Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of Selling Greenville your favorite real estate podcast here in Greenville South Carolina I'm your host as always Stan McCune Realtor right here in Greenville and you can find all of my contact information in the show notes need to reach out to me for any of your real estate needs just a reminder if you enjoy this content or even if you're unsure please just hit the little subscribe button you've got multiple different ways to do that depending on what platform you're using YouTube I believe it's a little bell that you that you hit Apple Podcast you I think you actually hit the subscribe button there might be a check box I don't know every app has a different way of doing it I just ask that you please do that because that helps to support the show and if you need a realtor in the Greenville area I'm your guy my contact information is there in the show notes as always today it's June all right I'm recording this on June the first it's crazy how quickly the time has gone by this year and we are now outside of what we consider the peak of the peak season for real estate right the there are it's not that we're outside of the general peak season right that lasts for the entire summer but once we get to Memorial Day there is a slowdown that tends to happen and we're here we're past Memorial Day we're in June and now we're at the time of the year when people start traveling and when summer plans start to take effect and by this point again we're still not in our part of the year where things just grind to a halt nothing close to that don't hear me out that I'm saying that specifically but it's not going to be generally speaking quite as crazy as April and may were and that's just normal now if it does if that does happen which it could that would just buck seasonal trends I don't see that happening unless as we've talked in the past mortgage rates come down and so this is some of the stuff that that I think about as we enter all of these different seasons cause this all directly impacts me but the other thing that I'm thinking about as we enter this month of June is that the South Carolina primaries are here and I just want to say the primaries are here and real estate is on the ballot so we're going to talk about the South Carolina primaries and for a lot of these the primaries are more important than the general election OK let's make no bones about it South Carolina is a very red state very Republican and particularly in the Greenville area very very Republican there are some little pockets of Greenville and Spartanburg and Anderson that do vote blue but for the most part generally speaking this area it's a very very red area you either love that or you hate it right yeah that's the way politics are right now but generally speaking when it comes to real estate with a few noteworthy exceptions there isn't a whole lot of disagreement between red and blue there isn't a whole lot of disagreement between Republicans and Democrats over a lot of the core things that affect real estate in our area and so that's what we're gonna be talking about here I'm not gonna be endorsing any candidates I'm not gonna be talking about specific candidates you guys need to do your own research and figure out who it is that you want to vote for but I have spoken to a lot of candidates I've interviewed candidates in fact on the show I interviewed Daniel Rumfelt for Greenville County Council earlier this year I highly recommend that you go back and listen to that or watch that episode because that talks about and I mean almost that entire episode was about issues related to real estate and private property and so that shows you just how much real estate and private property is on the ballot I had an hour long interview with a candidate for Greenville County council which by the way Daniel has never before Daniel Rumfelt has never before been on county council and yet he knows a lot of these issues very impressive candidate I highly like I said highly recommend you go back and listen to that episode but I want to discuss these issues and then you can look at the different candidates and see where they stand and reach out to them listen these candidates they're accessible they want to talk to people they're door knocking you think that they're not going to respond to a text message or a phone call when they're out there like doing something that's way harder going around knocking on doors listen reach out to them don't be afraid to do that if you have a question if you have a concern take the time to reach out to them they want to hear from you Ralph Norman Congressman Norman who's running for governor this year gave me his personal cell phone like that's the level to which these people want to hear from their constituent base so let's jump right in as far as the actual issues at play here and first and foremost and I guess you could debate whether this is specifically a real estate or a property issue but I don't see how you can divorce it from the real estate related issues and that is how to fund infrastructure this is if you've been in Greenville for any length of time or in the upstate for any length of time or if you've listened to the show for any length of time you know that this is the No. 1 talking point right now in this area how do we fund infrastructure specifically roads but there's also other infrastructure such as clean water such as sewer etcetera and there's all sorts of discussions happening with related to this happening that that are related to this specific question okay and the discussions revolve around obviously with the state of South Carolina being a very red state there is angst about raising taxes on