The I Love CVille Show With Jerry Miller! - Tim Carson Joined Michael Guthrie And Jerry Miller Live On “Real Talk With Keith Smith!"

Episode Date: June 14, 2024

Tim Carson, Vice President & Associate Broker at Real Estate III, joined Michael Guthrie of Howard Hannah and Jerry Miller on “Real Talk With Keith Smith” powered by YES Realty Partners and Yonna Smith! “Real Talk” airs every Monday, 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, Pearl Certification and YES Realty Partners.

Good Friday morning, guys. My name is Jerry Miller, and thank you kindly for joining us on Real Talk with Keith Smith. An absolute pleasure to connect with you guys on a glorious and gorgeous Friday morning in downtown Charlottesville. The namesake of the talk show, Keith Smith, celebrating, I believe, his 39th wedding anniversary in St. Martin with the beautiful Yona Smith. They are back next week, but have no fear. Geniuses are here. Michael Guthrie and Tim Carson in the house. Judah Wittkower, if you can go to the studio camera,

we give props to Judah Wittkower at the beginning of the show. He keeps us online, the Elmer's glue of the network. Every team, we're diehard team sports fans. Tim Carson, his daughter, a lacrosse coach, he loves lacrosse. Michael Guthrie, sports fan across the board. Every team has a glue guy. Judah Wittkower is our glue guy at this network. Gentlemen, you're on the show. Michael and Tim, good Friday morning to you guys. Good morning. Good morning. Yeah, speaking of glue, shout out to Lauren Graff over at Carr. She taught a GRI class over there yesterday, an all-day GRI class, and she is

just phenomenal. I mean, you walk in and everything's ready. I like to have a laptop so I can see the people that are virtual, and I told her that the last time, and there was the basket turned upside down so I could put it up there and be at the right height. So shout out to Lauren and all the staff there over at Carr. They're a phenomenal group of people. Tim Carson has come prepared per usual. Gentlemen, I'm going to get out of your way. I'm just a pace setter today. You guys are the experts. Why don't we start with an open-end question? We'll start with Tim. Storylines, newsworthy topics that you have followed closely in 2024. You have a notebook chock full of noteworthy information. My friend, anywhere you want to go, I will adapt to you guys today.

Oh, wow. Well, let's go to a bar. Okay. Hey. Shot over there in the studio. Well, I think my year has been focused on, because I manage 150 rentals for investors and volunteer car and other things, is trying to dig through the city zoning and the guidelines and the benefits and also understanding it's just been a really difficult year, I think, for buyers, sellers, and realtors. And lenders.

And lenders. And title people. And, you know, so the consumers are sitting there going, wow, all these prices are high and all that, but it's incredibly difficult to maneuver through all of that. And so I think the rise in the rental rates is due to what we discussed in the past, but I don't know where you want me to go, but I do have a quick bit of information which is striking. Before you me to go, but I do have a quick bit of information, which is striking.

Before you go to that, because I think what I want to say will lead right into what you're going to do there, this is an open-ended show, and we're going to just see where it goes. But the one thing that Tim and I have in common at this particular point is we both serve on the Carr Foundation Board of Directors. Greg Slater is the chair, Vice Chair Tim. Really, really grateful to have Dave Norris as the executive director. Just incredible. We just got really lucky in that situation. But one of the reasons that I am so committed to the Carr Foundation, and again, segueing into what I think Tim's going to talk about,

is that we need to figure out how to find workforce, affordable housing for people that work here and want to live here because this zoning ordinance is in a place where, yeah, I was actually on Jay James' show this morning, which I'm on every other Friday, and we were talking about this very thing about the fact that, yeah, there are going to be units. There are going to be units that increased units, but are they going to be affordable? And Tim's in an interesting situation in regards to what he's going to talk about and the fact that he's on the CAR Foundation. He believes in the fact that we've got to have that, but he also has investors that are looking for a return on investment. And it's what I've been talking about, Jerry, I think the last time I was on the show, before the zoning ordinance was passed, what I was talking about is, yeah, it's going to bring in units, but is it going to bring affordability, right? And the only way that's going to happen, you know, we'll talk about it more, is to get people together who have a commitment to that.

Because what Tim wants to share is, you know, he's got investors who are really trying to understand the zoning order so they can get as many properties that will work on a piece of property and get a return on their investment. And unfortunately, affordable housing doesn't provide the same return on investment as a market rate property. So that's where you were going, right? It is. And also, I might say that, you know, I've been doing investment property sales for so long. And, you know, the investors, you know, I've been doing investment property sales for so long. And, you know, the investors in the market, I taught a classic car before called the four buckets of real estate investing. So, you know, you've got appreciation, equity, buildup through paying the loan down, and tax shelter, and income. And so different investors have different goals and objectives. Some of them

want the income. Some of them want the tax shelter. Some of them just want to have a solid investment they can drive by and they don't want to invest their money in the stock market and wonder where it is. And so I have, of the 150 units that I manage, I helped start this property management 10 years ago because there was a demand on my services and all these investors. I have 17 investors that own 150 units and five of them own about 100. And I sold all of those to them. Most of them are affordable. What quantifies affordability here? So I would say when I'm starting to do a property analysis or I'm looking at like what I'm going to ask for rent the baseline for me is to look at what HUD has for their federal FMR which is fair market rent pricing for section 8 and subsidized housing because if you know what that is you know you can rent that apartment for that because there's a demand and there's a waiting list you can put

it out there you can rent it so that's like the foundation. That's like the bottom number that you can get. And before I mention that, I would like to throw some kudos to Michael because I was on the board of directors at Carr for maybe off and on eight or ten years. I was a retread. And I was on it when Michael came down a long time ago. And I was like, oh, he's a northerner. I was born here. But my parents are from the north, so it was a funny joke. But it was an incredible board of directors, and the whole premise of that whole thing was I was in a meeting

when Jeff Gaffney, Carolyn Shears, Benton Downer brought in this idea of the Workforce Housing Fund, and they had some seed money, $13,000 that was donated from David Rockwell's widow to be used for the education of Realtors kids. And she decided that we could take that and put it into a workforce housing fund for teachers, policemen, firemen, and nurses, because at that point, the affordable cost of housing was so bad that the people we really need in our community couldn't live here. So we created that fund.

I actually made the motion because it made too much sense. that the people we really need in our community couldn't live here. So we created that fund. I actually made the motion because it made too much sense, and then we donated $45,000, I think, with that from CAR, started it, and then in a nutshell we did fundraising and things through CAR, and I think we raised about a half million dollars over time, loaned out about 50 or 60 58 I think loans to teachers policemen firemen nurses that were in the city then we loaned all that money out so over time the market changed up and down there became better financing options and so I think PHA was managing that. Was that right? Well, the problem was then we hit the 2009, 2011, 2012 timeframe where the interest rates went up.

