I need some real talk, oh, I need some real talk, give me some of that real talk. Today's real talk, the show focused on the North Carolina real estate, Justin Kazepes, Claudia O'Greecek of Compass Real Estate. I'm sitting down with royalty today. Don't act like we're not going to talk about the fact that you're in the top 1% of Compass. We're not going to do that as if that's not a big deal. Okay. Congratulations. Thank you. Do I have enough? Are you gonna cry? Don't cry. No. That's an exciting thing. It is. It is very exciting. Crazy. Yes. Thank you. Well, appreciate you hanging out with me every week along with your journey. It's always good to chat and you bring cool people to hang out with and you brought a friend with you today. Yes, I did. So let's talk to Jim. Let's bring Jim and Beacon Street. This is a very quality developer. Looks like out of the Raleigh area hanging out with us. And Jim, how are you? I'm doing great, Justin. Nice to see you and Claudia. Absolutely. We appreciate the time. I'm fascinated to hear the story of Beacon, Claudia, what's your take here on the Raleigh market is because we're here in Lake Norman, but there's amazing developers all across North Carolina. It's absolutely phenomenal the things that are taking place, Jim. Honestly, I was taking a look at it and I'm considering moving to Raleigh right now because like they are developing, I think it will be officially released in the fall and it looks pretty amazing and I'm like tempted to move to Raleigh now. Jim, you're the president. Give us the history. Give us the background. Tell us the good stuff about Beacon in the wonderful journey you guys have been on. Yeah, I mean, I think it really, you know, it starts with Raleigh being home. I grew up here, had a great grandfather that moved on my mother's side and grandfather on my dad's side to North Carolina. Just love the place we live in trying to do, you know, cherish what was done right in some of the older neighborhoods and build selective wonderful neighborhoods and filling around all the history that exists and what people love. So for the Raleigh market, I would imagine it's pretty busy these days. Is that an accurate way to describe it or how would you describe the market in Raleigh right now? Yeah, I mean, you know, it's wide open. I mean, Raleigh is seeing great success, just like Charlotte, incredible quality of life. It's always been a place. The beach is two hours, the mountains two hours, the weather's fantastic, jobs are great, universities are great, it's transforming quickly, for sure. Now Claudia, here's the new construction queen in town around here, Jim. So she's going to know quality when she sees it. So describe a beacon, a beacon build, a beacon development. What would people expect when they hear that name? I think what they would expect is something that's on equal level par with what was its inspiration, meaning, you know, what we love about these old parts of our city and other places that we visit are just the craftsmanship and the level of design that was done when these towns or cities were founded. And we just don't believe that the level of design, the quality, the field, the emotional connection that you get to a place should be, you know, it shouldn't have to be a hundred years old in order for that to happen. And so we're doing everything in our power to, you know, to bring that generational quality of building into places and neighborhoods that really deserve it as part of their history. All right, Claudia, it's okay to critique Jim in this moment. He did just act like he's not even here. When you go into some of these luxury neighborhoods, right, which let's call boutique neighborhoods now, right? More of these infilled 12, 20 lot kind of range style pocket neighborhoods that are existing and you're finding these upscale communities in that, in that type of, of microwave. What are, what's the experience you're seeing Claudia with those and, and is Jim using the right buzzwords is really what I'm trying to make sure of here today. Yeah, I think there is for sure a public and a buyer for that market, Jim, I have a question as I hear you. Do you, are you, how familiar are you with the Charlotte market and do you know any, because I have someone in mind here? Do you know? Oh, sorry. Let me know. Claudia does this where she sells 24 hours a day, no matter where she's at, Jim, even on live radio right now. So if you have a unit is basically what she's saying right now, she's got a buyer. I'm trying to figure out if you know, let's say what the equivalent in Charlotte would be. I have someone in mind, but I'm just curious to know if you know anyone or if not a builder, but like an area in the greater Charlotte that could compare with the ones you develop. Yeah, I mean, for us, the clear comparison would be Myers Park. These are the early 1900 wonderful walkable entering suburbs that are around downtown. And then, you know, we're filling into those special areas, not off top of my head today. I can think of projects in particular, but not necessarily the builders who I would relate to directly here, probably a few other in some other spots. Okay. All right. But again, going back, I'm not saying anything. I'm just saying, yes, there are. Don't believe her, Jim. She's selling all the time. Don't believe it. She's what she does that there is a specific kind of buyer that wants that more traditional. And what is the name of this part of me, because I didn't bring my computer, the one you are about to release? Yes, called Bernie Park. Bernie Park. Yeah. You're excited about it. I saw that you saw the renderings, you saw the photos? I did. And I swear, I want to go to Raleigh to look at them. I swear it's beautiful, pretty exciting. And yes, sorry. It does remind me of the, you know, the fanciness of Myers Park, but with a modern built house, which is pretty amazing. Yeah. Jim, you, no doubt you've seen the shift in North Carolina, right? I mean, he's out of the bottle, it's a great place to live across the entire state. We have a couple of minutes before the first break. And we are going to stay on digital today, just since given that Jim is a virtual, and you can always watch the video of all of the local content we do here at WSIC on the WSIC News app. You can catch it on demand anytime. Jim's going to hang out with us during the breaks as well. But as a developer, right, and finding those neighborhoods, finding those subdivisions where you know you want to provide a quality product, overall, what's