George Real Estate Group Radio Broadcast

A retired trooper, an Amish ministry, and a local farm show how steady hearts can restore a town

• George Real Estate Group

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A hurricane changed the calendar—and the calling—of a retired highway patrolman who thought he’d finally slow down. Instead, Michael Brown opened his family’s event barn and watched it transform into a humming base camp where Amish volunteers built 175 tiny homes, hauled them across the region, and then rolled straight into long-haul rebuilding. Between testimonies and volleyball under the rafters, they stitched neighborhoods back together one roof, one ramp, one laugh at a time.

We also bring a clear, level-headed read on Henderson County’s housing market. Supply has eased toward balance at around five months, average single-family prices are holding in the $530s after a peak near $550k, and closed sales are up six percent year to date. Zoom out and the picture is even more striking: a fifty-four percent price increase since 2020. For first-time buyers, that headline can feel daunting, but options exist—from targeted price points to 100 percent financing in select cases—and smart guidance can turn a tough entry into a doable plan. For those ready to right-size, today’s equity can fund simpler living closer to nature or family, even with different rate math.

Michael’s story with Great Needs Ministry shows what real resilience looks like: no salaries, mission-funded youth, shed haulers donating time and gear, and local partners like Spokes of Hope coordinating jobs so labor meets need quickly. Drivers step in because the Amish don’t drive. Crews sing because joy keeps the work moving. And neighbors find relief because the whole system is built on trust, clarity, and grit. If you need help, reach out to Spokes of Hope on Facebook. If you want to fuel the work, donate to Great Needs Ministry—every dollar goes to aid, not overhead. And if you’re planning your next move—first home, downsizing, or a fresh start—call The George Real Estate Group at 828-393-0134 or visit realestatebygreg.com. Subscribe, share, and leave a review to help more neighbors find the data, the stories, and the help they need.

SPEAKER_02:

The George Real Estate Group Radio broadcast is celebrating 10 years on WHKP. The George Real Estate Group is celebrating 10 years on the radio live every Thursday morning at 10.05 on WHKP 107.7 FM and AM 1450, and streaming online at WHKP.com. Each Friday morning at 845, the George Real Estate Group presents the Hometown Hero Award to someone in our community who goes above and beyond to make our hometown a better place to live. Here's this week's Hometown Hero Show. It's 8.45, and it's time now for our usual Friday get-together called the George Real Estate Group Hometown Hero Series. And every Friday morning, I it's my pleasure to welcome Noah George to the mic.

SPEAKER_01:

How are you doing, Noah? Good morning and happy Friday. And you're absolutely right. It is a privilege and uh honor to be here sponsoring the Hometown Heroes Series every Friday morning.

SPEAKER_02:

We uh we look forward to this, don't we? Uh we've uh we've met some wonderful people in our community, and and man, there's no shortage of these people. We just keep finding more and more people to to uh pester to come in here and be with us. You know, most of the time we have to drag them in here. They're the kind of people that don't want to be talking about.

SPEAKER_01:

They don't want to be in the spotlight.

SPEAKER_02:

I know.

SPEAKER_01:

And dare I say, I I don't think we'll ever find have a shortage of amazing people because the community we live in, the people that are here, the people that make what our community is, um, and certainly we you know recently we've been highlighting even more of the amazing men and women doing work because of Helene and the work and the ongoing work there, and and we continue we're gonna continue to share that story of the work being done.

SPEAKER_02:

Absolutely. And uh because the work goes on, the recovery goes on here a a year later. Uh and uh let's first, though, check in with you about uh how the real estate market looks in our community.