People were, you know, we couldn't find people to use the money. So the money went dormant. Right. But we had it. And it was managed by Piedmont Housing, as we've talked about. And then in the last couple of years, the Carr Foundation has sort of reinvented themselves. And Piedmont Housing every year is giving a portion of that money back into that fund. And we're now in the process of figuring out how do we use that money effectively in the marketplace. Right. And then we also went back in and restructured those loans so that there was incentives to pay them off.

So we had the money available. So now we have money coming in. And so the foundation was an idea at Carr, and Michael is vice chair, and I'm on that board, and it's pretty incredible. We have some incredible people on that board, including Greg Slater and a builder and some other people. So it's very exciting because I think that can help create some seed money and some ideas. But I think the thing that we're talking about here is, you know, Tim putting his property management hat on, putting his realtor hat on for his investors, is in the process of a couple different projects because of the zoning ordinance,

getting those under, you know, contract and that kind of thing. But they're going to be market rate, right? They're not going to be in the seam of things, as you asked earlier. They're not going to be affordable. Sure. But at the same time, being on the foundation, our hope is what we're going to do is it's going to be something that realtors will go get behind. They'll continue to contribute to this so that we'll have this bank of money, if you will. But we also are in the process of collaborating with Piedmont, with Habitat for Humanity, with some

private investors who don't want to make a big return, but they want some return, but they really want to help. And if we can put that money together, a project like Tim can talk about right now, if we could buy that versus the investor buying it with the whole intent for it to be affordable, well, then that changes the game. You use the zoning ordinance for the right reason, right? But like off of Rose Hill Drive, Rugby Avenue, one of the builders won't mention their name because they know that people aren't happy with them, have bought a piece of property, and they're going to put a six-, eight-unit project in that neighborhood,

which is not what that neighborhood has been for however many years. And you can be on both ends of the equation on that one. But the point is that they can do it. The zoning now allows them to do it. They have every right to do it. But they're not going to be affordable. They're going to be at a market rate. But they're not going to be affordable. They're going to be, you know, at a market rate, and that's not going to solve the problem.

Maybe it solves, you know, some availability, similar to like out in Greene County right now. There are going to be 2,000 new roofs within the next five to seven years out just north of Albemarle County because of DIA, Engic, that new commercial project that's out there by the water tower. I never can remember the name of the project. I just always talk about it being by the water tower. But it's going to be like a mini short pump in Greene County. And so people are going to want to live there. But that's not going to change the affordability side of things.

There has to be a real initiative on people's part with everybody. And both things can be true, right? Because you can have the try to get affordable housing units and then you can get units. So if you get the units, that's going to help solve some of the problem for the demand. But both are true. I mean, this is America and people are here to- And today is Flag Day. Yeah, today is Flag Day.

Absolutely. So the problem is, because of the lack of housing, that's the issue with the affordability. And, you know, I think I mentioned this once before on the show. I attribute part of it back to 1980 when Albemarle County put into a division rights rule, it damaged my family's property because you have five division rights in your lifetime on parcels of land that were created before 1980, and they can only be five lots that are smaller than 21 acres, so minimum lot size, and that's a problem. Now, I also grew up on 200 acres in North Garden, and so I want the green space protected, but there's other ways to help with affordable housing.

So the rental market is driving a lot of it, too. So if you look at the Section 8 numbers, if you go back, let's just go back. This is good data here. Yeah. Now, this is pulled off the HUD site. Anybody can get it. But it's called fair market rent. And so if you pull the 2020 number, they rate them as an efficiency, a one-bedroom,

a two-bedroom, a three-bedroom, or four bedrooms. And so if somebody's in need of subsidized housing, they can apply and they can get approved based on their income and get a housing voucher. That housing voucher will pay for all or part of this. I have at least 16 of my units that I manage are affordable subsidized housing units. Some of them get all the money paid. Some of them pay, like I have one that $1,600 is the number, and the tenant pays $152 every month, and the government sends us the check. I have a colleague, and in a lot of ways a mentor, that swears by this model. Right.

He swears by it because it's government-backed rent. And I will tell you, after 35 years in real estate, I'm a big fan of this because it's become easier to qualify the individual as a good prospect, as a tenant. He said the same. Yeah. And also there's ways to qualify them that are fair, and the owner can win. So long story short is, so if you look at, like, the 2020 number, a one-bedroom in 2020 was paying $1,082.

Okay. Okay. 2024, it's $1,415. Okay. Unefficiency was $854. It's now $1,39 1392 that's 30 percent yeah the four bedroom is now paying 2608 dollars it was 1942 the three bedroom was 1573 it's now 2114 and the two bedroom was 1262 it is now 1678 and one of their statistics there was that in the last 12 months the fair market rent in Charlottesville MSA went up 19.77% in one year. So whether

there's a bunch of political distress or whatever you want to call it because I'm not as eloquent as this gentleman over here or you, it's just a fact in the market. And like in the last three weeks, I put on 16 rental units in the city, in Green and in Waynesboro from $1,150 on Shamrock to $3,200 in Earliesville. And I rented all of them in a few days. All of them. Yeah, I think the thing that's really interesting about this is that we forget, when everybody's talking about depreciation on home purchases and things like that, we forget that the same thing's happening with rentals, that the lack of inventory. Oftentimes in a down real estate market, rentals go up, and in a down rental market, the sales go up. In this situation, it's another part of the perfect storm where both of them are

struggling with the same thing. And then you start now, over the last, I don't know, couple weeks, maybe longer, you're now getting all this information in regards to insurance companies. Dropping people so that they don't have insurance or it's $400 more a month or whatever the case may be. And it's another place where people go, do I really want to buy? Am I smarter just to rent? But then again, you look at this and you buy and you've got a fixed rate on a two-bedroom at $1,400 or wherever it is on your mortgage, instead of

it going up 30% and you not having control of it, they just tell you it's going up. How do the HUD rates that you just highlighted compare to market value? Compare to market value tenant that is not associated with HUD. So, Sam, this is the other problem is that nothing is the same. And so it depends on the property itself and the condition and the other features of the property. Sure, of course. But obviously that's the problem. But that four-bedroom that you talked about here, what was the four-bedroom number?

It was $2,600. $2,600. So I'll give you an example. I have a house in Washington, a student rental. I'm getting $3,300, right? That's a big difference. It is. We're talking $8,400 a year.

Yeah. And so the big problem there is you also have, with the apartment turnovers and stuff like that, some of it depends on what the owner wants to do to fix it up and the condition, the quality and all that. So I'm getting old right i was met with a guy the other day look great john blair is calling you on linkedin a charlottesville treasure right oh thank you john is so great he's so supportive of things that i post on linkedin and stuff and i i'm really grateful but the point being is i met with this young guy the other day and he's doing all these really cool things on YouTube and social media and influencing and things like that. I said, I just wish I was 20 years younger because, you know, I'm not trying to whine here, but, you know, it's too late, you know,

from a standpoint of me building up this, you know, I'm doing my thing. And as you mentioned at the beginning of the show, you know, a lot of my social media is about my faith and about how my faith can make a difference or has made a difference in my life. But anyway, I was talking to this guy. I said, I wish I was, you know, 20 years younger because of the opportunity that is out there now to monetize, you know, being an influencer. Your brand. And that kind of thing, right?