anyone and our current governor has been talking about trying to bring the income tax rate down to 0% as other states have basically no state income tax and that is something that's a popular thing people don't want to pay income tax economists think income tax is a bad idea right you're disincentivizing people to make money taxes typically are used to disincentivize certain behaviors we don't want to disincentivize people making money and yet we do now what happens when we have an environment like this where basically there's all of these pushes for lower taxes lower taxes lower taxes but then you have this whole issue of well we have infrastructure concerns things that need to be directly addressed on some way by our government then the question becomes well how do we pay for those things and what a lot of people resort to is like well we just need to budget better we just need to be more transparent we just need to do this we just need to do that I'm just going to be very clear on a few things here the budget let's look at County Council for instance the budget that county council publishes every year very transparent right they're they have money allocated to all of these different services you know you've got the you've got the sheriff you've got EMT firefighters schools libraries parks and rec all these different things now when people are suggesting that maybe some money has not transparently gone where it should go to what they typically seem to imply is that county council itself is misappropriating money and I'm gonna stand here cause I do stand here in my office standing desk I'm going to stand here and tell you that that is a ludicrous Assumption and I'll tell you why do you think that law enforcement would be okay with not receiving their money that has been budgeted to them do you think that they would just sit by and be like huh well we were scheduled to get however you know however hundreds of millions and we only got 50 million well we'll make it work you think that they're not gonna go to the press with that do you think EMTs are not gonna go to the press do you think the libraries are not gonna go to the press do you think that that somehow County council is going to shaft all of these different organizations that are essential to our county and that that's not going to get out in the public in the press that's absurd that's utterly absurd so then the question is okay well how are all of those organizations spending that money and that's a legitimate concern right there could be waste fraud and abuse which are the three words that people in 2026 love to use there could be waste fraud and abuse on all of these different levels who's going to check that nobody is asking for an audit of the libraries to see how the libraries are doing right how they're appropriating their money nobody is asking for an audit of firefighters guess what some of these fire departments the firehouses that they're putting up are like cathedrals I mean these things it again I'm not trying to say that we need to audit them okay I'm not standing here saying that but I mean nobody's asking that question as these what appear to be multi million dollar fire departments go up all over the place I mean it's all over the place there's some of the nicest buildings in Greenville County and yet nobody is asking well where did they get that money was that the best use of that money do we really need them to be this nice maybe we do I don't know my only point in saying all of this is that there's so much focus on the fact that the county is needs to somehow rebudget and become more transparent in terms of how they spend money but it's not but people are focused on County Council and I've had a lot of critiques about County Council on this show over the years but you cannot look at that budget nobody looks at that budget and says here's a line item that's inflated you have to go to the organizations that that are receiving that money the institutions that are receiving that money you have to audit each and every one of those well that costs a ton of money as well and again nobody is I'm not hearing anyone asking to do that so I think most people don't think that you know waste fraud and abuse is occurring on those levels and so I just want to make that point over and over again because I keep hearing in terms of the tax discussion that we just need to eradicate waste fraud and abuse on the county level but nobody seems to really understand what they need to do in order to do that you have to audit every single institution and organization receiving money from the county the county's already done their audit okay they've already had all sorts of looks 'cause we've got basically county councils completely turned over the past six years I mean it's a completely different makeup than it was when I first really started to get into politics six years ago and so we need to have a serious look at this and look at the right sources right the right institutions right organizations otherwise we're not gonna get to the bottom of it and here's the thing okay let's be real if we actually and I know I'm going on a rant here and I'll dial it back in here in a second I do have a few little notes that I'm that I'm working off of here and I'll come back but I need to get this off my chest the reality of the situation is that if we audited all of those organizations let's say that Greenville County Council decided that they're going to spend taxpayer money to probably several hundreds of thousands of dollars to audit every single receiver of county money people wouldn't believe it they wouldn't believe the results unless a result came up with wow we actually did find a tremendous amount of