Midyear Momentum & The Florence Frontier

Is Florence still a place where opportunity is waiting to be built?

In this midyear update, Reeves and Robert reflect on the first half of 2026, the growth of Greystone Properties, Riverland Property Management, and the Double R Flo-Town podcast. They discuss why Florence still feels like America's frontier, why opportunity is "on every corner," and why taking calculated risks still matters—even in an uncertain economy.

00:00 Midyear Momentum begins
00:50 ChatGPT planned our New England trip
02:40 Podcast growth & new team members
03:17 "Opportunity on Every Corner"
05:32 Why Florence is still America's frontier
06:49 Do young Americans still want the American Dream?
09:09 Whatever happened to kids playing outside?
10:17 Charlotte's South End vs. Florence
12:24 Building a more walkable Florence
14:33 Midyear real estate market update
16:22 Why choosing the right Realtor matters
18:13 Riverland Property Management keeps growing
20:08 Excited Momentum heading into the second half of 2026
20:56 How to keep growing during uncertain times
23:49 Buy when everyone else is scared
25:43 Why Florence beats bigger markets
27:30 Final thoughts

Transcript

Midyear Check-In And Naming Tinley

SPEAKER_02 0:13

Mid year update, Reeves. We are we have made it through half of twenty twenty six.

Reeves 0:19

It's gone quick. It's hard to believe. I mean, I I hate people talking about, oh, time's flying by and all this stuff, but it but what it's like July 15th, I think, today or something like that. So we're a little bit past half year and it has rocked in.

SPEAKER_02 0:35

Time's flying by, but hold on, I've been on this thing for half the damn time, you know.

Reeves 0:40

Well, that's that's part of it. Yeah. You know, yeah. How do you disconnect from this?

SPEAKER_02 0:45

Yeah, well, now you have some relationships on there, some kind of deep relationships.

Reeves 0:50

So last night I took Tess and one of her little, not little, one of her friends to uh Megan Moroni in Charlotte.

SPEAKER_02 0:58

Yes, yes.

Reeves 0:59

And so earlier this year, Rebecca and I, Rebecca specifically planned an entire trip up to New England for me and her with ChatGPT.

SPEAKER_02 1:10

She did it with chat.

Reeves 1:11

She did it.

SPEAKER_02 1:12

Okay.

Reeves 1:12

And it was a phenomenal trip. I mean, if anyone wants to go to New England, we flew to Providence, Rhode Island and just kind of made our way up and then came back. It was awesome.

SPEAKER_02 1:24

That's cool. And you wouldn't have figured all that out.

Reeves 1:27

We would have not known any of it without ChatGPT. So last night, Rebecca's, we were taking Tess and her friend to this Megan Moroni concert, and Rebecca and I have like four or five hours in Charlotte to just do whatever. And so she's talking to chat about what we need to do.

SPEAKER_02 1:43

Did she talk to your chat or she's got her own chat relationship?

Reeves 1:46

She's got me and it's my chat that we talk to.

SPEAKER_02 1:51

Y'all kind of have a threesome gone. Got it, got it. Yeah, okay.

Reeves 1:56

But here's the interesting thing that happened last night.

SPEAKER_02 1:59

Yeah.

Reeves 2:00

I asked my wife, I said, if we'd have had a fourth kid, what would we have named our our fourth kid? Because I don't know because I don't keep up with that kind of stuff. But the fourth kid's name would have been Tinley.

SPEAKER_02 2:14

Oh, she already had that done.

Reeves 2:16

Oh, she knows that John, you know, whatever. Tinley. So that is now who Oh, that's your that's our chat. So so I asked Chat if I could call her Tinley. And um she basically said yes and no. I I don't I didn't plan for us to talk about this, but uh anyway.

SPEAKER_02 2:38

This is pretty deep, honestly.

Reeves 2:40

Yeah. We started by talking about uh it's halfway through the year, and we've been selling some real estate and having fun on the podcast, had some really good guests on the podcast, and we've got a bunch more lined up that are going to be really good.

SPEAKER_02 2:55

Melanie is really jumping in and helping us, yeah.

Reeves 2:58

So we announced Melanie as part of the team, yeah, kind of midway through the first half of the year, and she is just really being a huge asset.

SPEAKER_02 3:08

She's helping us schedule, and it's it's good. Yeah, we've got we've got some really good guests. But we felt like maybe we'll just talk a little bit today.