Yeah. But the point of all this type of thing is, unfortunately, there's no end in sight in this situation. No. And for the same reason, I'm glad that I've gotten older because I don't know what the next five years look like as far as real estate and those kinds of things. But the point I was going to make is being older, I now am beginning to get Social Security payments, right? I'm now beginning to have to take distribution, right? And what I'm sharing here with, from Tim's standpoint, is to try to correct the misnomer that Section 8 is bad. You see people

say, we're not accepting Section 8. You are crazy not to consider Section 8, one, because of what the number is and that some people can pay above it, but more importantly, I can honestly tell you that the government that check comes, my Social Security check comes on the second Wednesday every month. It jumps into my account. I know it's going to be there. And that's what a lot of landlords and people don't understand.

These people are qualified for that amount of money. The government's going to pay it, and it is going to be in your account. And, Tim, you know, confirm that. You know, however they pay, you're getting that money on the same day every month, right? I will go take a side the bar on that because there's new information on that so because i one thing i'm proud of over the years is i'm it's never enough for me and i'm always trying to learn and do new things and so you know in the last year i got epa certified to be a property manager to renovate apartments and then then VR came out with a certification for property management,

and I was already taking classes. And since pandemic, the rules and guidelines have become so difficult, and owners are in a bad spot because they can't keep up with it. So like what you just mentioned is one of the things. So I did the 10 certification classes. I needed it anyway for continuing, and now I'm certified. But now, if you're an owner in Virginia, you cannot deny Section 8 applicant. It used to be monetary was not a protected class and now it is.

Unless you have less than four units and you don't fall under the Landlord-Tenant Act. However, if you have a property manager, the property manager should fall under it. So all my owners, I tell them if you're going to work under me, I'm not going to restrict it, and I will do the proper vetting of the tenant. So I think it's a really good vehicle for investments. But don't you agree, Tim, that so many people have the wrong perception of it? Well, the stigma is the tenant won't take care of the property. Right.

That's the stigma. Well, the issue there, though, now with technology and all the things, and like my software company, you're still allowed to do a proper vetting of the tenant. You can pull a criminal background. You can pull court actions against judgments against them from a landlord. You can pull credit scores. And your

owner can set, and your company can set, a credit score standard. So if this Section 8 tenant doesn't meet the credit score standard, you don't have to rent to that. So what's your standard with the portfolio you're managing? My company has a standard of 600, but we allow some of our owners to set their own up to 625. I have one property group where the owner wants a 625 credit score, and it's three times the rental income, and it's got to be one year of income earning salary is 3x rental yep

price is that what you're saying no the tenant has to make three times yeah rental and then um they have to have one year of proven uh income to prove that now we do make some exceptions like you know i my first months down last months down and security Deposit. Okay. But we had one recently. A lady come in, international person, didn't have a good credit score. You know, she wanted to come into the university. We just took six. She offered six months rent up front. Yeah.

Can't say no to that. Right. Yeah. But, you know, my friend Mark Raglin owns some rental properties. I sold him on 6th Street. They're all affordable. They're like five. Mark Raglin.

Volleyball coach. Most winningest volleyball coach. And I own some properties. Albem them on 6th Street. They're all affordable. They're like Mark Raglin. Volleyball coach. Most winningest volleyball coach. Albemarle High School. Legend. Incredible guy. And I sold him 20 units over the last... I'm now managing those for him so he can take it easy. Shout out to Mark Raglin. It's all about me, by the way, because he was in my Young Life Club when I was doing Young Life work.

Absolutely. Back at Albemarle High School. So we've been friends for a long, long time. When I was riding the bus in from North Garden, he got on the bus in seventh grade moving here from Buckingham. We became instant friends. And he's the right kind of partner. Mark Ragland, Lance Rogers, two of the godfathers

of volleyball in Central Virginia. I mean, he retired and came back. I know he did. I know he did. So shout out to Mark. Tremendous guy. Mark will tell you, when I went to his house to sell him rental property 20 years ago, we refinanced his house. He doesn't mind me saying this. He said, Tim, what's the worst thing that could happen?

I said, you could be a bad steward of your properties, and I could be over here in five years selling your house because you're moving to a rental. And he's like, thanks a lot. He was straightforward, though. But it never happened that way yeah for sure yeah but the so the rental market is pretty strange because uh well the other thing that happens with the rental market uh which i've learned is we just make sure that we have great pictures when they're vacant we have walk-through video with a cell phone so it's real we We have a floor plan, and they're gone instantly because it's real. But, you know, the real estate market itself right now is pretty odd, don't you think? Odd?

Odd. Absolutely. It's so odd. Absolutely. Characterize odd. Put that in perspective. So I do everything. You know, like I have an offer in on this piece of land, the city, that's listed at $1.1 million,

and then I have a house under contract in Scottsville I sold and then I've got a development project and I've got other stuff going on. But I tried to write an offer on a town wood townhouse. It came on the market a week ago with a basement, 300 grand. I was there, 10 percent down buyer. I grew up with them. Here's their daughter. We offered 310. In three days there were 14 showings, eight offers and we didn't get it. Crazy. I've been trying to get five offers for a guy who played basketball at Albemarle with his daughter. But then on the other hand, I've got a house that's getting good activity in Gray Rock,

but it's right in that 600 range and has a tenant in it. It's kind of sitting there. I think it will sell. What do you see in the market? Yeah, again, odds a good way of describing it because like you said, you can have a town wood type of experience or you can have a situation where somebody's got their house in the market. It's been on the market for a couple months, which isn't long, but in this market, it's an eternity. And it causes people to say, what's wrong with that house? And then it doesn't sell, so then they're having to chase the market down.

But the interesting thing is, I think this market is substantially an age-old principle, and that is that the really good people are doing really well. And the folks that are just getting started or have never really been serious about the business are struggling. You know, I saw a Facebook post on one of these realtor Facebook groups that basically said, I haven't had a closing in two or three months. I missed a car payment. You know, what can I do to get something quick? And my answer was, and I told a story yesterday when I was teaching, my answer was, you are four months too late in asking what I'm supposed to do. Because if they sell something tomorrow, it's going to be 30, 45, 60 days until they get that money, right?

And so that's the problem is the folks who have a really good referral network and people that are in a good situation and you can educate them that it's not about the interest rate. It's about the monthly payment. It's not about the interest rate. It's about the house that you really want and you're going to live in a bunch of years and whatever that interest rate is, the appreciation is going to overtake whatever the additional monthly cost is.