waste fraud and abuse like unless that were found people wouldn't believe it if the conclusion was actually these funds are being appropriated pretty well what people are just gonna say is that was a fraudulent audit and it just goes round and round OK and so I've been very transparent on this show I am a libertarian small l libertarian I'm not like a part of the Libertarian Party but I generally speaking have libertarian leaning beliefs for the most part I'm not Ron Paul by any means but I generally like the concept of liberty freedom low taxes private property rights all of those things and the reality of the situation is that sometimes you do need more tax revenue in order to fund public projects now if there were if private organizations were willing to fix our roads I would absolutely be on board with that but it's not happening listen we're well past the point where that could possibly happen and this is where we start to get into the real estate discussion because what people really want is they want the developers to pay for all of this and they want people moving to Greenville to pay for all of these infrastructure concerns and so there's been all sorts of discussions for many years now on what are called impact fees I'm gonna explain impact fees real quick for you guys impact fees are a fee imposed on a developer on every lot that they intend to develop and it can be assessed by a lot of different organizations okay I'm not gonna get into all of them but the county is one of the organizations that can assess an impact fee well Greenville County Council has been talking for years about impact fees and how and impact fees are the way that we can fix the infrastructure in this area so they hired an outside attorney or consulting firm rather that has done studies on impact fees all over the country to look at the Greenville market and to see hey is this can we avoid some sort of a of a tax increase on our people in general here in the Greenville area by assessing impact fees on developers and the consultant the firm concluded that no it's not nearly enough you there's no point in even doing the impact fees unless you're bringing in revenue through something like a penny sales tax OK and so guess what has happened the same people in county council that grandstanded against the penny sales tax which is a very very marginal and temporary and specifically earmarked for very specific projects increase on sales tax okay and it wouldn't go towards groceries or you know other things that that directly affect you know that that harm people at the lowest income practices is very targeted very specific very well done and a huge percentage of it would have come from people visiting Greenville not from residents Greenville County many people on Greenville County Council grandstand it against it a few years ago and it failed it passed in Spartanburg County it failed in Greenville County the very same people who grandstanded against it are now pushing for a penny sales tax they finally came full circle and realized oh actually what a lot of organizations the realtors ooh the big bad realtors right cause that's what we're looked at right now you look at there are candidates right now that are saying the Realtor Political Action Committee didn't support me guess what that's a good thing it's a good thing that the Realtors don't support me because that means I'm a I'm anti development and I'm anti growth what have you ever heard that being anti growth is a good thing but that's the sentiment right now in the Greenville area because people associate growth with a bunch of New Yorkers and people from California and all over the place moving into the area and they don't want that we're closed they say we don't need any more people and so guess what as Realtors you know and again I've been a transparently a part of the Realtor Political Action Committee nothing that I say on this podcast is coming from them okay nothing that I say is any sort of an endorsement from that committee or from the Greater Greenville Association of Realtors I want to make that very very clear but that committee has been saying for years we can't fund infrastructure with impact fees we need something like a penny sales tax nobody wants that but that's the only way to do it you're not going to get it from taxing developers and guess what you don't tax the developers again and this is where it comes full circle to real estate that money gets tripled and passed on to the end buyer and it makes housing less affordable overall if we didn't have impact fees and I'm not saying we shouldn't have impact fees I'm just saying if we didn't have them housing would be dramatically cheaper than it is right now new construction right now is in the low three hundreds it would be in the two hundreds you could buy a brand new house for probably two 75 like on average if there were no impact fees in the system and that's just reality now again that's I'm painting with very broad strokes because there is a place I believe for these impact fees but make no mistake those are taxes and they are specifically taxes on first time home buyers okay the people that need to be taxed the least right now right those are the people that need money in their pockets those are the people that were hurting when we do impact fees now the other way that that our area has tried to figure out how to fund infrastructure has been and I've already alluded to this by simply stopping growth stopping development right and I guess the theory here is if we if we have fewer people come to this area then we'll basically have time to get caught up there is no indication there is no study there is no data that indicates that if fewer people