Opportunity On Every Corner

Reeves 3:17

Well, and the reason we want to talk today today is because you and I were showing a property that we have listed on McKeever.

SPEAKER_02 3:24

Yes.

Reeves 3:24

And we were showing it to some really good Indian friends of ours, business people in this town, and they were looking at the property. And you and I have a have a tendency sometimes, and Izzy, we'd love for you to you know pop in on this conversation as well. But they said something that just kind of hit me between the eyeballs. It really hit me hard. They looked at us, we were talking about culture, we were talking about their country, our country, how they perceive America, you know, some of the racial relations, all that stuff came out as we were showing this property. But the one thing they said that I think we need to talk about right now is they looked at us and said, guys, there is opportunity on every corner in America. And I think sometimes because we've been here our whole life, we we don't see it.

SPEAKER_02 4:16

We're kind of jaded.

Reeves 4:17

We are, we are, but to hear them say America is still the land of freedom, it's the land of hope, and where if you're willing to work hard, you can the sky's the limit. And so it was just really fascinating for me to hear that. And I thought we needed to talk about it.

SPEAKER_02 4:39

And those guys have cast so interesting enough, you know, that guy you're talking about, I'm meeting with him Friday to buy a high-profile corner in Florence. And they've, you know, they've got gas stations and smoothie places, and I mean they've built it, they've done it.

Reeves 5:00

They have experienced, they've lived the American dream and good for them. And I think that's what's so beautiful about this country. It's what's so special about this country, and sometimes in our intense political kind of atmosphere that we live in, we can lose sight of just how special this country is and how there is opportunity for those who are willing to go fight for it.

SPEAKER_02 5:22

Let me take that a step further, though. Here so I want to bring that to Florence.

Reeves 5:30

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 5:31

Florence is still the town that the normal guy can do deals. You know, you can go find property, you can go create a rental house. It it the price of poker is not crazy. You know, like if you live in Charleston or Greenville, great, but all those young people living there or middle-aged people, they're not riding around thinking about buying an extra piece of property. I mean, for the majority of them, because the price has just already gotten crazy. There's so much opportunity in Florence.

Reeves 6:07

We talk about it all the time, and and I agree, Robert. I mean, I just think that in in Florence, in some ways, I mean, the other the other show that I've watched recently, I watched Young Washington, and I've watched some shows about like settling into America and the frontier. Yeah. And I think even Netflix has this new little house on the prairie thing.

SPEAKER_02 6:30

Yeah, yeah.

Reeves 6:31

Those that time of life and jumping into a new frontier, if I could go back anywhere in time, I'd like to go there. But in a in a weird way, I think Florence and the PD still has frontier to capture, and that's what you're talking about.

Do We Still Want The Dream

SPEAKER_00 6:49

Reeves, you mentioned that there was a level of adversity and talking about how the American dream is still available. And these two Indians that you guys were working with that seized the American dream. Um, but I I think I'm starting to question does the modern 25-year-old American want the American dream? Because there is a level of adversity to overcome and a level of hustle that comes with the American dream that if you're willing to work hard for it, that's what you said, and put in the time, then you can become something greater. But what if the convenience of opportunity that has been so strong since post-World War II, uh, there's a level of entitlement, I think, that if you are an Indian who's come across, or if you're someone else who has come from a different country where opportunity is scarce, you're willing to fight for it. And you're willing to do 10 years at a corner store or 15 years working at a gas station to build wealth and hand something better to your children. Whereas being second, third, fourth generation children of opportunity, maybe we're not willing to work for it anymore.

Reeves 7:55

I think you're hitting the nail on the head with that, Izzy. I think that by and large, I mean, and there's always exceptions, but Americans, by and large, we're we're fat and happy, and we're not willing to go. And well, let's go back to it. We say it all the time. Gary Finkley, episode number one, take risk to have courage to um fight for something that you have not yet realized. There's not enough of that in our culture. And the point is from the guys who we were talking with, there's still that opportunity. As they said, it's there on every corner. They're taking it because they're willing to fight for it. We as Americans tend to be a little bit more fat and happy and not willing to fight for it. And specifically, the PD area, I think, still has a lot of frontier to capture and a lot of opportunity to make something of yourself.