If you're not educating people in that way, just like a seller who's trying to save commission and say, I'm going to reduce the commission and will you do it for this and that kind of thing. If you're not able to explain your value and to say, look, you can do that, but my homes sell on an average of 3% to 4% more than other agents. So you can save that 1% commission and actually lose money. Whereas if we focus on your bottom line, what check you want to have, and I can show you that because of my marketing and because of my negotiating skills,

we're going to put a house on the market for $300. We could have put it on the market for $320 and nobody come to it. That's right. Or we could put it in $300 and have eight people write contracts and so it sells for more than whatever it was because Tim's people were $310.

That's 3% right there. You know it sold for more than that because he didn't win right but the agents that don't know how to do that or haven't been trained to do it you know it some companies don't have the you know the day-to-day training they tough they hire you they're going to pay you you know a big big commission, but you're out there on your own. And I had that just yesterday. I had a guy in my class that said he was reconsidering the brokerage he was with because he didn't have, one, the training, and two, he didn't have the people around him that have listings that he can hold open and things like that. So anyway, the point being is it's changing,

and with the NAR settlement and with those changes, the good people already are doing it the right way. The other folks are having to learn, oh, I need to talk to the folks first and tell them how to be compensated. And the two things that we don't know what's going to happen yet, and I guess I just segued in a different conversation, but the two things we don't know yet is how in the world anybody's going to know if a seller's willing to compensate because it's going away out of the MLS as of August 14th or whatever the date is. We do what we did before,

is put in a contract. That field, yeah, but you're not going to know what to put in the contract. And Tim, tell me this, when was the last time you called a realtor and they didn't return your call? Oh, geez. Happens all the time, right? So trying to call a realtor and say, hey, what are you compensating on? And they don't return your call. You're in no man's land. So, yeah, you put in the contract, but you don't know, right? And then the second thing is, as it relates to the compensation,

and then the second issue that people are going to have to figure out is when it's not enough when the seller is compensating but right not going to compensate the number that tim wants you're gonna have to have a conversation with that buyer saying somehow you're gonna have to come up with the rest well i've been in the business long enough hang on one second i've been in business long enough where we didn't have buyer agency we represented the seller when we brought a buyer yeah late 80s. Tim, you know this for a fact as well. People that had money didn't want to pay me to represent them. They were willing to not be represented, me be a sub-agent so they wouldn't have to pay a commission. That's going to happen again. People are going to have to know how to handle that objection.

So you see, I'll get out of your way here you see uh yeah real estate ecosystem where buyer reps are working either hourly or retainer or flat fee as a three or or or a percentage of uh sale all the above all those are going to happen okay what do you see is the most likely is it going to head the the commercial route where you know we where we're all in the commercial space in some capacity here. Are we going to go in the commercial route where it's here's my base retainer and anything on top of that could be some gravy.

I think it's going to depend on that particular agent and how they bring value to the transaction. Okay. So like I had somebody call me the other day and said hey I'm buying a property from an individual seller it's a country store business and it's a mess. It was part of an auction. Will you help me? Another one you're talking about? Yeah, and I'm like, yes. So I wrote a contract with a flat fee, and it's almost like a limited services type thing.

Yeah, 100%. It's clean. It's very clean. It is, but I would go back and I would say there's two things that came to mind when you were talking. One of them was that it goes back to the agents being valuable in the transaction. In 1990, I was not so comfortable being a real estate agent because I didn't like this whole thing. Hey, come here. Let's go look at houses. And, hey, I know you from church. And, oh, by the way, watch your butt because I'm representing the other dude.

I don't know. I'm not representing yours. Let's go look at houses and have a good time. To my brother. Right. So then in 1990 when they changed it, I remember Pat Whithelm and I were on education, and we wrote a whole article, and she did the whole Pat Whithelm thing, which I love working with her, and that goes back to mentoring.

And she did the whole thing about what are all the legalities. I was asked to do it from in the field. And in the field I said two things to remember. What are you going to say to the judge if they ask you and you're up there and what what if it's your mom and so as long as you're representing that person and you're creating value but it's it's changing because the agents that have been in okay michael remembers before the recession there were like 1500 realtors and i remember we pulled all the real in car yep and so i was on the board and we were concerned because uh we did with the

membership we we did a study we brought in the top 100 agents that year and had a like a mentor now what would you call it like a uh where they all came in they gave us their their opinions as a like a town hall advisory panel thank you so we had the top 100 agents i was in that we show up those 100 agents did 83 and a half% of all the volume out of the 1,500 agents. So those agents are still going to continue to grow because they're going to be valuable. So the new agents and the ones that then when the recession hit, it went 600 agents had less than three years experience. That doesn't mean they aren't good. It doesn't mean they're not valuable. But a lot of those left the business.

So right now I think you're going to see, and we're already on the board. I was on budget and finance. I think some people will leave. But it really goes back to those agents having the proper training, the mentorship. I was blessed enough to have Jim Manley. And then I went over to Judy Savage for three years, and we were collaborative as her manager. And then I was on the board with people like Michael and Ray Cadell and other people, and that's the key.

And then when I went to Real Estate 3 to have Jeff Gaffney and those people. So these agents have got to partner themselves with people that know more than they do and they can go to. I would also say a tip that some of the agents can use, there are, like, if an agent's having trouble and they've got a closing, they can go to, like, Commission Express or one of these commission advance systems, and they can actually, once they get a contract and they've got their loan approved, they can actually submit it to that company and assign it to that company, and the attorney will pay it closing to this other company and give them like 80% of their commission in a week. So there are ways for the people that are struggling.

I'm just mentioning that as a loving thing. I had no idea that even existed. And that's out there. It's a whole business model. They're getting a portion. And I've laid that out to some of our agents because I'm senior vice president of real estate three, and it will get them through the hump. What's great, it builds no debt. What happens if the deal doesn't close?

The agent has a certain period of time to pay it back. But that's why. Interest free? No, there's interest on it. Oh, so there's risk in this scenario here. Oh, sure. You're losing 20% off the top, and if the deal doesn't close. No, it's not 20%.

It's like a 6% or 8%. You get a portion of it, and then you get the rest. Obviously, you pay a fee to them, and then when you close, you're going to get the rest of your. Right. Got it. It's the quality of the deal. Yeah, yeah.