started moving to this area that we would then have time to get caught up on our infrastructure much of the complaint about our infrastructure is regarding state roads and the department of transportation they have what an eight year backlog like what are we gonna do about that you think stopping growth is gonna somehow get the tot caught up like that's just not going to happen and this is why a lot of people are against this but I was for when the previous penny sales tax was proposed it proposed to take over that the county would take over state roads do you think that I want my county tax dollars to be paying something that I'm already paying for the state do you think I wanna pay for the roads to be repaired twice no but would I rather the roads be repaired than the not be repaired which is what I think is going to happen if the dot continues to operate the way it is I would rather the roads be repaired now this is where we get into the governor's race right we have a gubernatorial election this year and pay very close attention to what they're saying about the dot because that is when where a lot of these road issues come from it is in Columbia it is something that the governor can have influence over and pay attention cause there's a lot of talk about the dot with these gubernatorial candidates right now and as I've already said I think I started going down this road and then kind of got distracted but the primaries I believe is June 9th that's going to determine now there's probably gonna be a governor runoff there's probably gonna be a runoff in several elections but whoever wins those primaries is likely going the Republican primary is likely going to win the election it's the odds of us having a Democrat governor in the state of South Carolina are so low okay let's just be real I'm not saying that you shouldn't vote Democrat if that's what your conscience tells you to do I'm just saying that it's probably not a vote that's going to count outside of being a protest vote okay and so the primaries are super important okay you need to be locked in right now to what these candidates are saying don't wait until November it's too late in November it's already decided for many of these races and you also need to hear what they're saying about growth right if they're anti growth that's a concern to me I want our area to continue to grow all of the things that people love about Greenville are the result of growth like Falls Park has been there for you know 30 something years 30 something years 20 something years false park like doesn't ever exist unless we have a pro growth mindset and as it is many people were against it when it when it came out which is absurd you think about this how absurd it would be to be against Falls Park in 2026 but people 25 years ago were against it or however when whenever it was that the plans were produced by Greenville City they were against it they thought it was absurd they thought we were getting rid of a good of a good overpass bridge just to show some water why would we do that they couldn't see the vision they had such a short mindset and they were anti growth and it's the same thing that we have today with so many of these people and so now you hear Greenville County talking about they want to look into concurrence the way I understand concurrence is it's basically saying we it's basically a moratorium on development or it can be a moratorium on development on the basis of we can't provide the capacity for our infrastructure so for instance clean water okay let's say that it was concluded that we didn't have the ability to provide enough clean water for additional development there could be a moratorium placed on all future development until the clean water infrastructure was built out better so that we could actually then support that additional infrastructure that's what concurrency in this very specific context means well Greenville County is studying concurrency okay that's a that's a nice way of saying they're trying to figure out how to stop development because they're running out of ideas they're running out of ideas now they're proposing attacks that they all went against many of them were elected into office specifically because they were against the tax and guess what I've interviewed and spoken to many of the people running for County Council and they were all against the penny sales tax now I haven't looked gone back to look to see if they've changed their position since County council has brought this up has brought it back up but the only one that I spoke to that was in favor of it was the one that I interviewed on the show Daniel Rumfelt he said that that was something that in his opinion we should have done now he didn't say it on the show but I've talked to him outside of the show and he did bring that up he's the only person I'm gonna name because he's the only person that's been on my show OK that I'm just gonna be honest about that and he asked to be on this show OK as well that's one of my rules when I have people running for office that haven't currently been in political office they have to reach out to me first I'm not reaching out to all these different people and asking them to be on my show I that I I'd be at risk of trying to pick winners and losers but if they reach out to me I absolutely give them the opportunity to come on and state their case whatever that may be but this is the reality of the of the situation is that a lot of the people that are currently running are running on a no tax platform and when you ask them what are we gonna do about roads and infrastructure they say we got to get rid of waste fraud and abuse okay just like the current County Council has done the past