, now all your emails are grammatically correct and have punctuation and there's no spelling errors. I'm like, oh my God, Keith. This is absolutely amazing. What happened here? Huh? I actually missed the previous e-mail style. to be right because it was endearing my friend. Okay, well, so

I'm trying to sound a little smarter, that's all. So it's yeah, yeah, I'm trying to get better, trying to get smarter. It's helping me get a little bit smarter. Some people will debate about that. How about this question for Scott and the panel? What are the pockets

that the panel is still seeing that are red hot, and which are the pockets that have cooled? I mean, geographical territories and price points, Scott. So I think it's geographically it is has less to do with a town and more to do with are we is is it a flawless property if it is a flawless property that is priced correctly it's gone if it is not a flawless property that is not priced correctly or if it is a flawless property that's not price correctly or if it is a

flawless property that's not price correctly, you're going to see more days on market. So I've been saying this, so I think I mumble it in my sleep, right location, right price, right features, right condition, right timing. And I add a sixth one a year or so ago, right folks on the other side, right, team, right? But if it doesn't hit those two middle ones,

features and conditions, people are not, you've seen some of it, but not that much, they're just turned around and walking out. I sold something recently. You smiled. That means I'm doing something right. A friend of mine said, he's like, but you gave it away. I said, I got more than I asked for it and it's gone.

What do you mean? I accomplished the goal. The goal wasn't to let it sit for 180 days. Well, if it sits for 100 days, what does it do? Cost you money. Yeah, and you're going to end up reducing down. And then stress for everybody, like, do it right. And you did well.

Yeah. There you go. The kidnacks for more than that. So a little programming heads up. Both my sets of hearing aids are gone. So I'm reading lips. They're doing a great job, Keith. I wouldn't even guess.

No, seriously. Genius, which would be me, on the flight down left my very expensive high-end VA hearing aids in the backseat of the thing. So if you ever fly international, They tell you the moment you walk off, you can't go back on. And so, and then my backup hearing aids thought, so I'm reading lips.

So if I step on somebody, I behave. I saw it. Where are the new, when are the new hearing aids coming in? You're going to have to put up with this for about another month or two. Okay. So let's, let's, can I answer that question a little bit? Yeah. Because I want to do a little green county analysis and just a quick little.

little green county analysis on the impact of new construction on the on the market so 204 there was a total of 205 sales 2025 there was a total of 315 so that's a 53% increase all of that matter of fact there was actually a decrease in existing homes 24 to 25 of roughly 8% and while there was an increase in new construction of almost 500% But what has happened is the price is somewhat stabilized. So what has happened is new construction has caused Green County's tempo to pick up, caused its market to pick up. It's not really helping the existing sales, frankly, right?

And, you know, look at Green County as a new subdivision, right? When you're moving into a new subdivision and you're the first house built, right, and you want to sell two years out and the development hasn't built out, You're competing against new construction, right? But that's a huge jump, and you're going to see probably at least in the next two years, I would project about another 1,500 easy new sales coming out of Green County. So Green County is the one you want to watch. The prices are increasing, but not at this huge double-digit number,

very modest, increasing as I think the market should do. But the volume and the tempo is extremely, extremely hot. Catherine DeSuzio watching the program. She's a realtor. We appreciate her. Writer Kenerson. Ms. Plecker watching the program right now. Tied a YRP Associates Better Half.

Yeah, yeah. We had a shout-out. Thank you. We took the whole... Tabitha is the best. We took the whole crew out for dinner last night at Tavola, so I had a lot of fun. This is an interesting one that's come in. Scott, do you see a rate environment in?

in the 4% range? You'll see if we get, you'll see advertised rates in the fours with discount points in the summer assuming that we get that half a percent below where we are right now. So do I see like that at your average rate being at that? No, I don't see that in the future. And in fact, I think next year we could potentially be back in us, you know, where we are.

I think the opportunity for, I think we see a declining bond market, but depending on how hot the economy ends up running to get us there, there could be a little bounce back at some point. But there's ups and downs. Nothing's permanent, as we found out when we're at 3%. But I don't see us getting steadily into the fours this year. Here's a question for me. How do you feel the economy is doing now? I mean, it depends on who you are. I think that we faced an insane amount of inflation that has tamed, but we're still 20% higher than we were five years ago, and that's not normal, along with kind of flattening in wages and job growth nationally.