You know how good your deal is. A hundred percent. Yeah. A hundred percent. But that really could help, and I've had a couple of young agents came to me, and I said, hey, call this commission to express people in Northern Virginia, put in the application, they send the papers to the attorney,

attorney agrees to assign that to that company, and the attorney pays them at the closing. So there are cash flow ways. But anyway, enough said on that. But, yeah, this whole affordable housing thing is perplexing, because the other issue that you and I talked about is the perceiveding because the um and this and the and the other issue that you and i talked about is the perceived value that the sellers have and that's why like i so much enjoyed you know his information at the foundation level and then like your show with

roger voisine the other day that show is fantastic and um roger and i are kind of collaborating and so um on a few things but you know i've got this other architect that I've been working with that you know, Gregory Powell, who's on the affordable housing group in the city or whatever. It's a city group. And so the average realtor or owner can't navigate this very well and come out of the other end. Do you agree with that? Oh, absolutely. I mean, it's a work in progress. The zoning has gone into effect, but as Tim said, depending on what

the situation is, it's still, like I said, it's a work in progress. And one of the things that Carr Foundation, our education committee is working on, is training where people can come in and we can have the city there we can have different developers in and and and and teach people exactly what this yes zoning ordinance means and how you can you know go into it and and benefit from it and but at the same time going back to what we talked about before the affordable housing is not going to come naturally in that situation. You know, even if it's two units out of eight or, you know, four units out of 20 or whatever, that's not, as Tim just said, you know, 15 properties he put on the market in the last little bit.

All of them are already rented. There are people out there looking to find a place to live. And two here and four there, that's not going to cut it. Totally agree. And let's also highlight the fact that interest rates, the expectation, we're going to start seeing reduced rates, which should increase the pool of buyers. Let's highlight the fact that Amazon is going to put $11 billion into Louisa. Talked to a supervisor over there. He says 800 to 1,400 direct and indirect jobs.

Northrop Grumman, a quarter-billion-dollar facility in Waynesboro. The average salary for that facility in Waynesboro is $94,000 for their team members. Would not imagine those folks are going to be living in Waynesboro. Would think a lot of those folks would probably be living in Albemarle County, Crozet, and making the commute. You've got data science. You've got Paul Manning Biotech School coming. Each of those has got a couple thousand. There's another distributor.

Is Amazon doing something over in the Valley, too? I don't know the Valley. I know they're doing the data centers in Louisa. Right, right. I knew that. But I thought there was another one of those, too. You know, I'd push back on you a little bit in regards to the folks who, you know, want to be in the western Albemarle County and drive over the mountain every day.

I think five years ago I would have said that. But with what's happened in the last five years with development over there, and, you know, we talked about the, you know, the Swannanoa Golf Course. Yep. You know, you're going to have a really cool place to live not far away. And I think that Nelson and Greene County are going to benefit big time from that. I'm not Green County. Nelson and Augusta County are going to benefit big time because they've been putting the infrastructure in for the last three to five years.

I mean, I go back to 1982 when I was selling office supplies and furniture for Anderson Brothers and driving across the mountain. And we were, like, so excited when the Hershey plant came in there I mean that was a huge thing for the valley for that to happen and they're still there and I have been a great you know uh citizen there and me going over there and trying to figure out how I could sell the furniture that was going to go in the building and that kind of thing and it it was a big deal. And that was, what's that, 40 years ago, right? And it was very slow, slow. But in the last five years or so, you know, I think there are a lot of people that have moved over there and really enjoy living over there. And so, yeah, some will come this way. But I think a lot of those folks will stay. And especially what they've, you know, go farther west, live out over in Stanton and commute in.

Because what they've done over in Stanton as far as revitalizing, speaking of John Blair, revitalizing that city is extraordinary. So I think you're going to see a lot more Western development people commuting to that site than you see coming. I 1,000% agree with you. I wouldn't want to go over that mountain every day myself. That's me personally. Sure. A thousand percent agree with Michael. You've got a Stantonian real estate investor in Sefliski watching now.

You have, of course, Mr. John Blair. We had Dr. John Shave, the owner of Pro Renata on the show. He's developing downtown Stanton as well. He purchased Skipping Rock. I love the way that that happened. He went over here to buy a few kegs and ended up buying it all. He purchased the assets of Skipping Rock. Absolutely love the way that that happened. He went over there to buy a few kegs and ended up buying it all. Purchased the assets of Skipping Rock.

Absolutely unbelievable. How would you guys characterize? The president of Virginia Realtors has been on as well this morning. Fantastic. Tom Campbell, great guy. Fantastic, Mr. Campbell. And Donna Goings has been watching in a little bit. Logan Wells-Claylow watching the broadcast.

By the way, may I mention one quick thing? Please. One of your viewers, Vanessa Parkhill. Oh, yeah, Earlyshill, I wanted to shout out to her because I love her family. Her husband passed away recently, and her daughter and my daughter played lacrosse, and she used to do bookkeeping for Jim Ely. So I wanted to throw prayers and blessings to her family while I'm here. Well said. Vanessa Parkhill, one of our favorite viewers.

And rest in power, Gary Parkhill. Her son, Lee Lee played lacrosse at St. Ann's. Fantastic young man. Fantastic football player and lacrosse player. I might want to mention, if I could, real quick, I've got some property owners and I have three different

projects that we're in the early stages of. Just to highlight them. Please. One of them is a little cottage on forest which is off of Preston and it had an old big house on it and these people owned it forever and the house got abandoned and tore down so you have this quarter acre lot with a little cottage bringing in 1250 a month then I've got another property I can't tell you the address right now but I have a listing on an assisted living facility in the downtown area with 10,000 square feet, which is underutilized. And then I have this acre of land on Ridge Street with a duplex on it.

Fortunately, the front eight units in front of the Ridge Street, I sold those to an investor who happens to be on the board of supervisors of another county. And so I'm collaborating with him. Which county is that? I can't tell you right now. Okay. Because you got a Flavana Board of Supervisors. For a little bit of money, I can tell you, Jerry. Nelson County Board of Supervisors, and a Louisa County Board of Supervisors. Thank you. And so anyway,

he and I, he came, I sold him the property, and then my other... And an Albemarle Board of Supervisors. So we're working to bring this acre lot together with his eight units with another person's parcel to get a drive-through and not have to do a fire engine turnaround on that. But the one that's interesting to me, and we were talking about this before where you can do both, so the forest one is interesting because my client there is a real American success story. I grew up with her son. He was a great guy, played sports at Albemarle. I played football. He played lacrosse. He played basketball. And his mom and dad were local city, African-American couple,

grew up down in Fifeville and all that. He was a bricklayer and she was a hairstylist. Well, they were able to acquire 18 rental units in those areas, Page, Carlton, all over the city, and I manage all of them, and there's no debt on them. And the husband passed away, and I've been fixing them up. But that forest is so underutilized. Think about that, because it's bringing $1,250 a month. So I just had a meeting with her, and I said, listen, it's time for you, and you're in your 80s. Let's look at this. Okay. First of all, they're

all paid off. There's no depreciation. You're paying all income. We're putting all your money back into the properties. So why don't we either do a 1031 exchange and get you an investment that has a good income stream. You get a new depreciation schedule. I could sell a million, 2 million, your property. You can start off next year with $60,000 a year in depreciation. Or because you and your husband were so into providing these affordable housing units. I'm talking like I have one on Carlton where it was a house, and behind it he built an eight-bay concrete garage and rents those as garage units. And then he has all these local people. Why don't we – so right now I'm working with Greg, and we have a meeting with Habitat.