SPEAKER_01:

The market keeps moving. I mean, we still have about a five-month supply. Things are normalizing. I mean, it's not the the extreme seller's market. The prices are holding. I mean, year to date the prices are only down two percent. Average single family home prices in the 530s right now. It it did get up as high as 550 the previous uh uh 12 months, uh, but it's it's still moving. The thing is things are stabilizing, prices are stabilizing, there's not the you know, the sky is not falling. I mean, we've actually had more homes sell uh year to date than we did the same time period last year. So I mean there's been a six percent increase in the number of homes sold year to date. So I mean, things are stabilizing. Interest rates are coming down a little bit. I mean, but Henderson County has just uh always been this strong uh place to invest in real estate. And now here I did pull something that was absolutely shocking, and I you might have heard this, but I was looking at a five-year study on the Henderson County home sales and home prices. We are fifty-four percent higher than 2020. That's the the home prices are the average home price is fifty-four percent higher over the last five years.

SPEAKER_02:

Five years it's raised to 54 percent.

SPEAKER_01:

On average. I mean, so it's staggering. I mean, again, that's why we're again our average home price this year is in the 530s. I mean, it's and it's it's holding because of the low inventory levels, strong demand. I mean, we're we like I said, we've had more homes sell this year. But you know, the the prices are the prices, the interest rates are the interest rates, but we know real estate happens around life. It could be a really positive reason why you're buying or selling, or it could be a challenging reason, but we'd be honored to help you walk through that.

SPEAKER_02:

And uh I know you you know, we we talk about a price like you know, an average of five thirty. That makes it kind of tough for a first-time home buyer. You have programs, you have opportunities for first-time home buyers to get into a home, right?

SPEAKER_01:

We do. You can even get 100 percent financing in some cases, and just because the average price is five thirty doesn't mean there's not homes that's that that doesn't mean all the homes are that price. And and there are there are affordable options out there that we can help you with. So again, if you know somebody that's trying to break into the market, I mean we can we can do that. I mean, I you probably remember your f price of your first home. I mean mine was sixty thousand dollars.

SPEAKER_02:

I think mine was sixty, fifty-nine thousand.

SPEAKER_01:

I mean, wild to think about. Now, interest rates are a lot higher if for a lot of but again it's all relative, right? But yeah, I mean, buying your first home is a big deal.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, and you guys have uh helped uh shepherd a lot of folks through that process.

SPEAKER_01:

We're coming up on sixteen hundred families we've helped over the years. This is my 20th year uh serving the community in real estate, and we have incredible agents. Uh it's again, it's a it's amazing. It's it's you know, people do business with people, not companies. And again, it's the relationships that we have with the community and helping people with real estate.

SPEAKER_02:

You're located in Flat Rock, but you do business all around our area.

SPEAKER_01:

All over Western North Carolina and the upstate. We just put a house under contract in Enman, South Carolina with some clients, and uh, you can call us directly at 828-393-0134.

SPEAKER_02:

Help me to welcome Michael Brown. How are you doing, friend?

SPEAKER_00:

It's good to be here.

SPEAKER_02:

It's good to have you here with us. I uh I kind of had to stay after this guy to get in here and talk to me on the radio.

SPEAKER_01:

He's a busy guy.

SPEAKER_02:

He's a busy guy, Michael. It's good to have you with us. Uh you are uh retired now from the highway patrol.

SPEAKER_00:

That's right, been retired two years. How how's that going for you? Well, that's like I tell people it's uh like getting out of prison. You get your freedom and you don't know what to do with it.

SPEAKER_02:

But you're busier than you were before you retired.

SPEAKER_00:

I'm busy, you know. I thought, you know, I would uh get out of the public eye, you know, kind of do my own thing, and you know, it just kind of didn't work out, especially after the hurricane hit.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, yeah. So yeah, the right shortly after you retired that that uh came through and and uh I talked to you and I talked to last week about how uh it transpired that you were able to uh to help out uh a group of folks who came here called uh Great Needs Ministry. Tell us about Great Needs Ministry, if you will.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, so how that got started was uh, you know, the hurricane happened and you know, we had damage like everybody, you know. We were without power for like twelve days and during that process of cleaning up, you know, I just kept I I guess I I felt guilty that I was cleaning up my own stuff, you know, and and I'm like, we we need to be helping others. And I told my mom and dad, Brian and 18, and I said, We need to uh we need to help people, you know. I just felt like it was incumbent upon us to do that. And so um I saw some posts on Facebook where people were looking for warehouse space, space spl you know, space to land helicopters and that sort of thing. We we have that, you know. And uh so uh reached out to a couple of groups and didn't get nothing back, and you know, it's like I told my dad, you know, I've I've ran ahead of the Lord all my life, and so I just didn't want to run ahead of him. I said, Lord, if this is a view, I said, uh make it happen, bring me the people that that we need uh to be able to help. And so I saw a post that the Amish community were looking for uh they were building tiny homes over in Black Mountain, and they were needing a space to uh sleep their volunteers and to be able to work, and I said, Well, we've got that. So I asked my wife Lynn to get on uh got get on there and get a contact for this guy. His name was Eel Miller uh uh with Curbo Curbs was his business, he makes parking curbs, and uh I reached out to him, got him right on the phone, and I said, Hey man, this is what we have. I don't know if we can help you, but you know, if you need us, let me know. And and two weeks later he called me and he said, You know, man, what we had fell through. He said, Can we come look at your place? They came overlooked and uh uh it just uh it just went from there and it just felt like everything fell together with that, you know, and like it was supposed to be. That's right. And so so they came over, he looked at the place, and you know, we we so we have this building on on our farm a dad built to uh uh to store apples in, you know, many years ago, and we you know were in the agribusiness and and then sort of moved into uh events now, so it's like an event barn. So we had the space and so when they came, you know, we had a kitchen and some other things, but we didn't have a place for them to stay. So they they actually the first day they came, they you know, tractor trailer load of lumber came and a bus load of people. Wow. And so they they got out and uh basically built inside of our nine thousand square foot building, they built temporary sleeping quarters. Wow. So uh so that so that's how it started and uh so we built sheds, temporary uh housing for people that you know didn't have a place or and uh so we I think we built about 175 maybe and uh a great guy named Sam Bailer, he was with a shed hauler association, and uh, you know, so so we built them and he hauled them with volunteers all over the East Coast that volunteered their time and and their equipment. It's just really a great relationship we had with them, and uh so uh, you know, but it wasn't always that easy, you know. I mean, just because you have a nonprofit doesn't mean that you're on the up and up. But so when I found out about the Amish and and their uh organization called Great Needs Trust, which later they uh uh renamed it Great Needs Ministry. You know, and uh I just found out man the Amish were just such great people, just service oriented, family oriented, and they just really wanted to help others and uh so they were legitimate and uh all volunteer by the way. Uh nobody gets paid for anything that that uh none of the Amish, none of the board, none of the members, uh and uh and the volunteers. They uh they pay actually it's a mission trip for them. So it's y it's they're they're youth and they'll send some uh you know, some elders along with them and uh it's mainly youth, you know, 17 to 25 that are single. And they would come down and uh they actually pay two hundred dollars a piece uh to come. To come. Yeah, it's a ministry. So um so they would come and uh uh we built sheds there in our building and uh we housed a mayor and fed a mayor and uh you know, it it was just a great thing, you know. And like I said, we built um at some point in probably February, uh um we uh uh went down into Chimney Rock Batcave looking for work, you know, and uh because we knew we wanted to transition into rebuilding after, you know, we moved out of the tiny homes. And so we we uh uh con got in contact with a guy named Shane with Spokes of Hope and Ch and Chimney Rock. So uh Shane Zakola. That's right, and and he he was here I believe a couple weeks ago. Yeah. So we got connected with him and basically, you know, that partnership, you know, evolved into you know, he had the jobs, he ran the logistics, we supplied the labor. Wow. So and we didn't just work chimney rock and batcave, you know, we worked other areas in the community. You know, if you had a need, we'd try to meet it, you know. If we couldn't, we'd find somebody that could. But uh but anyway, it wor it just worked out real great, you know, and uh so we we we transitioned totally into uh rebuilding and uh uh a great lady uh Heidi Williams helped us. She man, she drove pe people around. I mean, Amish don't drive, you know. Oh yeah, no horse and buggy, man. That's right. So we had to have drivers and Heidi was great for that, man, and uh they had a lot of volunteers and you know, we we'd fellowship during the week and you know, the Amish they they'd sing songs and and and fellowship and we'd have testimony, and it was just a great time, and um you know, it just a great time of fellowship.