Like the quits rate is way down, the higher rate is way down. There's a lot of different reasons for that. But ultimately, you know, we are in an insulated area dependent upon who you are and what it is you do. I think there's still a lot of people that are really struggling, and I think there are a lot of people who are doing better than they have been. You see the gap getting wider? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. It's interesting.

I was just crunching some numbers. there was an almost 8% increase 24 versus 25 in the city of Charlottesville of homes over a million bucks. So there was an 8% increase, which is percentage wise is an okay number. Unit wise, it's not a big number,

but in such a small volume sales, it was very interesting that in the city of Charlottesville, million dollar plus homes in 2025 were something more important. Seven years ago. the place, the little, the White House, not the little, it's not that little, but the big White House had been renovated just above Spudnuts in Belmont. It was the first one to go over a million at like 1.1, seven years ago. And since then, like, forget about it.

Like, lights out. Yeah, so it's just, it's just interesting. Seven years ago, a million dollars is probably the entree to luxury. And we had a million dollars is, what's a million dollars now, Scott? How do you characterize that? It's called Almore County. So, you know, baby Fairfax here is, it's... Baby Fairfax, I'm going to use that one, too.

It's getting you an above-average home that is not a luxury home, because a luxury home is 1.2 and above at this point. So that was the question I was going to ask you. Where does that number start? I think that might even be a million five. I don't know. But if I were to just pull a number out of thin air, I would say. I mean, when you got, what is that the development on 29th, North Point,

on the right right there. That's on the 8th and you can light your neighbor's cigarette out the window. That's crazy to me. Yeah. Old Trail, Million 2, and you're lighting your neighbor's cigarette out the window. And you're on a post stamp.

And I'm not throwing shade, but it is what it is. It is what it is. But 1.5, I think, is probably closer to the today's number, which is rather a sign. And that's the intro to luxury. That's a house that's so going to need some work. But the overall volume of that business is, you know, not that large.

It's large. There's no momentum in that category. I understand that, but when you take a look at 4,000 transactions or 3,000 transactions in a year, you know, that's not three quarters of the transactions. It's a smaller number. It's more impactful. I talk to plenty of those people who are buying those homes.

And here's why when I talk about the disparity, I can pay cash, but I don't want to. Yeah. There you go. Well, yeah, because you get better return on your money. The guy buying the $300,000 house as their primary resident doesn't come up to me and say, I can pay cash and I don't want to. That's how wide the gap is. Yeah.

Well, I mean, because if you take, let's say you're at a million three purchase, you put $3.25 down so your debt is $975. That $9.75 is serviced at six and a half points. I can take that money and make a hell of a lot more than six and a half on an index fund without even talking to a financial advisor. 100%. And this index funds, people at that level, they know the sixth to put them in. But we go back to police, fire, nurse, teachers inside of the community who are continuing in that, you know, that 80,000 to 120,000, 160,000 dual income household money, trying to buy an entry level $400,000 house. They don't, you know, the pain point there, that's the disparity in the tuition. Yeah. what I'm talking.

And, you know, that's, as everybody knows, I spend a ton of time trying to work on housing affordability and a lot of time. It's a lot of time. Yeah, you know. You're going to build 10 houses for 2,000 people that need them. And I'm not saying that it's not a noble thing. I'm just, you know, that. Yeah, well, I'm a little broader, but we put 60 in the ground. So, but, but you're right.

You're right. You know, you're right, really. It needs to be 600. not 60 but they're going to do that album or county i didn't get a chance to do the percentage last year there was a total of 1,388 transactions 2025 442 or cash 796 so i don't know what the percentage difference between 442 and 138 somebody who's smarter than me can figure that out but that's a pretty high percentage it's probably close to 30 i would think how about uh this one you don't have to touch on this one if you don't want to

This is on the feed here. What's Scott's thoughts on what Trump is doing to Pout? I think it's not the right move. I think he's, everyone will be, lesson learned. I think there's, you know, take some shots. You get a good result. Sometimes you take some shots and you don't. And right now they're realizing that that's maybe not the best way to go about this.