So we found out on that lot we can do four Habitat townhouses. And I talked to her about that. She was very excited because she could – then she could take that money out of that, and I could take and put that money into the other rentals and do expense all the repairs the same year. We get the capital gain. And so there's ways that realtors and owners can capitalize on this without hurting anybody and, if anything, helping everybody. That's just one of my things that I'm excited, really excited about,

because she's going to win, her kids, her grandkids are going to win, and we're now getting ready to put all her properties in different LLCs to protect her. And then anyway, I'll take a breath. How many, how many, how many realtors are providing counsel like that to their clients? Not many. I mean, that's, that was fantastic. That's a, yeah. I mean, I think again, this goes back to what I said before, you know, if you're not putting yourself in a position to be educated like Tim is. And, you know, Tim's not putting those LLCs together. He's got an attorney, I'm sure, you know, that he recommends and who does that. But he says this is what you need to do. And so that's the kind of thing I was saying is that more and more people are going to need to do that

so that people see that value proposition. And then the other thing is, and again, why? I charge a fee for that. I charge a consulting fee. Right, yeah. You want me to handle this and this, and I do it. I charge project, every time I remodel one of her units, I charge a project management fee that's greater than you would think. And they're very happy because they do nothing. Right. Sorry. No, no, no, no. I mean, I think that's the whole thing.

And yes, you should. It goes back to what you said before, Jerry, that there's going to be a lot of different ways that people are going to engage a realtor, depending on what the situation is. The story that Tim talked before, you know, in regards to limited service, that might even be, in the scheme of agency, it might even be what's called an independent contractor because he's not really representing you. He's just writing the contract and facilitating it. They've already come to an agreement. Right. He's writing a contract for it. He's just writing the contract and facility. They've already come to an agreement. He's writing a contract for X amount of dollars, and then he's out of it. If there are any problems, they're not his problems. They've

got to go to and deal with an attorney. And in that situation, flat fee or reduction in commission or however you want to do it. And that's one of the things I think is important to talk about as well in regards to the NAR settlement. There may be other parts of the country where there was coercion or a standard fee or whatever. I can tell you, I've been managing in Northern Virginia and in Charlottesville for 40 years. And if you open up my real estate transaction files of all my agents, there's not a standard fee.

It's all over the place in regards to what somebody charged or what somebody was paid and those kind of things. And the interesting thing is that the media, if you watched all that a couple months ago when all that was announced, they're the ones who talked about a particular percentage fee. The standard rate is X. The standard rate is X. They're the ones who communicated to the whole country. President Joe Biden did the same.

Right. And, you know, they talked about a percentage that was standard. And, you know, again, I can tell you in my own experience, I'm going to talk about my own experiences, but you open up our files and you're going to see rebates because somebody listed their house and bought a house from us. You're going to see the flat fee, independent contractor situation. You're going to see a reduced commission because you're only representing one side of it that somebody brought you in to represent them. All those things, that's the thing.

That's going to happen. And he's exactly right because when I was at Remax and I was a managing broker, and then when Judy decided to retire and I was trying to decide what I wanted to do, I had a bunch of, I mean, I thought about Roy Wheeler, Monaghan Miller, and then Jeff Gaffney came to me. Ness had talked to me. I love Steve McClain, Remax. But my main

component I wanted was the brokerage firm I went to. He wanted the best NIL deal he could get. That's right. Well, no, I wanted the ability to negotiate my commission on my own. As long as I was meeting my desk cost and the brokerage firm was profitable based on me

because I wanted that ability. But I also worked really hard to develop a presentation and services that would prove my value, right? And so, you know, and also Jim Manley was like old Dale Carnegie and, you know, you're Dale Carnegie, you know, where he taught you how to handle objections and how to work through that process. So I think, you know, that's one thing I always like to bet you is you're so eloquent

and you can talk about so many things, and you have the ability to solve problems. That's what makes you so valuable. That's why you were such a good and you are such a good broker and such a volunteer and in church and helping people. You can solve problems. And my last comment on that, my second year in real estate, I got expired listing, and I've always done, and I'm going to throw one thing in there. The problem with the agents is the agents that are in the business trying to sell real estate, they don't have a plan to prospect for future business.

They're going up and down and up and down. I have been prospecting. I have one of my guys. All he does is fold and lick letters and put them in the mail almost. I had one of my guys, all he does is fold and lick letters and put them in the mail almost, along the street. So I had one of those over near the university and sold this property, two four-bedroom townhouses, and I'm going to the closing, and the guy says, Tim, you're going to do really well in real estate. I'm like, well, thank you. He says, I didn't tell you, but I'm the chairman of the board of the Exxon, and my kids are here at UVA, and he says, if you can solve problems, you can make a lot of money.

And so I think that's the issue. We have problems now. So we have to maneuver them and come up with creative ways to get an income stream as an agent. Did he hire you to go down and solve the problems with the oil spill back in the day? No, no, no. I told him to use dish detergent and just clean the ducts.

How do you guys think? For a two-part question, two-part question, gentlemen. Would you characterize today's market as healthy? And then the second part of the question is they're talking with some of the macro data that's been released over the last week or so. Maybe a rate cut, maybe two rate cuts this year.

The expectation is even more next year when rates fall. What's that going to do to the market? Two-part question. Michael, you go first here. Well, again, I think it's a healthy market because even though sales are down, homes are appreciating. So normally when sales go down, it means that things aren't selling. Well, no, sales are down because there's not enough for people to buy if there's more. It's like having a clothing store with no clothes.

Yeah. But I will tell you that you're exactly right. I think you'll see the entry rates right now, a little over 7%. You might see 6s and 7.8s. But by the end of the year, I think we'll be comfortably in the 6s. I'm not saying the low 6es, but there will be a six in front of it, and that changes everything. And then if what they talk about happening next year, and you get down in the low six or maybe even see a high five, you know, game changer, one, because it's not a seven, it's a six, with the thought that maybe, and two, that if more comes.

That's the people bringing in new interest rates. Yeah. There it is right there. Yeah, if people get those, you get the rate back down into the low sixes, you may begin to get people who have that 3.5% mortgage rate that don't want to give it up... Going in handcuffs. ...finding the house and being willing to go because the agent has explained to them it's not the interest rate, it's whatever.

And in that situation, if the inventory then increases, right, then you're going to have much more of a balanced market. I don't think it's healthy. You do not think current market is healthy? Well, define healthy. I mean, it's absolutely awesome and healthy for sellers that can sell and don't have to buy another house right now. It's awesome. But it's uncomfortable. But even that, Tim, if you can sit down with a seller, you're right.