it like navigating that right now? Well, I think it's just, it's patience, it's, you know, the neighborhoods that we're working on, Bernie Park, for example, we started pursuing this piece of property 20 years ago. We knew it would be redeveloped, it was, it was ripe for that. And that's a very similar story to the other projects that we've done where we've worked with families and neighborhoods, these are very special pieces of property and the people that are selling them are just as attached to who they get, who's going to be the next steward of it as, as we are. So, you know, navigating that is, you know, navigating that, navigating the neighborhoods and neighborhoods have a real high bar, they want to preserve what they have and you got to earn trust and you got to, you got to have a team that knows how to really deliver something special that's new, but also again, honors the past. Jim, I don't know if you know this about me or not previous life. I was a real estate attorney transaction, so as far as just that general process in the commercial sphere of acquisition of horizontal vertical, where does, where does Beacon fit into those individual, you know, fill a holes? Yeah. I mean, we've done worked in master plan communities where we were built, you know, designing master planning, visioning, entitling, building infrastructure. And as we have grown as a company, we really are developing the full product. So all the way from, you know, classical condominium buildings to townhomes and other things, we design vision and title, hire the general contractor and then take care of the customer from first inquiry till, you know, they've lived in their home and the warranty is passed. Jim Wiley, Beacon Street, beacon-street.com, stick around digital fam, always on the WSIC news app. We're going to stick with Jim. There's more of today's real talk. All right. We are cleared out of radio digital fam. We're hanging out with Jim. This is Claudia's first time on like a digital and exclusive content. I know. Yes. This is my first time doing this, watching the camera and I also do co-host the morning show as well here. So, so as far as the flow like this, so let's do some of the fun stuff, right? So what's like the most banging restaurant in your area right now? Like what's like everyone talking about? What's everybody like it? Oh, there's a group called Crawford and Son. This got a great restaurant downtown and they've opened up a new couple of venues recently. Riley Ironworks, which is an old steel steel mill that's been converted. And then, you know, but like where we are, we're in the five points area. There's just still some great old favorites right here. Mandolin, Hayes Barton Cafe, other ones that, you know, you just, you keep going back to because they're so special. And then just one thing about Bernie Park. Yeah. Back to it, Jim. Here we go. I want to go. Can we talk about it? Price point and everything and something else? I think so some of them will have stores on the ground floor. That's correct. Do you have any and we could talk about it on air, but what kind of like restaurants, bars? Yeah, you got to keep in mind that this is like a small three acre piece. Like you said, in the Myers Park of Raleigh. And so it's a little bit bigger. A lot of times we work on pieces that are an acre that we might do 15 or 20 condos or 10 houses here or something of that nature. But in this case, we've got a little district that includes two boutique condominium buildings about eight really nice high-end townhouses inspired from sort of a London looking field that matches the architecture of Hayes Barton, the surrounding neighborhood. And so this little corner shop that we have will probably be one, two, maybe three little shops, including kind of a market, a great place for coffee wine, other things, but it's directly across the street from one of the neighborhood sort of older buildings that's got a great long-standing restaurant in it right around the corner is a local coffee shop, those sort of things. Okay. That live work play model, right? Oh. It's so inspiring right now for when we talk about walkability, right, these kind of micro things. Now we just got to solve transit, Jim. I'm sure we talk about if you want to talk about transit studies, we can do that as well if we want to. Yeah. Well, you know, the best, the best lesson is these old neighborhoods are all interconnected. And if there's a traffic jam and there's left or right everywhere you can, that's a great way to ease out the flow. There you go. All right. We're going to return back to radio now, Jim, and then we'll reset the conversation. Okay. Sounds great. It's today's real talk with Claudia O'Greezick and Justin Cazepas on 1059-100.7 WSIC. Local starts here. Today's real talk, the show focused on North Carolina real estate, Justin Cazepas, Claudia O'Greezick of Compass real estate, not only is she 1% of Compass, but she is also doing pretty well. Whoa. Excuse me. Not Compass. The whole canopy. Yeah. Excuse me. Yeah. Excuse me. It's not 1% of a compass. Oh, wow. It's 1% of MLS canopy. Oh, the entire. Oh, yeah. I need champagne. The whole thing. Oh. My apologies, Madam. That is my fault. I am so sorry. I know. Well, I was going to say your other crown is two weeks in a row of more or less. I know. And so how are you feeling? Are you... I think I would assume you said more. You said you were on an up-only trajectory as far as... Yeah. I'm still there. I want to help my buyers, so I want more inventory. Okay, more or less. I'll keep saying more. I'll keep saying more. Every week we track in the local MLS, canopy MLS here, active and coming soon by county 500,000 or less, because we're looking at a particular price point for a particular type of resident in the area. And so 500,000 or less we're looking at. Last week we had how many? 1628. 