Kind of looks like two guys in the sandbox. You don't want to, Keith doesn't want to touch it. In my standpoint, should be independent. It can't look. There's a lot of things and I was just talking to somebody about that this morning. You cannot employ your guy to have the power to do certain things and then not have the cognitive ability to realize that when the other team gets to do it, you're not going to like what they do. Neither one of them should get to do certain things. Gary Palmer, welcome to the show. 100%, 100%. 100%. It's called Overreach. saw that with Yonkin with the Board of Visitors

and now Spanberger is going to do that to the Board of Visitors. 32%. 32% Almar County. That's his segue right there, Scott, to get a segue from that. That's what that went. 32% of sales in Almar County were cash sales,

2025. Just to pick a number. Do you see that number going up or down? Oh, I don't even pivot to something else. No. But, uh, I would think it would go, that number would decrease its rates drop.

I think so. I think what, you know, to Scott's point, people that are writing these checks, right, these cash checks, you know, have the ability to determine, look, if I'm doing a 5.8% and I'm making 10% or 12% here, why do I do that? I'll just go ahead and make the 12%. And if I ever want to buy it off,

I pull it off and go do that. They're just using money as a tool. The real struggle is the people that don't have the ability to do that. The real struggle is the conversation we had about reverse mortgage, but scares the shit out of me, excuse me. Scares the hell out of me, to be honest with you. Because I can see if a lot of people start doing that, that could be a little bit of an issue down the road when they have to go ahead and sell.

And they're loan now because that's what happens. You take a loan out on your property. and they're paying it. And your loan now is worth more than what... Is that a short sale? Didn't we have a little hiccup that happened at one point in time? I think it was 2007. That we had people that had more paper on their house

than the house was worth. And the strict thing about that is, that's not what the market is going to determine. And it increases very rapidly. If you take a look at a reverse mortgage's amateurization schedule, do yourself a favor, Google that or chat GPT it and put a number in there. It accelerates very rapidly.

This is an interesting one that's come on the feed. Scott, welcome back to the show. Does he have a take on if the new zoning ordinance has done anything to real estate or the market at all? When did it go into effect? It's what went into effect in the last 60 days, officially, the NCO? Yeah, they just rebooted the old one. So it's the same one. The lawsuit was dropped in the last six.

My point was it spent 60 days. Yeah, nothing, yeah. So you're saying not a number. enough time. And it's been more than 60 days because it's the same one. They just took a pause and all that stuff. And it's what we we talked about in the very beginning. It's just not going to be a marketing. But it's the reason I threw this out. But what happened is 8% in 2025 million of more million dollars homes were sold. Nothing at the lower level increased that kind of number. So have an advice to the realtors watching the program on generating business,

Scott. That's one of the things you like to offer consultation on. I mean, To your basics, I've talked to a lot of people in a lot of different areas, and everybody's consensus is that lead quality through all the paid lead sources is not what it used to be. You're talking like Sayazillo. So I'm not going to say that because I dislike them so much that I won't say their name. But of all of them, they have significantly become the worst. In part, because what they have done is they are now,

They've shifted the model, and a bunch of the people watching, they already know this, to where that if you are participating, then they want a percentage of those qualified leads qualified with their mortgage company internally that they also own. And then if they're not getting their pound of flesh, then they slow what U.S. of the paid agent, or depending on what kind of program are receiving. But aside from that, that's important because you have to do that

And you've got to pay a substantial amount a month. But in bulk, the quality of the leads has seeming to fade a little bit in the last 24 to 36 months significantly. So with that said, fundamentals. How are you marketing to your database, your sphere, all the things. Take the time to remember what you found success with in the beginning. it's your personality, it's who you are, it's how relational you are with people, and then go do that

10 times more than you're comfortable doing it and you'll find the success that you're looking for. Fundamentals matter, professionalism matter. I don't know, there's a bunch of people. I don't think that are that professional, but they're really relational and they do just fine. Okay.

Michael Guthrie, welcome to the broadcast. No, he's 100% right. I see it as well. He's 100% right. But we're talking about paid leads versus non-paid leads. And what you're starting to see is the quality of the leads go down. And the reason why the quality of the leads are going down last 12 to 24 months. And I've been saying this forever.