They can sell their house right now, and the question is, where am I going to go? But if you can sit down with them and explain to them how they can do that without selling their house out from under them. So let's put your house on the market. Let's make it contingent on you finding a home of choice. The buyer wants to buy your house. You've got eight contracts and somebody's going to say, take as long as you want. And then you go out and negotiate now that you've sold your house. And if you can't find it, then you don't remove the contingency and you stay where you are. Or a number of lenders like Town Mortgage and

I'm sure others do too, but there's what they call the buy before you sell program. You sit down with the folks and say, you don't have to be writing this contract contingent. You can write it non-contingent with a buy before it was essentially a bridge loan that says for a little bit of time until I sell my house and close, I may have a couple of payments, but I can afford to do it. You've got to be in that strength position when you go to negotiate on the next one. There's a lot of tools in the toolbox. We sold – we talked about this on the show.

We sold in Glenmore and had an 82-day lease back. Fantastic. All cash buyer, out of market, paying a number that we did not think would happen, no contingencies, three-week close, staying as long as you want. You know, Jerry, I think one of the issues is I've been doing it 36 years, and the more units you get in-ground housing at the university were all beat to crap. Residential units that had been converted illegally probably to an apartment, and they weren't very nice. And it was hard because a lot of the students were coming down from middle, upper-middle-class families and used to a better place to live. But then, into the 90s, they started buying up houses and putting up apartments, and the market changed, right? Because the students weren't willing to accept the old beat-up rental houses,

and then you saw more of the blue-collar industry moving into those and users and that. And then the same thing with, like, when they built Forest Lakes. Holly Mead stopped selling temporarily until people went in there and fixed the houses up. So my theory is that the consumers and Americans and everybody in the area should embrace as much housing as we can get in a responsible manner because it's going to shift the market around and there will be whatever is affordable in the market based on what's affordable, not based on a government standard that's five years old is going to help the community.

So that's my soapbox. I respect that soapbox. We've got to highlight Vanessa Parkhill watching the program now. We gave Mr. Carson over here, gave Gary, Vanessa, some positive thoughts and some thoughts to your family. Her daughter was fast. Her son was a fantastic athlete as well. I'll throw this to you, Michael.

Do you think when rates do fall, and you're talking about the perception or the impact of perception with a rate having a 6 or potentially a high 5, what is that going to do with um multiple offer scenarios what's that going to do to bidding wars could we head back into peak covid where it was truly insane yeah see that's why i say this is a healthy market versus unhealthy market because yes you know that will unless we get the inventory up then we are going to be back to, you know, crazy 10, 15, 20%. I mean, we, we did a deal for a guy who's moving here to teach at the university and strategize with him. He was in a multiple contract scenario and we strategize with him as to how to, how to do it. And he, he,

he got the, he got the deal, right. But it sold for, I don't know, $25,000 more than the list, which was only 3%. He was ecstatic because where he came from, people were selling their houses for $100,000 more than listed. And we've seen that here. And from time to time in a particular situation, we still see it. If the rates get down in that number and we don't have an increased inventory, it

can't do anything but that. Ken Elzinga, the economics professor, it's simple supply and demand. If there's not enough supply and there's a lot of demand, prices go up. If there's a lot of demand and a lot of supply and not enough demand, prices go down. That's why our

family, we chose to buy now. Right. Because we could always, when rates go, refinance and get that 5% or 6% rate. And our equity position with the house we purchased in March of 2020 allowed us to put a down payment that basically got us in the same position where we are with the house in one month. Well, you not only did that, Jerry, and I think this is really important for people to hear. You not only did that, you moved to an area that's more convenient for you and your family for your lifestyle now. Back then, Glenmore was great. But with your involvement in Boar's Head and your kids getting older and stuff, now you're going to –

My wife's got two hours a day of drive time. That's what I was going to say. Right, two hours a day of drive time for her. You can't get that back. That's exactly right. Two hours a day of drive time. That's what I was going to say. Right, two hours a day of drive time for her. That's exactly right. Two hours a day saving. I mean, so that's my point, is if we can get people to think that way. If she's happy, we're all

right. No, but if you get people thinking that way, right, that yes, for them this was great, but you need, we just sold our big house and rented for a couple years to see if we liked downsizing. And then we found a ranch that was going on the market that had never been renovated.

How awesome is that? And we spent almost a year renovating that into an agent place house that hopefully will allow us to circumvent nothing against them, the Colonnade or the Westminster. I'd rather be in a house right across the street from my daughter and her husband and three kids. Fantastic. I'll bring you meals husband and three kids. Fantastic. I'll bring you meals if you need them. Please. But the point being is that's what caused us. We had a motivation as to why we were going to leave where we were.

And that's what a lot of people don't have yet. They don't have that motivation. You're right. I want to highlight this. Michael Guthrie is looking fit. Are you doing the Herschel Walker workout routine over here, the 1,000 push-ups and 1,000 sets? You're looking great. Yeah, we could lose a few pounds.

But, yeah, I'm over here in the chair doing my ab tightening. Good for you. No, I'm joking. But, yeah, thank you. Thank you. Gentlemen, the show is a breeze with you guys on set. I was just going to mention one thing. I would love to highlight this.

Yeah. Before I do that, I want to tell you, my daughter called me yesterday. For those of you who can't see, Tim has been pushing out this little design thing so that Jerry sees. I want to talk about this. Absolutely. Before I do that, my oldest daughter, this relates to you and your wife, my oldest daughter called me a couple days ago. Dad, you were right about something as a parent. I'm like, I know I was.

What was I right about this time? She's 33. Dad, I thought you were mean because I had a rule when I drove the kids to school that when we got in the car with three little girls, they each only got one question while the car was running. And every question after that they asked was two minutes of debit from their TV time. And so they would start asking, and she says, my son won't shut up in the car. Dad, you were brilliant. Anyway, that's it.

So here's a good example of, like, why this zoning thing is strange. So I've got this property on Ridge, and the zoning is, you know, there's different levels of residential zoning. This is the one that allows the greatest uses, almost a mixed use. I can't remember which zoning it is. I have it here. But basically, it's an acre plus the neighbor's parcel and so we can get what looks like 50 apartments. Those apartments though are, there's a height restriction

on that lot because one block away you can go eight stories across from the fire station. This one you can only go three stories. So we've got a design where we could do multi-level townhomes with garages. That could be 18 luxury townhomes. It could be up to a million with elevators. Or we could also put flats in the basement like Roger was

talking about, like the what's it called, the ADUs. But we could also do these 50 apartments. And I'm negotiating a deal on this right now and the guy that wants to buy it has an interest in the 50 apartments. Is this 512 Ridge Street? Yes. Okay.

So the big issue is it's easier and less of an investment and less risk due to the townhomes because you can put your money into the site plan and develop that street. It's a private road that we go through there versus the apartment thing. That's a big deal because that would end up being the city would allow four buildings of like 12 units each. Well, then you've got to build those buildings. You can't dispose of those as you get them built,

and that's a big amount of money. Now, 50 apartments at $1,600 a month, that's a significant ching-chang there. But this property, according to the architect, says because of its zoning and because we're so much under the density that you can calculate based on the buy-rate use, it's not going to have to meet the affordable housing guideline. This is presented beautifully online. 512 Ridge Street. Thank you. The important thing about this. I'm not real bright. The important thing about this, folks, is that this is why you need somebody who knows what they're doing.