1,628 active and coming soon units in the local MLS, 500,000 or less by county, Mecklenburg County is what we're looking at. A county, by the way, 1.1 million in population and we're looking at 1,600 units. Okay. I was the only realtor loan officer last week not to share that there are 117 people moving to Charlotte every day. So the 1.1 is probably at 1.9. By this point, at least by the time we catch up on supply, if we ever do, we will look more or less. You're saying more. More. I'll keep saying more. All right, so at the last segment of the show, we will check out on the local MLS. We pull it up in real time. Jim, is that a similar inventory situation happening in Raleigh? Yeah. Certainly not enough inventory on the market and, you know, with things being tricky and interest rates and that sort of thing, you know, builders are just, you know, not as full throttle as they've been in the past. So it's, it's hard to catch up. Jim Wiley, Beacon Street, beacon-street.com. Okay. You've got an upcoming subdivision. Claudia, super excited. She's already texting clients at the table here about it. What do you have coming on market here in the near future? Yeah. So the primary, we're finishing up a neighborhood called Caswell Heights, right. Again, in the five points area, we've got a new project called Bernie Park, which represents redevelopment of an old, loved apartment neighborhood that was, that had seen its time. And there's several different things that are weaving it into the neighborhood. And we've got a district in there that's going to include, you know, shops and boutique condominium buildings in addition to some high-end townhouses that feel like a brownstone from New York or something from London. So we're excited about that. Yeah. I almost feel like it's a mini Burkedale with a Myers Park kind of vibe. So it's a win-win. Jim, I'm fascinated because you've been doing this for over 20 years with Beacon. It looks like if I'm seeing correctly here and you got to take me back to the moment that you felt like, this is the right calling for you. This is the right thing to do when you really, when you got started with it. You know, I was fortunate. I worked for seven or eight years before I started Beacon for, on a neighborhood in Chapel Hill called Metamont, which was one of the first new urbanism. In fact, Burkedale was being developed at the same time. There were a lot of people waking up to the idea that this walk-a-bill mixed-use community was the right way of the future and that maybe the patterns, some of the suburban patterns, we needed some options to that. So, you know, I've just always loved seeing transformation, got to work on a wonderful neighborhood and just wanted to bring, you know, what I'd learned back to the city and the neighborhoods that I've grown up in and love the most. So that's when it all happened. What are you hearing from other people across the state of North Carolina? I imagine you have some pretty deep and long-lasting relationships across the state. What are some of the other things you're hearing? I mean, I think everybody just recognizes sort of this unique time frame that we're in and everybody is excited about it. It's obviously feeding all of our businesses. It's, you know, what we're very thankful for, but everybody wants to preserve also what we have, even as we grow. So, obviously, Raleigh is, you know, connected closely to the coast and we have some neighborhoods there, but there's all sorts of places that you and everybody else vacation that we want to preserve because those are, they're special, but it's our time, for sure, for growth in North Carolina. Clutty, your experience when you're walking with a buyer through this process, right, because it's unique, right? A lot of people think they can handle a new construction development, right, or they want to go the new construction route, but it is a unique process. Talk about what it's like walking through with a buyer. I think it's unique, even if you're talking about, let's say, the basic, kind of, high producing kind of track home, I don't like using it, I think it's a mean thing to say, but yes, track home. But then when you start talking about higher-end, there are so many variables and so many things because usually, and maybe it's not your case, but usually with a higher-end house, clients have the right to decide pretty much a lot of the materials that will, the finishes, the design, and it is pretty overwhelming. Not only make the decision to buy the right house, but then you found the location, you found the floor plan, but then you still have to decide on what's going to go to the house, like the tile, the flooring, everything, and many people don't realize how important it is to have someone that knows the market, that understands even the trends, not using a super-trendic color for the walls, especially for the tile or countertop. It is a lot of information, it is scary, so it is important for clients to have someone to hold their hands and say, "It's going to be okay. I'm listening to what the builder has to say, and I can kind of filter what matters because I know the buyer, so I know that if something makes no sense, but then without me, they would maybe be kind of afraid or not sure how to respond. Their agent is there to say, "Hey, this makes sense. This doesn't make sense to this," so it is important to have someone next to you guiding you. She's in the top one percent, Jim, but she thinks that what I was going to just let happen was that dig at the blue gray that's in the studio here that's completely out of date from a previous guest she brought on, and that gray is in. Have you heard this same? It's gray, right? Gray is in? White. I go, I think white, off white, the beige, and if you still like gray, I love gray. But if you love gray, it has to be gray, not the bluish gray. Earth tone side of gray. Earthy, yes. Jim, this education I get on a weekly basis here is phenomenal. Are you finding yourself educated in this market still even today? Yeah. We're educated because fortunately we got gray partners who are out there listening, hearing, and helping us and our customers make easy decisions. So what's it like for you through, let's say you get a buyer? At what point do you let the buyer come in? I imagine you've got some people beating down your door for some of your lots if I had to guess. But what's that like? Yeah. Like to engage buyers early, we like to show them plans when they're in pencil and sketching and hear feedback and other things of that nature. We'd sort of like to develop the product as we go and test it, that sort of thing. But as Claudia was mentioning, there's a fine balance today between the balance of we, if you ask somebody, do you want a bunch of options? They automatically say yes, but what they really want is they just want to trust that they're going to get something that they love. And that more and more today is not give me a thousand options. It's really, in our case, we have an interior design firm that we team up with with each of our individual developments. And there's a trusted voice in the room that allows somebody permission to express themselves in how they