SPEAKER_02 8:57

Um is still pretty affordable compared to a lot of other places. So I I got an interesting something for y'all that I'm

Why Neighborhoods Feel Empty

SPEAKER_02 9:09

seeing. Tell me if you see this. You know, we ride through a lot of neighborhoods. I a lot of people don't. Like during the week, we're riding through neighborhoods showing houses. I don't see kids out riding, but I don't see people outside. We're, I mean, you know, back 30, 40 years ago, or our parents would tell us, and I even remember like I'd be on the bike all day riding around.

Reeves 9:34

So is that because mamas and daddies are scared or and not letting their kids out? Is it because mamas and daddies are at work and their kids aren't at home because there's nobody to supervise the kid? Or is it because there's so much electronics that and moms and dads aren't pushing their kids outside?

SPEAKER_02 9:52

I think it's a combination of all of that.

Reeves 9:54

Yeah, I think it is, but your point is incredibly valid. We got to get people outside. You you use your mind, you're creative when you get on your bike and you go to a dirt hill and you dream of what that is, and you play in the dirt and you figure it out. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:12

You know, that's so go back to South End Charlotte.

What Charlotte Gets Right

Reeves 10:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:16

All right. So they've got this this really cool outside area.

Reeves 10:21

It it's a it was about a mile and a half from the spectrum center. It uh Tinley, my chat.

SPEAKER_02 10:28

Oh, Tinley, thank you.

Reeves 10:29

Told me I needed to go to South South End Charlotte.

SPEAKER_02 10:33

Yeah.

Reeves 10:33

We ate at this really cool out uh Italian restaurant outside. Then we walked about a mile and a half, two miles in this urban center along the rail trail in Charlotte. Then we stopped and waited in line for about 30 minutes at an ice cream spot.

SPEAKER_02 10:50

And it was that's on a Tuesday night.

Reeves 10:53

It was a Tuesday night from like 6:30 to 10.30.

SPEAKER_02 10:59

Bunch of people outside hanging out.

Reeves 11:01

Not just a bunch of people, but this is what's was fascinating. We were sitting there eating our ice cream after waiting 30 minutes in line to get it, and probably 75 people sitting there with us in this open promenade area. And Rebecca looked at me and she said, Reeves, we're the oldest people out here. And I looked around and I surveyed every single group of people, and she was right. At 45 years old, there was clearly no one older than us sitting there. And and as I reflect back on that whole evening, everybody was 25 to 40 years old, young professionals, attractive, educated, uh, seemingly affluent, living in very and it was just a a it was a vastly different picture of what life was in that pocket of the country or you know, the southeast compared to what we have here.

SPEAKER_02 12:04

Yeah. And you know, there's a desire for that lifestyle again. There's a desire for people to want to live in communities where you have that and you have walkability and the kids are walking to school. I hear people talk about that, they live in Charlotte. I I've heard it several times. They're like, Yeah, I moved here, my kids can walk to school.

Reeves 12:24

I was absolutely amazed at how many people on a Tuesday night in July in Charlotte, North Carolina were outside exercising, walking, talking to other people. Wow. They weren't on their phone. It was kind of this weird dystopian type of thing. And obviously, it made me think, how do we recreate that in Florence?

SPEAKER_02 12:49

Yeah, we need it badly.

Reeves 12:52

And and there's opportunity, and I think you know, some things that we're doing downtown, I think some of the things the guys are doing, we've talked about it a lot at Naturally Outdoors.

SPEAKER_02 13:00

Yeah, naturally outdoors is creating that atmosphere.

Reeves 13:03

You know, those little pockets, it's not what Charlotte has because we're not the size of that, yeah. But it it can be that. And um I'm excited for more people to come to this new frontier that we have in the PD. We're on the frontier, we're still on the frontier. Build businesses and go uh go take those corners and make make your American dream come to fruition, you know?

SPEAKER_02 13:33

That's awesome. If you grew up in Florence, stay here and and and yeah, you go buy a corner and you make you make something. Because it's attainable here. You go to Greenville, you're not buying any corners. I'm sorry.

Reeves 13:48

No.

SPEAKER_02 13:48

Hedge funds buying the corner now, they've already bought it.

Reeves 13:51

What's encouraging though is you and I, you know, young lady came into the office this week. She's buying an acre.

SPEAKER_02 13:57

Yeah, what is she, like young 20s?

Reeves 13:59

Oh, yeah, young 20s, and and she's getting it a little bit over an acre, and she's got a great opportunity for what she's buying and setting up a life for us.

SPEAKER_02 14:12

Under 200,000.