Yeah. Because I just had this situation this week where I was helping one of our agents, and they're buying a piece of property, but they're also buying a business. And, you know, the whole aspect of putting in a 30, 45, 60, 90-day due diligence contingency so that you can make those decisions and make sure that it makes sense from a return on investment standpoint. And if not, you've got the ability to get out and get your money back. And the guy making the, my investor owns property nearby. So what's interesting, three, four years ago for pandemic i went to the owners that we had this property and it was 10 units and i immediately

looked at it and said hey guys some of your properties land for development some of your properties income so we went we did a boundary adjustment we popped all the boundary lines up to the front eight units and then i immediately sold those during pandemic for 1.2 myself and then now i manage them. That left me with the acre with one duplex that's development. But now I can put that with the front properties, and those lots that were three years ago at their maximum lot size can now be reduced even more.

Like these front lots, 2,500 square feet, we can get maybe six more units. And the other factor I'll tell you about that's really interesting. You've got a couple people asking what the site is I'm looking at online. I'll give them the URL, then throw it back to you. 512RidgeStreet.RELAHQ.com. I also have, like, I think I have it linked to a domain of my name, but I can't remember which one it is right now. Okay. It's a beautiful of my name, but I can't remember which one it is right now. Okay.

It's a beautiful presentation. Well, thank you. So long story short is the other thing that's really interesting about the city zoning, and I don't know that I like it, is they've really changed the parking requirements. And so I'm concerned. You talked about this. I'm very concerned about it, but I'll give you an example. This other project I can't name, but I will send it to you second after I put it in the MLS. I've got a building in the downtown with 10,000 square feet or so. I just listed for $1.6 million, and we've done a drawing on it.

I'll have it on the market in a week, but you can do 20 apartments. It has eight stories you could go up. But with the parking and all that, we'd go four stories, and you could have 20 apartments there. Or you could take the existing building up and go up higher. And so that's interesting, too, because you only need one parking space for each unit. So now I'm also talking to another guy who might want to develop,

who has money that's available for veterans and another person that maybe has money available for maybe it should be a senior housing, a 20-apartment complex. So I think that might be another way that you and I have talked about in the past where you could do some targeted development to help some components of the community and pull some of their need out of that general market. You've got to chuckle here, and we'll kind of wind down the show here at 1122, but you've got to chuckle at the parking requirements. Your chuckle for me said a thousand words.

The requirements seem like they're creating policy in a world where we still don't have two or more cars per house. I mean, we're all driving cars here. I understand they want to get to a walkable, bikeable city, but we're nowhere close to that yet. Was that the chuckle? Yeah, but worse than that, the chuckle is the people have paid no attention to this over the last year. That's what you have. No attention to this. And when all this comes into play and all of a sudden somebody comes and cites you because you're in a zoning corridor that only allows one car.

I mean, you've got six cars parked in your yard that you've had there for 20 years. And they go, what just happened? They don't know. They have no idea. And they aren't going to know unless they want to do something to develop their property because they're not going to pay any attention. You know, Sean Tubbs, who I enjoy reading, he's been on my show on Saturday mornings, and he talked about the fact that his property now is, I think he told me he can now have four or maybe six units on his property now.

Right. If he ever decided to do that. He knows that because he pays attention. Right? But somebody that lives down a street from him and has four cars and two in the driveway, two in the yard, they're going to have to figure that out. And that's not going to be pretty. And then you have the people who think that, you know, Lewis Mountain area that they should be riding the bus to Barracks Road.

You know, why are they complaining? They don't need to have a car. They can ride the bus or walk to Barracks. That's not going to happen. I mean, not going to happen in my lifetime anyway. That's why with those townhouses we were going to put one garage. It's not going to happen until you have the George going to happen in my lifetime anyway. That's why with those townhouses, we were going to put one garage. It's not going to happen until you have the George Jetson thing that allows you to, you know. Maybe we have a gondola system that'll happen.

You're 100% right, Mike. Can I just shout out to my team? Please. I just want to thank the people I work with at Real Estate 3 and the people on the foundation board. They're all part of my group of trust. But Jack Crocker and Jeff Cheers and Ted Wooten, Peter Garland and Ron Neif, they're all independent contractors on my team under Tim Carson Real Estate Services.

And they really helped me to provide these services so I can spend all my time with people. And I will tell you that I'm hard on them, and they joke that I'm like Luke Saban because I hold them accountable and I coach them hard. And I tell them the HR department is over at this, you know. You are the HR department. That's right. He is the HR. Any closing thoughts, Michael Guthrie?

No, I appreciate, you know, I think the last thing I would say, and this is a shout-out to Keith, with everything that's going on, a lot of people think that realtors are just in this to help people buy and sell houses, help people manage their properties and things like that. But, folks, if you look around this town, a lot of the nonprofit things that are going on have at least one, if not several, realtors involved in it in some way or another. I mean, the Carr Foundation is a good example. The Young Professional Network that Carr has, you know, every activity they do, they choose a nonprofit to collect money for. And so I think it's just really important that we are a group of people that, for whatever reason, one, we want Charlottesville and the surrounding area to be places where people want to come and live so we want the community to be vibrant but but we love giving back you know and and we desire to to be servants to the community and that kind of thing and and the shout out to keith is you know the

all the non-profit stuff he does behind the scenes with Thomas Jefferson partnership and all his work with the affordable – I mean the accessible dwelling units that he's gone to the northwest two or three times and spoken and stuff. I mean that's a huge thing, and that's – he doesn't get paid for that. He does that because he's trying to make this area a better place to live. And so that's the last thing I would say is I'm really proud to be a part of an industry that it's not just about buying and selling houses. It's about protecting property rights. It's about finding ways to get affordable housing, making the government spend money so that the floodplain maps can be updated. All of those things are happening because realtors are involved in them. So I'm really proud to be a part of that industry. Me too. And I appreciate you having me on today.

I would say it's so simple. Our job is to help people make good decisions. That's it. It's their decision. Boom. You do that, you don't have to do anything else. Well said, John. This show was easy. I love hosting shows like this. Tim Carson,

Michael Guthrie, pros, pros. For those that are asking, the show is archived anywhere you get your social media or your podcasts and content. When you see Michael Guthrie and Tim Carson around town, tell them thank you, because they're making this community a better place, not only for today, but

for tomorrow as well. Judah Wickhauer behind the camera. The show is Real Talk with Keith Smith. It's archived online at realtalkwithkeithsmith.com. And again, wherever you get your social media or podcasting content. The I Love Seville Show at 1230. So long, everybody. Thank you, Mr. Michael. My pleasure.

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