make choices, but somebody they feel like they can trust and lean on, that they won't make a mistake in the process. And I ask a question, a question passed August 17th. Do you welcome buyer agents? Yes, ma'am, all day, every day. Wink. Yes. This is important because I do think it's important that builders work with agents because sometimes a regular person will not think of new construction, will not realize what's out there. And the buyer agents, that's what we do all the time is look for options that meet our clients must have, budget, and everything else. So I thank you for that. We work very hard. It's good to see that a builder is on our site as well. And I have another question. Do you have any plans to come to our area? You know, it's interesting. I've looked at a couple of sites, we're a small batch builder to say, you know, we work on two or three neighborhoods at a time that are probably pretty limited in numbers. And we're looking for absolutely non-repeatable sites. So if we find the right perfect spot where we feel like we can build something beautiful that would add to Charlotte, we would certainly consider that. Okay. Perfect. We can street beacon-street.com. And you mentioned Claudia, of course, because we do talk about here quite often, right? The role of real tours brokers in the process, right? In the sense of having quality partners and making sure that the client, their expectations are meant. But not only that, just at the core of the individual partners, the belief that the client should have an excellent experience. Jim, what's it like having to navigate through a very complicated process? Because taking a raw piece of dirt owned by, let's say, a fifth generation family farmer and taking it to a beautiful, absolutely stunning neighborhood and community that will help generations to prosper, let's say. What's it like finding partners in that process? I think it's, I mean, it's like anything that you're at for a while. You just, you develop people that you trust, they understand how you solve problems. You share character traits of the level of quality that you want to do. And so, you know, whether it's attorneys, civil engineers, architects, interior designers, marketing partners, I mean, you know, all of those, we've just been fortunate to build just a really, really deep bench over the years. And Claudia, this is going to you now because you've got your first assistant recently after Jim. This is the problem. She's addicted to working, Jim. Help her out here. How's it going with your, with your building team? How's it going? I cannot thank Sean enough. I do not know how I functioned without him because I'm still working like crazy and I have him full time behind my back. So thank you, Sean, for existing and proud of you, Cola. Yes. We're hanging out with Jim Wiley of Beacon Street, beacon-street.com. We're coming back. We're still hanging out on digital here with Jim, if that's okay with both of you. Yes. Okay. Cool. No problem. Okay. I didn't want to put you on the spot, but I do have, and I can, I'm just curious because I'm feeling, have you ever heard, and I'm not going to mention them here, but classical homes in Charlotte? You're mentioning them right now on digital, so you know, classical. Yeah. Oh, we are. Are we on air? Well, not on radio, but we're still on digital. Okay. I didn't say anything about it. No. Okay. Classic. Well, I love them. It's not bad at all. I just don't want to give them fry-free heterotides. That's about it. They have a neighborhood right across the street from the studio here, Jim. It's okay. They don't need us. Hi. Yes. Beautiful, by the way. They build houses, not anything work day-alish, but they do have higher-end, nice, beautiful homes. And they pretty much have, of course, people come and go, but the base is the same, like the trades, they have their guys. It's not subcontractors. Do you, what's your kind of- Yeah, ours is a little bit different because one building might be a five-story kind of menu and something else we might be building, you know, a village of small single-family homes. So we partner with the right builder from a truly single-family custom builder to larger general contractors, but even when we work with a larger general contractor, we're still using, you know, certain partners that we trust, whether it be flooring or kitchen cabinetry and appliance type of things, lighting, you know, vendors and other things. So we continue to use the same craftspeople, for lack of better words, and designers, even when our building's builder size needs to change. Okay. But you do have the people that you constantly use that you, is that the word vet? You vet people? Yeah, sure. You keep using them. I'm just curious to know how- That's also help animals. Yes. Yeah. The one. And just so you understand the thing about my assistant, I'm a control freak. Yeah. So I didn't have an assistant because I was afraid of not having the same kind of service. So I struggled for a long time before I hired someone. And I'm not saying it's easy. I still struggle, but I'm letting him help me. Hello, my name is Claudia and I know. That's your line. That's not my line. Sorry. I actually, I had something that when I had a little joke about my name is Claudia, but I forgot now. But yes, I am addicted to work, I guess. Well, once you find somebody good, then, which I've done the same thing starting 20 years ago with my main partner, but once you find somebody good, then it's easy to go find a second person that makes a difference. So it's just step by step, but it's great to work with people that you trust and can help. Yes. Jim, are you are you comfortable talking about the entitlement process at all as far as just just navigating and things that we're seeing generally speaking across the board? Yeah. Sure. We got another minute to, by the way, you sports fan, you a panther fan or what Jim tell the truth. Oh, man. I'm a state fan and we got home about Tennessee and Charlotte this weekend. So that wasn't good. But you got a bunch of jars of mayonnaise though, at least, right? Yeah. That's right. Were you here in Charlotte for the game? No, thankfully I was I was in Raleigh, but it was a little like it was a packed house in a fun time for at least part of it. That's right. Did you watch the Kevin watch this game at all? No. No. He's a, he's a Yankee. Okay. He's a New York. So did you watch the Giants? Cause they did equally terrible. I think he did. And I think he got upset very quickly. Yeah. Yes. So he, I think