several years what are you going to do that they haven't done give us one proposal for what you are going to do that they haven't done they can't give it they can't do it they simply have this idea in their head and be very careful when you're when you're speaking to these people be very careful about these people that make these claims with no data I'm a data junkie personally if you know me you already know that it's very it's very alarming to me when people make these grand statements and there's absolutely no evidence backing what they're saying that's my rant on roads infrastructure and how that relates to the county all right these next few ones I'm gonna go by a little bit quicker because they're not quite as they they're not as big of a part of the overall discussion as the road and infrastructure discussion short term rentals Airbnb VRBO or VRBO whatever they're going to be taxed county wide they're currently taxed in cities various cities it's the writing is on the wall listen County Council Greenville County Council is investigating taxing Airbnb's whether through the Airbnb website or in in other ways it's going to happen so if you own an Airbnb you own a short term rental just start preparing for that I don't see that train stopping I would tell you to reach out to your county council person and say I'm against this I just think at this point it's probably a waste of time they are looking for ways to increase taxes in a way that is popular okay well what what's a popular thing you know a lot of people don't like Airbnb's yeah if you're one of those that's like wait what do you mean by that people in neighborhoods they don't want Airbnb's to be in their neighborhood I kind of understand that to a certain extent but there are way worse things that could be in a neighborhood than an Airbnb but whatever I digress people like the idea of those that have these rental properties they in the in people's minds these people that own these Airbnb's have so much money that why wouldn't they want to be taxed and you know what there is an element of maybe taxing some of these Airbnb's is actually necessary in in order to maybe dilute or not dilute but in order to undilute the Airbnb market get rid of some of these that that shouldn't be there to begin with right a bunch of people bought properties that they converted to Airbnb's back when mortgage rates were low maybe a tax increase will push some of those to sell and bring more inventory to the market I don't know I'm kind of grasping for straws here cause I own a short term rental and I don't want it to be taxed I intentionally avoided city limits I intentionally avoided HOA's so that I could use my property how I wanted to I don't want my property be taxed not I mean it's already taxed here here's the thing okay I'm acting like Airbnb's aren't taxed they're already taxed at the non owner occupied tax rate or the commercial property tax rate which is 3 to three and a half sometimes even four times what the property tax rate is for an owner occupied property that's a problem and that's another thing that's being discussed very very heavily on the governor level right now is the property tax structure what should we do about that should we make it a more equitable structure cause right now with rental properties being taxed as commercial properties guess who guess who gets hit the hardest by that it's the renters guess who has the least amount of money it's the renters guess who's getting the most amount of tax breaks the owner occupied properties the owner occupants who have more money than the renters to begin with people think that the that the landlords and the landladies are the ones shouldering that that property tax burden no they pass that on that that gets passed on to the end user and if it doesn't the property gets sold it's that simple so the short term rentals are already being taxed at the commercial property tax rate we're talking about an additional accommodation style tax like what the hotels pay that's what we're talking about here and I'm against that but I resigned myself to it's going to happen it's just it's just a matter of when not if and so again if you've got short term rentals be prepared for that you might want to start looking to sell now you might sell now as a short term rental that's cash flowing whereas it might not cash flow nearly as well after getting taxed now might be the time to exit and to try to pass it on to someone that doesn't know what's coming down you know what's coming down from the county level and trust me once Greenville County does it all the surrounding counties are gonna do it this is this is going to be the entire upstate and eventually the entire state of South Carolina okay this is where this is going it it's lousy for those of us that have had these properties I mean my property has been an Airbnb for seven years and you know why tax it now but this is the spirit of our day and it it's like I said it is going to happen another thing you need to be considering as you're deciding who to vote for is it got passed this year in the state of South Carolina that property taxes for seniors would be lowered substantially okay 60 if you're 65 and older you already qualify now you do have to apply for it but for what's called homestead exemption if that's confusing if you think why do you have to be 65 or older for homestead exemption you just said that owner occupants pay a much lower tax rate well that's not actually called homestead is an additional overlay on top of the on top of the tax break that you get as an owner occupant and it basically reduces the assessed value of your property so if your property is deemed by the county to be worth 300 