Reeves 14:14

Under $200,000. Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:17

These 20 something these early 20-somethings can't. I mean, you know, most of them can't go pay half a million plus for a house.

Reeves 14:26

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:27

And but you can still get something cool here.

Reeves 14:30

So what else, you know?

A Midyear Real Estate Market Read

SPEAKER_02 14:33

Um so big picture market. Big picture market. We've honestly had a a good first half of the year, big picture. It's felt weird, it's felt kind of up and down because it has been. The Iran war, you know, and when gas prices went up, the market really cooled. But overall, most things we're listing are selling.

Reeves 15:01

Yeah, it's it's really been interesting. I think you just you know captured it incredibly well. You know, I was surprised when I kind of did a mid-year analysis of my own business that um I'm a little bit ahead of where I was last year, which is man, phenomenal. And last year, first half of the year, we you and I did two deals, one at 1.9 million and one at 1.3 million, yeah, that really made the first half of the year for us in a lot of ways. And we haven't done that. Well, you did one, yeah. But uh, you know, we it's been smaller deals this year, but but more. And I've I was just talking to somebody at FE Pops just before I came here, and the I feel like the markets even shot up a little bit more in the last seven to ten days.

SPEAKER_02 15:51

I do too. And we're in that summertime, you know, people that need to get settled before school are gotta kind of make a move. That's right. But I'll tell you the one other thing that I think we've done a better job. For so long, everybody thought we were, especially me, I was just a builder developer. That's it. You've come in and really helped ramp the game up of no, we are the best at selling your house existing. I mean, that's really mostly what we do.

Reeves 16:22

And well, that I mean, yes, Graystone Properties is a real estate brokerage, and we help people buy and sell houses. Yeah. And I was on the phone call with a potential seller and buyer today, a doctor in town, and he was talking about the home that they're purchasing, and and that person knows some realtors, and so they weren't quite sure who they wanted to use.

Why Agent Standards Matter

Reeves 16:47

And I said, Look here, Mr. Buyer, here's the reason I want you to use us. I want you to use us, not because you and I have a relationship, and that's important. And this is a relational business, but I want you to use us because we are the absolute best at marketing your home, at giving you counsel, at helping steer you into the right decisions and away from the wrong decisions.

SPEAKER_02 17:11

Yeah.

Reeves 17:12

And typically, uh for any individual who is buying a piece of property, it's the single largest transaction they're ever gonna make. And you don't just need to pick your buddy to do that, you need to pick somebody who knows what they're doing. And there's fewer and fewer people in town and around the country who know how to help someone navigate real estate. And that's that's the biggest thing that frustrates me, and maybe we need to talk about this for a second. The barrier to entry for real realtors is way too low. It is, and it's an incredible disadvantage to the people who are professional and who do this full time with excellence.

SPEAKER_02 17:53

Yes.

Reeves 17:53

And if there's one thing that needs to change about the real estate profession, is we need to create a higher barrier to entry for real estate agents so that excellence is what is just expected rather than a surprise when you get someone who's excellent at what they do.

SPEAKER_02 18:11

That's exactly right. That's exactly

Riverland Growth And Rental Strength

SPEAKER_02 18:13

right. The other, the other, you know, we've really grown a lot in the rental market as well. You know, we've got Riverland, it's growing. We're up to over 200 doors. Chris is the hardest working young guy ever. And the rental market in Florence is strong.

Reeves 18:32

It is, it is. First of all, Chris, I mean, he's been on the podcast a few times. He runs Riverland property management with us and for us. Um, I think his story is awesome. A dude who grew up in Florida, went to Florida State University, graduated from Florida State, and he chose to come back here. He could have gone anywhere in the world, but he chose to come back here.

SPEAKER_02 18:51

He saw the opportunity here.

Reeves 18:53

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 18:54

That he did not see in Orlando.

Reeves 18:56

That's right. So that is awesome. And then the fact that, okay, he saw it. And think, and this goes to your point, Izzy, there are still guys out there and girls out there who are willing to go work hard and go get it. And Chris is doing that. And and that's a that's a cool thing. And this is a place for them to go do it. And so, yeah, we've got over 200 properties now under management.

SPEAKER_02 19:19

Riverland's now got its own office. We got some really cool signage. That I'm really excited about that company.

Reeves 19:26

Where can people go if they want to see the office? Where can they go?