he started and he's like, yeah, no, producer, Jim producers yelling in our ears saying that every New York Giants fan or every New York fan is, is not having a good day either. So I don't know. Yeah. All right. We're going to return to radio now. Today's real talk continues now. Here are your hosts, Claudia O'Greezick and Justin Kazepes on 1059, 100.7 WSIC. Today's real talk, the show focused on North Carolina real estate, Justin Kazepes, Claudia O'Greezick of Compass real estate, who's 1% in all of MLS. All of the MLS. Across the entire thing, can it be a pretty big one too, handling quite a few markets. That's impressive. Congratulations. Thank you. It doesn't change the fact that you still have to put in and submit more or less than last week. That's our week. I'll keep saying I'm manifesting. Even if I'm wrong, I've been right for at least two weeks, which is pretty amazing. But I'll keep saying more and more and more because we do need more, more or less, 117 people moving to Charlotte every day. I have a hard time believing, but I'll, you know, I'll say it. We're seeing it. So I'll say it 117 people moving to Charlotte every single day. Jim, do you know how many people are supposed to be moving to Raleigh every day? I might. Actually, my Yorkies are from Raleigh. So I might go and buy a third one. Remember the last time I was told that number, but it's staggering that and how many U halls are coming in versus leaving? It's crazy. It's a big number. But that doesn't change the fact of more or less 500,000 less by can, excuse me, by county in Canopy MLS, active and coming soon, we will find out if Claudia is correct there in the fourth segment. But inventory is a real question, supply and demand, the true economics of a marketplace, Jim, a big part of it that is pretty controversial a lot of times when you see a new subdivision rights, the article in the news that's coming out, oh, more traffic, more big development coming in the entitlement process. It's a very common mantra. Can you give us kind of generally speaking the lay of land in your area, other areas across the state? What are you hearing generally as far as entitlements go in developers who want to build even quality products? Listen, let's set aside major high density projects. What are you hearing across the board in the entitlement sphere? You know, I think if somebody, I mean, I think there are obviously some projects that get a strong negative reaction that are having to battle uphill in certain places. Really if they're unprepared and how they've gone in to propose their neighborhoods. But if people are being thoughtful, you know, even though the entitlement process is long, I think they're relatively straightforward to navigate going through. So I'm not hearing anything that other than it's just the time that it takes to go through the process that is a negative at this point. Do you think that the entitlement process, generally speaking, adds to fees for the build and the process overall from what you guys see at all? Because some people talk about that, right, that that's part of it. Do we need to change any of that? And I'm not saying when there's a crystal ball or a silver bullet to it, if there was, I think we'd use it. But what are you seeing in that front? Yeah, I mean, for certain, I mean, every fee, every tax, every tap fee, every impact fee, you know, goes straight to the bottom line of what that lot costs or that unit or home costs to be built. So it certainly adds up and, you know, it's just another cost that goes into our performers and we've got to, you know, make a reasonable profit to reward investors and partners and everybody who puts a hard work in to bring a neighborhood to life. And so it certainly adds up in there into the cost of having a home. And then the other side of the corner of demand, right, North Carolina being a place where people are willing to come and pay for the 100 year old tree to remain, right? They want that. They want that high quality. Those things that you can only find in a truly high caliber subdivision and community. And you want to balance those needs too. Is there, Jim, take us, take us to a tough time, like as far as like, like, even if it's 2008, right, or because you've seen many cycles in the marketplace, what do you think like the future is here a little bit using that and saying, hey, we've done it before we can do it again. Yes, we can make it through some of these issues that we face. Yeah, I mean, that's a great question. I mean, it wasn't entitlement issues. I mean, the neighborhood, I worked on in Chapel Hill for many years. I mean, that had gone through almost 10 year entitlement process, you know, but in that market, it was so difficult to get something entitled and the supply was so low that if you ever made it through the entitlement process, you probably had something that was going to be successful. And it was a special piece of property and really well executed. I think that's it. You know, you got to underwrite things in a way that if one thing goes slow or can't go at the pace you need that it doesn't put you under. And so you got to be wise and assume there's going to be slowdowns, even in a market like this, where there's tremendous amount of demand out there, there's still pockets that are slow. There's still hesitation for buyers because of interest rates or, you know, election or whatever it is. And you know, you just got to you got to have a long view for sure. Another thing from the commercial side, Jim, that it's always got me curious, especially because it's happening here in our local market in some of the areas. Tap allocation, right, when we think about infrastructure as far as water and sewer and even power, I think it becomes a broadband and right in the utilities, all the many utilities people need and want and we've become accustomed to, what are you seeing there? Because there are parts of Eastern Eastern with Carolina that are not developed, right? That are very rural still. And that would love the opportunity to develop. So what are you seeing on kind of that other side to where, again, looking toward the future? Yeah, I mean, I think the, you know, the beauty of, or maybe one of the blessings of the pandemic is obviously, you know, remote work, virtual work. What does that look like? I think that's opened up some things we work in a town called Little Washington, which is a great small town on the Pamukah River in Eastern North Carolina. And you know, it's opened up for people from California