thousand if you're a senior up until 2026 that would be reduced by 50,000 so you'd be taxed off a 250 thousand dollar evaluation well now they've increased it and it depends on how long you've lived in the state but up to 150 thousand dollar deduction so that 300,000 dollar evaluation now reduced to 150,000 if you're a senior 65 and older that's lived I believe 10 years or more in the state might be 5 years or more I need to go back and look at that but regardless they really really did seniors a solid here seniors who by and large in the state don't need those tax breaks but seniors vote and seniors get what seniors want and they want lower taxes they get what they want you know who doesn't get it the first time home buyers the ones that are kind of flaky voters because they're in the 20s and thirties the ones who need these tax breaks the most they don't get the tax breaks because they're not considered to be the ones most likely to go out and vote that's why it's so important that that people vote like it doesn't matter it doesn't even matter what you vote for or who you vote for but if you want your voice to be heard if you want your the issues of your generation and your demographic to be heard your demographic has to vote that's the way this works and so me personally I'm not against lowering the property taxes for seniors I I know a lot of seniors on fixed incomes that that is going to help out tremendously and you know there's a lot of seniors in some you know depressed areas of Greenville County they've lived in a home for 50 years it's really not in great shape and they are self insured they don't have a mortgage on it but they're having to pay these property taxes and it's hard for them okay this really helps them do we need to do that for seniors living in million dollar properties like do they really need this sort of a tax break I wish that there had been more nuance when it came to this and I think that you should consider that as you're voting what did your representative if your representative is or your senator is up for is up for election this year what was their stance on it how did they approach it are they concerned about first time home buyers and their inability to purchase a property and pursue the American dream that's an important part of this discussion and that leads into my final point here which is housing affordability and this has been for me personally the most discouraging part of all of this and that is that as I've talked to people running for office housing affordability is not on the ballot this year it's not nobody is worried about it nobody is concerned about ballooning housing costs nobody is worried about the fact that now the first time average first time home buyer is depending on what you look at either high 30s maybe even early forties like the average age of a first time home buyer is higher than it's ever been at least as far back as we have data and nobody seems to be concerned about that how are our children going to be able to afford a home if we don't do something about it and the thing to do about it isn't stimulus okay I'm not advocating for that but we need to really really think about how these policies like I already mentioned impact fees impact fees directly affect housing affordability and they're never brought up in that context you hear people on county council talk about it they're not concerned about housing affordability they don't care what the average age of a first time home buyer is they could care less I should say they couldn't care less I know either one works but they couldn't care less they care not at all you talk you hear some of these people in in the state house some of our state senators they don't care very few of them are actually concerned about these sorts of things in fact everything that they're doing is in the opposite direction okay we just had a local Bill that almost got passed in the state okay it was something I've never seen in my life before but it was functionally so in case you don't know zoning happens on a county level as it should we don't want bureaucrats in Columbia deciding how land in Greenville should be should be used and should be zoned well guess what there were a couple of people in Colombia in our government who decided that they needed to pass a local Bill for an area of the upstate that they called the Blue Ridge area OK northern Greenville County and it basically would have functionally zoned the area to not allow developments it was something like they're under 5 acres they would not have allowed you to put more than one house per 5 acres there's something to that effect that's absurd that is absolutely absurd not only is it unconstitutional our state doesn't allow you to zone local areas like that we have a constitution for a reason it's remarkable that people in the freedom caucus and in the Republican Party who claim to be all about the Constitution didn't seem to care too much about the Constitution the South Carolina Constitution in this instance nonetheless people are really pushing for this to happen and when you do something like that when you start saying there needs to be you know to build a house you have to have minimum acreage and then you can't you can't do you know developments unless those developments have tons of acreage per property which then is that's functionally a moratorium that's all that that is that is a moratorium because developers can't build communities with multiple acre lots and actually make money in this economy it's the reality of the situation that just that all transpired just within the past few months in an election year that's how little they care about housing affordability they're willing to try to