People are looking for trusted advisors. People are looking for people that I'm just telling you what I see on the street. I think it's because now there's a thousand different fishermen. There used to be 50 fishermen. And then you had a couple who fished out of really good pond over here. But then now that you, the more and more that's spread out and the more and more that AI is involved with this, trying to choose one of these companies that's not trying to net more internally for themselves and sell something that's quality outbound, it's just become more difficult.

I think the market for it is harder, even for them producing them. I think those fundamentals matter more as an individual. and how you conduct your business, then, like, through that lead flow. I think I'm trying to say the same thing. What's happening here is relationships matter. You know, we don't brag that often, but we had a 30% increase in 2025 versus 2024 in sales volume and netting all the way across the board, but some other folks didn't. And it was purely because we've always been connected relationshipally,

relationship-wise to our clients. And it just referrals work, man. You know, all this noise over here is great. And it may have worked well when things were flying off to handle. But I can tell you, people will search on these things, whatever name you want to use on it. And when they really come down to the point of wanting to do something and make the largest investment in their life, they want to talk to somebody. Face to face, voice to voice is going to matter going forward. these AI bots and all this kind of great stuff is a great tool,

and I use the hell out of them. But at the end of the day, somebody wants them their handheld and walk them through, for the most part. Most people, these are usually the single or the second largest transaction they've ever done in their life. And they don't do it very often,

and they want some personal care. So, you know, I never understood buying leads, never did it for 40 years, never will do it for 40 years. I never understood why I'm paying somebody else for something I can do myself. But anyway, that's my two cents on that. Scott Morris, it's been an absolute pleasure to have you on Real Talk here. Anything we haven't covered, some closing thoughts, some other items on your mind?

I mean, I'm getting ready to start coach pitch Little League. That's the big thing upcoming for me. This year, we've got our. team is really dialed in. We're happy to, you know, be doing what we do with all the partners that we do it for. That's clients and realtors and, you know, everybody involved. I'm just looking forward to a really great 2026. So one minute little sound bite. How do you predict the real estate market in 2026 in the car footprint, in the shawls, whatever, footprint? Do you have, how do you see it shaking out? Stronger than last year. Yeah, there you go.

not usually stronger or moderately stronger? I don't think there is moderately stronger. I don't think there's enough. Yeah. There's not enough inventory to support some great spike. And the mechanics for great spike don't exist. You'll see it in green. You'll start seeing these.

But it's better. I expect better. Yeah. So you expect better across the market. Well, specifically in this market. Yeah. Well, we will see. see the, you know, I agree with you. I think you're going to see a more tapered, moderated

market move forward. It's going to move up overall. Things are never as good as you expect them to be. They're never as bad as you expect them. 100%. I've been talking about this on the show for a while from a tempo perspective, right? This feels more like 2019, right? You know, the curve, right, of sales happening at this time of the year, that kind of thing. You're going to see that. You're to see that where some of the unicorn years it just was this rocket ship and everybody was kind of hanging on. So there is a tempo. There is a floater in the market and I think you're going to start seeing that materialize itself in 26, 27. I think you're going to see a nice, balanced calm market. As somebody who's been in the market, well, I like that, I prefer that over this insanity

up and down. I like insanity. Well, that's because of, you know. He thrives like chaos. Yeah, so thanks, buddy. Thanks for showing up. Keith Smith, yes, really partners, Scott Moore's team. If there's a lender that you need to reach out to, it's clearly Scott Moore's here. If there's a realtor that you need to reach out to, I've done it personally with our family. It's Keith Smith. Judah Wiccarver is behind the camera. He is looking distinguishing dapper.

Thank you, Judah Wiccarver, for keeping us online. It's a Real Talk with Keith Smith, and it's archived at realtalk with Keith Smith.com, a proven track record in business since 1987. Click the Partners tab, and you can see the trusted advisors that Keith has personally vetted in this game we call real estate. We've got an attorney coming next week, so we're going to talk a little attorney stuff, which I'm excited about. John Ralston on Friday.

And then got a new builder lined up for February. A little tease there. We'll talk later. Fantastic. Our broker juices Rawlston for a lot of closings. John Ralston is fantastic. Thank you kindly for joining us. So long, everybody.

commercial next week i'm looking forward to we're going to talk a lot of commercial stuff next week