to come to live in a small town life. But you know, but it's really important and there's a lot of efforts at the federal government and state government to bring broadband and high-speed internet to these rural areas and other things. So I feel like it's we're living in a great time where some of this demand and development can be spread out into some really beautiful places that may not have been, is top of mind because your job had to have you within a 30-minute commute or something. I have a question about the development. Are you as a builder and a developer getting any kind of incentives from the government to go to those areas and build in those areas? No. I mean, you know, the incentives might be that in a Raleigh or a Charlotte, there's 12 different levels of impact fees and other things because of, you know, infrastructure and other things that are being supported. Maybe the benefit of working in a small town is that it's a little bit simpler and they're a little bit more in a position where they're really thankful that you're there to build and to provide some new housing in their area. So it's a little simpler permitting process, probably a little bit less fees and other things in doing that, but you know, the risk might be that you're a little bit slower. You know, we don't, there aren't 117 people a day moving to some of these smaller communities, but nevertheless, they're growing. To a point that you are focusing or interested in those areas or not, maybe, maybe different builders. Yeah. I mean, I'm interested, again, just to sort of frame the picture. We want to be in a place that somebody loves. I mean, I don't know where you all like to go for vacation or to visit or the small town you grew up in or, you know, whatever old place you go back to that you have an emotional connection, but we're, you know, that can happen in a small town just as easy as it can happen in a great old neighborhood of a bigger city. And so we're looking for those places that people really have an emotional connection to and go, you know, no different than New York or, you know, London or, or somewhere else like, oh, wow, if I could live in one of these cool city neighborhoods, whether it be a small town or a big city, that's where I'd like to be. And so we're just trying to find those special places and do something additive to the neighborhood. Certainly a unique product. We're talking with Jim Wiley of Beacon Street, beacon-street.com out of the Raleigh area, some gorgeous, gorgeous, high quality projects that they've done for over 20 years, it looks like. Claudia, Jim mentioned the remote work concept, right, hybrid work, all that. And the distance, you got to find a compromise somewhere in this for a lot of buyers, right? Because you're not going to check every single box nearly the same as you may have been able to five years ago, we'll call it 10 years ago, a different time in the state. But for now in that distance concept, is that an area where you're seeing buyers being willing to compromise in the process? I would say most of them, yes, but again, you depend a lot of the ones that are willing to do it depend on internet, good, fast internet, because the ones that can do it are working remotely, and then they need access to the internet. But yes, many people do want, they actually, they want that, they want to kind of get away from traffic, from craziness, they want a larger home, a larger lot, but they all depend on mainly good internet, but yes. Is that what you're hearing too, Jim, as far as like, internet's a non-starter for people? I thought we'd all be hooked up to Starlink by now or something like that, I thought that would be the thing. Yeah, it's certainly necessary, but I also see people are sort of swapping seats, you know, someone from California might be coming to Raleigh or Charlotte because of affordability and, you know, their quality of life while the same time Raleigh or Charlotte's growing and someone from Raleigh might move to Eastern North Carolina to get that same level of sort of relief or quality of life. So there's people that are seeking the same thing, they're just answering them in sort of different, different locations and sizes. We're talking with Jim, you're going to have to hold that question because we're about to go to break. And then we also, Claudia's trying to escape from it, but she can't more or less. And also, don't let me forget about maintenance Monday, I don't want to get yelled at either. Maintenance Monday, right? If you want this asset to continue to be an asset for you, right? You want to take care of it, you need to take care of it. So maintenance Monday, we'll have that segment too. I'm sure, I'm sure Jim's got some maintenance or some wisdom on maintenance as well, I would imagine that he could share many stories over the years, grateful for the time, Jim, radio fame. We are sticking around on digitally. Always check us out on the WSIC News app, available on iOS and Google Play. Coming right back. You had Taco Bell fan, McDonald's, Wendy's, what's in too, Jim, when you're on the road to hanging and playing in the dirt. What's the deal? Ooh, if it's fast food, it's Chick-fil-A probably. Of course. The Lord's Chick. Yeah. No, the closest canes is what, is it Tennessee or is it Virginia or something like that? No, no, no. There's a canes in Chapel Hill. Okay. You have fan, can you settle the score for us? What's the deal with canes? I've never had it, I don't think. My sons are probably more avid users, but I hear canes is the real deal. See, people are saying it around here too. I got yelled at about that one last week, that one, that one. I had never heard of them. Well, now you know, Jim stamps it of approval on it. Yeah. I've never heard, I'm from Brazil. Come on. What's like the best, what's like the common dish in Brazil? Like, what's the... Ollie the pant. With all due respect, I'm going to say the same thing if someone asks about America. Look at the, it's a gigantic country. You can't... Chicken or beef. So I'm from the South. Beef. Okay. So I'm from the South, close to Argentina. So we have steak. It's Schuhask barbecue, but not North Carolina and barbecue. It's like steak, T-bone, picaña. Have you heard of picaña? I have now. Do you? Have you ever? Like, if you go to Chima or something, you can ask for picaña. It's like, so good, but yes, it's beef or the South. Northeast of Brazil, it's completely super spicy. They use a kind of a pumpkin and shrimp and fish, tons of pepper. It's nothing to do