SPEAKER_01:

It's powerful.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, oh yeah. Just it probably the I told somebody the greatest honor of my life really was to do that and be involved in that. And like I say, it's not about me. Every every group would come and I'd say, This is not about us, it's not about me. My family and I, we we've donated everything, we didn't ask for nothing, we didn't want nothing. God has blessed us, you know, and we we were able to share that, my mom and dad and and our family and uh able to share that. It's not ours, it's his. We're just to be good stewards of it. So and our mission was to help to serve others and to glorify God, and that's what I told them, and and they're all about that. So uh but we'd have people come over during the week and you know, bring folks over and and have fellowship and time, and they love to play volleyball. Really? Oh yeah, so we'd move the buildings out, we'd build them inside, move them outside to finish them, or in the in the afternoon when they got done working, we'd we'd move them out and they'd play volleyball. And uh yeah, we'd have people, you know, Jennifer Hansley brought over her daughter and some kids with a volleyball team and played them one night. And it was just a you know gotta have fun too. Yeah, yeah. And uh but it was a great time and and it worked out really well and and uh you know and and there's still help. People that are still affected, man, there's still help there for you. The work's still being done. Oh yeah, absolutely. And so we moved from uh, you know, we they came first week of December. Uh we got 'em moved back cave about the middle of July. Get them closer to work. We established another base camp down there for 'em. Uh Shane is running. Uh and uh so work is still ongoing, you still get involved. Uh if you need help, there's still help there. Contact uh Spokes of Hope. Uh find them on Facebook. If you want to donate Great Needs Ministry, you can. It all goes to help, nothing goes in the pocket. And uh so so uh but that's kind of how things went.

SPEAKER_02:

Uh that's incredible. We're just about out of time already. I could talk all I listen to this all day. Oh, yeah. I told you it was a fascinating story, and uh I'm so glad that you came, Michael, to uh visit with us this morning. We've got a little certificate here for you.

SPEAKER_01:

And we're so thankful for what you and your family have done to to support these nonprofit and these volunteers and everybody coming in to make it happen.

SPEAKER_02:

Thank you so much, my friend. Thank you, Randy. Appreciate you coming in. Noah, thank you for sponsoring the uh Hometown Hero Series. We'll be back next week, uh, next Friday morning. We have another organization that is working in Bat Cave uh called Helene Rising, and uh we're gonna be having them in next week to talk with us about all the recovery efforts. Uh Noah, remind us where we can get in touch with you.

SPEAKER_01:

Again, we're just so grateful for all the work you guys have done and everybody else. Give us a call, 828-393-0134. And have a great weekend, everyone. Maybe the house feels a little too big these days. The stairs, a little steeper, the pace of life, a little too fast. But what if your next move wasn't about letting go? It was about making space for peace, for freedom, for what matters most. At the George Real Estate Group, we understand that real estate isn't just about the house. It's about transitions, timing, and trust. We've helped thousands of families in Western North Carolina make smart, thoughtful moves. Closer to nature, closer to family, closer to home. So when you're ready to write size, simplify, or start fresh, we'll be here. The George Real Estate Group. Local, trusted, proven. Call us today, 828-393-0134. Find us online at realestatebygreg.com because your next chapter deserves to feel just right.

SPEAKER_02:

The George Real Estate Group is located in Flat Rock, North Carolina, near Hendersonville in Henderson County. You can find them online at realestatebygreg.com. The George Real Estate Group can be reached at 828-3930134 or stop by their office at 2720 Greenville Highway, Flat Rock, North Carolina. Tune in live each week on Thursdays at 1005 a.m. on WHKP 107.7 FM and 1450 AM, or stream online at WHKP.com, or download these podcasts wherever you get your podcasts. The George Real Estate Group brings you the WHKP Hometown Hero Series every Friday morning at 8 45.