ram something like this through Columbia and I was told that the governor would have vetoed it and good on him if that's true I don't think we could get any of our current governors people running for governor to make a comment on that I would love to know if they would have vetoed that but nonetheless we have a serious problem on our hands here and that housing affordability is so little regarded that people in Colombia in an election year are willing to try to ram something like that through and they were sneaky with it too I could get into a lot of details on how sneaky they were I'm not going to go into all of that there are some things I know in confidence that I'm not going to share on here because I do have political ties but just know that it's nasty and it's not getting better unless we get people unless people in the you know Gen Z and millennials and you know not too long Gen Alpha as well start telling people in government that housing affordability is a problem I don't want my kids living with me forever I and but I'm looking at the possibility they might have to live with me for a long time after they turn eighteen I moved out like officially moved out when I was 22 although really it was closer to 21 because after the age of 21 I stayed in Greenville I was in college obviously but I stayed in Greenville that that summer and then I was officially out of my household by the age of 22 I was privileged to be able to do that I wasn't a homeowner for a few more years but the current generation that is growing up they don't they're not going to have that ability and a lot of it is because of the housing affordability crisis that we have in our area and that I've talked about a lot on the show and we need more politicians willing to stand up and say this is a crisis this is just as important as the roads and the infrastructure concerns that we have this is just as important as keeping taxes low making sure that people can buy a home and can experience the American dream for themselves that's important that should be on the ballot but it's not on the ballot this year and that is a shame and I recommend that you talk to if you if you have someone to vote for this year that you talk to them about the housing affordability issue and be like hey are you concerned about this at all are you concerned about the fact that the first time home buyer isn't like their late 30s now like is that crossing your mind as like a problem until that like really starts to hit the pocketbooks of people in Colombia maybe once there you know we we've got a you know a big divide between there's a lot of baby boomers in Columbia and then there's a lot of millennials okay there's only a handful of Gen X in Columbia for my understanding and there's a big divide is the baby boomers they don't care about housing affordability at all they had a house since you know for 50 or 60 years at this point they bought it for $25,000 you know whatever you guys hear see the memes you hear all these things I'm not here to trash baby boomers by any stretch okay that's not my point they have their own mindset because they have a different perspective millennials we were able to we were probably the last generation to be able to afford a home in our 20s and thirties easily afford a home I shouldn't say easily but relatively easily afford a home in our 20s and 30s not all millennials but at least in this area that was feasible that was possible but what hasn't hit us yet is how long it's gonna be for our children and that's what I keep realizing as I have these conversations is that people in you know I'm 40 years old people my age for the most part have younger kids and so they're years away from being faced with the reality of oh wow my 18 year old is not gonna be able to afford a home for a very long time or my 22 year old graduated college and I mean the incomes are not congruent with home prices they're gonna have to live with me for a long time you know like it just hasn't hit our pocketbooks yet when it does then it'll be the it'll be the crisis right then that'll be the thing that people are talking about I want people talking about it now so that we're not reacting so that we're being proactive that's what needs to happen so there's a lot of real estate on the ballot this year housing affordability is not one of them but a lot of other things are and I hope you guys try to avail yourself to as much information as possible but most importantly please get out and vote in the primaries do not miss out on the primaries because that those are the most important like for these elections that's the most important part of it is more important than the election in November in terms of our local and state races most of those are gonna be decided this month or in whenever a runoff happens that's all I have to say for you guys today hopefully not too political but hopefully interesting at the same time I I feel like this is an important exercise for us to go through again cause I I'm talking to a lot of people boots on the ground here I know what's going on and I feel like it's important for you guys to know as well I get a lot of positive feedback from people about these shows when I talk about politics cause a lot of this stuff is not covered by our local media so thank you so much for watching or listening I would just ask that you like rate review subscribe to the show make sure you support it that way and if you need a realtor in this area one that's plugged in one that knows what's happening on the ground here in our local government and elsewhere please check out the contact information in the show notes thank you guys so much for watching and listening and we will talk again next time!