with the South. Again, it's the same asking a country as big as the United States. It's Brazil. All right, Jim, are you an Easter barbecue fan or more of a Lexington barbecue fan? No, I'm Eastern. We're solid in that camp. Okay. Deep. You got to be careful with that one. I don't know. Yeah, North Carolina. You got to be careful. The type of... What is the difference? Chop, like pork barbecue. Okay. This is the one I know. What is this? Yeah, there's two different kind of bait. Jim, do you want to help Claudia out real quick? Yes, really. What's a tomato-based sauce versus a vinegar-based sauce? Vinegar. I like the vinegar one. Yeah. Am I allowed to say that? Yeah, you say... Did I give the wrong answer? This is American. You say whatever you want. You just got to be careful. I got yelled at for calling it going to a barbecue. You don't go to a barbecue. So the day I did not enjoy Cheerwine was not a good North Carolina. Don't do that. That's good. Be careful about one. I haven't... I'm thinking about sharing it on my Instagram, but I think I'm going to get hated. Take messages. Like I'm still holding on to that segment. All right, let's come. We're coming back to radio right now, Jim. All right. With Claudia O'Brieza and Justin Cazephas on 1059-100.7 WSIC. Today's real talk, the show focused on North Carolina real estate, Justin Cazephas, Claudia O'Brieza, of Compass real estate, 1% of all the MLS, top 1%, which means that now it's time. It's time to figure out more or less. And we have got a special guest, Jim Wiley of Beacon Street, he's hanging out with us virtually as well right now. More or less looking at canopy MLS active and coming soon, 500,000 or less bi-county always starting with Mecklenburg County. Last week we had how many were active in the city. 1628. We're going to have more than 1650 right now. Okay. So Claudia O'Brieza of Compass real estate is putting officially in now that active and coming soon, 500,000 less bi-county compared to last week, that there are actually more units on the market this week. And part of why I- Are you checking it right now? I am going to be doing this in real time right now. But are the people that think we lie when don't? No. You are actually looking for the answer right now. Actually right now, you're finding me to type in exactly what you were supposed to do. Well because I was so deeply entrenched, but because it doesn't matter because now- Come on. I got you. Don't you worry. Right. I had 1650 or more. Wow. I'm real. I'm going to say. No more 2,241. What? Did a new subdivision come on the market? Say that again. 2,241. That Labor Day. People were getting the property on the market for Labor Day. That is crazy and shocking and amazing. I'm very happy buyers. I'm going to give you a call. Jim, let me ask you from a big market perspective now after hearing that. That's a big jump. I think back to, I started in real estate as a broker in 2012, right as the 2008 financial crisis, right? We were kind of getting out of it. The market was just hitting that upswing. There was a normal cycle to a market as far as annually goes. When you'd expect buyers to come into the marketplace, when you'd expect sellers, do you feel like we've normalized to get into post-COVID world at all in any type of annual cycle in the market? I think maybe for the first time I felt that this summer again, a little bit. Our buyers, by their nature, we got people that are following children or grandchildren moving to the area at times again, so some of them shop over holidays. It's a great time to be with your family and people to make a decision so they shop. I felt like this summer, I can't decide whether it's people hesitating or whether they all just traveled to Europe because things are going so well, but I felt like it was a little bit slower this summer, but now it feels like the whole city has come back into town at the same time in the last two weeks. Which is, if you think about it, because people love to talk about the spring market and things slow down, apparently we are, I am being forced to hear that fall is coming. You go to your big box store right now, they got all the Halloween and then the outside of it. I get upset, I don't want to see Halloween. It's, what is today? I don't even know September 9th, I don't want to see Halloween. That's okay, just go a couple of aisles over and you've got Thanksgiving already there too, if you want to just jump straight to it. No, I don't even want to, I don't want to see fall, but look at the fall market. People love to say spring market. This is by far the highest number since I started writing down. Think March, would you consider the end of March spring market? Yes, right? March. We had 1,048 houses in the beginning of the spring market and now beginning of fall, everybody put in the wreath and going against me with the pumpkin spice thing, 2,241 new listings. Do you think it's an anticipation of rates at all? Do you think that we're hitting that point of like, hey, like we told you, rates are going to come down. I told you so, yes. I told you so. Yes, I do think that a lot has to do with the rates before calling me. This weekend I got a call, hey, we're going to list right now. I'm working on the paperwork, you know, I was working on the paperwork before I came here. Just like that. As we had discussed, interest rates come down, some sellers that have great interest rates decide to sell because now it's not going to be crazy at the same time, a bunch of buyers come on the market. I just don't know if it's going to be crazy, multiple offer, bidding more again or not. Okay. More inventory on the market is a good thing, but there is something as a broker that you got to pay attention to. We know we've talked about the real estate commission as far as the complaints that come in against brokers most of the time having to do with material fact. A lot of that has to do with maintaining your property throughout the years of ownership. What do you've got for us on tap this week for maintenance Monday? Okay. Before I say anything because it's going to be a very basic one, but I'm going to say right now, one of the first things my buyers ask when we start searching. It's not even, of course, they say about location, bedrooms, but they are always super worried and trying to focus on the systems, the things that cost tons of money in someone's mind. HVAC, water heater, like this is a main thing. Many times they say we don't care if it's a dated kitchen, which for me, sometimes I talk to them, forget about it because a new kitchen costs way more than HVAC system. Just call the right people. I have a guy. I have a few guys, but anyway, so this is one of the first things like, oh my God, we are afraid of having an old HVAC in the house or old roof, whatever. And then my maintenance Monday is change the filters because people buy a house, they worry so much about the expensive system and then they leave that gross filter with like a thick layer of dust forcing the system and making the system not last as long. And yes, this is one of my toxic traits. I go to houses when I have my buyers, I go to the house and I look at all returns and all vents in the house because many times people stage or clean or clean the countertops and then I look at the vents, I look at the returns and I see a gross kind of limey kind of thing, meaning they never change the filters, meaning they're probably forcing their HVAC system, which is a huge concern. So people put on your Google calendar and replace your filters. I have a client who is an actual HVAC engineer. He creates systems and he always says by the cheapest filter you can have at Amazon, whatever, cheapest one and replaced it every month. It's better than having a fancy one that gets forgotten or that you don't want to replace because you pay too much money for it. So it's easier to buy the cheap one, change it every month and let your system do its thing. Jim, obviously, the systems you guys put in are new when they, when you build the new construction. Hopefully. Are you at all in the renovation space? I am certainly seeing some of these boutique luxury developers getting into it given the lack of inventory and the opportunity to still create wonderful masterpieces. Are you playing in that space at all? No, not really. We did a little bit of renovation earlier in our career, but again, I guess I would say we're in the renovation of a neighborhood business because again, we're going not into a greenfield farmland, but we're finding small pieces of property in and around great existing neighborhoods and we're helping renovate when they're underdeveloped. So we're doing that, but man, one of the big drivers of our customers is a dream to own something brand new that has limited maintenance headache, has all the wonderful lower power bills of being an efficient new construction. So that's what we're doing. Jim, not renovating doesn't mean you won't or you haven't found a lot with a house that you destroyed to build brand new, right? You do that. Recycle. Recycle. That's the sweet word for it. You recycle. Okay. Yeah. You got it. Yeah. You got to use the term where you can't. Okay. Yeah. It's nice, but then you know, it's kind of your recycle, but then you don't call it track homes. You don't want me to. You don't like when I use that word. No. I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to offend by any stretchy imagination. See, this is the type of conversation you got to have with a good team, Jim. Talk about your team and what's going on at Beak History. What are you guys up to these days overall and kind of how's everybody working together? Everybody getting along still I assume. Yeah. You know, we're, I feel like it's boys in the boat. If you've watched that movie of late, but we're all, you know, we dig in really deep sort of one project at a time, getting things designed and ready to get out of the ground and the Bernie part project we're working on, everybody is doubting and focused, trying to get it out of the ground. And so we're thankful to have great partners and people to work alongside that, you know, we love these neighborhoods and are excited to be bringing them to life. So you haven't broken ground? We have done some infrastructure work on this particular neighborhood, but our first condo building is what we're anticipating in the next couple of months and we're trying to finish up building permits and final specifications and contract with our general contractor and other things of that nature. So just racing to get, get ready to start. Are you going to have a model model home? We do generally speaking, our neighborhoods will sell out before we get to a final model home. We do model home in some of our neighborhoods or have a model kind of menu unit that will be. Actually, our office we use is a sales office and we're right across the street from our project. So we have a great sort of welcome center for our customers. So you're saying I don't have an excuse to go to Raleigh, visit and get a New Yorkie? You get, I'm going to tell you what, I'll tell you what, I'll tell you what, I'll take Demi, you take Kevin, we'll go to the Lexington Barbecue Festival, bring some out to Jim so he can try the Lexington Barbecue, we'll see if we can convert them on that and see how it goes to visit one of these neighborhoods. Yeah. How about that? Do you win it? No, he didn't. He didn't win. He didn't win. He didn't win that. Oh, I would love to have you. I had another company agent in this afternoon that I was sharing the neighborhood with. Oh, that's awesome. So we went, when is that? The barbecue festival. Yeah. It's coming up soon. Don't worry. I'll get you some information. We'll stop off and get your wine on the way and make sure that we do this all the way for you. Yeah. Let's do it. And RC Cola and a moon pie too. I'm going to get it all for you. Yeah. The Eastern and what is the other one? Was the Eastern barbecue and the other one? Lexington barbecue. Right. Am I saying that right Jim? Right. And this is the tomato base one. Yeah. Lexington is the line. Everything west of Lexington is. Okay. So I have to try the tomato base one. Jim Wiley of Beacon Street, beacon-street.com. You can check out their beautiful website, beautiful bills that they've done in the past. 20 years experience, Jim. I mean, a culmination of just a wonderful career, it seems like from what I'm seeing. Are you still having fun these days or what overall or are you getting any sleep or what? Oh, yeah. Now that's the name of the game is to have fun. If we're not enjoying and excited about what we're building, we need to go do something else. So, yeah, we're having a great time. First time, second generation, my son came to work for us this past year. And so far that's going fantastic. So we're having fun, but we really enjoy the town and we enjoy our customers. I mean, it's probably bigger than anything is the people that we get to meet. we appreciate you so much. Thank you for the time, sir. It was an absolute pleasure.