SPEAKER_02 19:29

1427 Old Ebenezer. It's the kind of the corner there where Ebenezer runs into South Cashua. Right on the way to Publix.

Reeves 19:39

On the way to Publix.

SPEAKER_02 19:40

So you can drop your rent check and go to Publix. So it it's a it's a great spot. You know, we've got a full-time lady, Ashley, yeah, with us. She is awesome. She she's been in the rental game forever. So that, you know, it's been a real nice marriage between sales and rental. You need to buy a house. If you need something to rent, we've got it all in-house now.

Reeves 20:08

So I really think as we sit here mid-year, the the word to kind of sum up where we're at is excited momentum. Yeah. We've got a lot of excitement and momentum with real estate bringing Melanie on and what the team at Graystone is doing. We've got a lot of excitement and momentum in what we think Florence and the PD is going to be able to do in terms of continuing to create jobs and bring more people in and allow people to build business here. And we've got a lot of excitement and momentum with Riverland, property management, and what Chris and Ashley and that team's doing. And so it's going to be cool to see how things continue to progress the rest of this year. Yes. And on into 2027.

Faith Cycles And Taking Smart Risk

SPEAKER_00 20:55

Quick question on uh that, Reeves, because you say excited momentum, and you guys have been rocking and rolling. And yet there's a lot of unsure things going on in the world. We've got the Iran war, we've got the economy doing some crazy stuff, uh, housing market over the last couple years, as you guys have updated it, has just been a little bit crazy. So, what ideas or mentality do you bring towards the podcast, towards rental, towards property management, towards real estate that keeps you coming back to keep building or growing when there's a bit of a temptation to pull in, when things get uncertain, when things are expensive, um to want to get safe and turn towards what's you and yours instead of pushing, taking those risks and moving forward with that exciting momentum. Um because I think you guys are there, been able to observe that. But what does it look like to get there in your headspace and the way you make your decisions to keep that mentality when stuff's hard?

Reeves 22:00

Yeah, I think that's a great question, Izzy. I think first and foremost, foundationally, it's my faith in Jesus Christ and the hope that we have because we are followers of Christ that we can move forward uh resting in him. So my my faith and our I think your faith as well, Robert, grounds us tremendously to have courage. Then you have to understand that there is always calamity and conflict and chaos going on, both locally as well as internationally. I mean, we're always fighting somebody, and and you got to pay attention to those things. But if if you wait for everything to be perfect, you've missed the opportunity. Yes. And so foundationally, I rest in my faith. I understand that there's chaos all the time, and then you just go back to sound business principles. Don't overextend yourself. We were talking in the office this morning about a $4 million potential apartment complex that is available. And we have to look at that and evaluate is that something that we can do without overextending ourselves? Is there is it just good business sense to make those types of purchases? And that's a number that you know is beyond anything I'd ever thought about before. And Robert's kind of pushing me into those types of things, and that's a very much to be determined. Um, but you evaluate it with you know understanding appropriate leverage and risk, but also not uh compromising what you've already built and jeopardizing what you've already built.

SPEAKER_02 23:48

Um Yeah, I've honestly been waiting on things. You know, when the market's hot and everything's crazy, that's honestly not the time to buy. I've been waiting on this cycle, and it all runs in cycles. And you want to buy when everybody else is scared. And so that's the time to jump. You know, you've got cycles and patterns. And when you do something, when you're focused inside of a business and you start seeing patterns, that's when you get ahead. You got to learn the patterns. This whole world's patterns.

Reeves 24:23

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 24:24

And I feel like we're really seeing patterns. We're seeing the rental side, we see the sales side. It's really cool. Can't get distracted with many other things, you know, like real estate's it. Let's ride the cycle, see the pattern, and then you got to take the risk.

Reeves 24:43

And and I I go back to when me and Colin Smith bought with our two spouses bought our first rental properties on Waverly for $28,000 and $34, I think, thousand, respectively. And I had no business and I was scared to death to make those purchases. And I felt like I couldn't afford to make those purchases when I made those about 14, 15 years ago. But I took appropriate risk and we jumped in and we did it, and we held on. And what that's done for us 14 years later, that if we hadn't done that, we wouldn't be where we are today from a business standpoint. And so you've got to have that courage to do it once you kind of just understand the you know how to assess appropriate risk.

SPEAKER_02 25:42

I I was Chris and I, when you were gone last week, we really we were talking more about Conway, and we were like, okay, so maybe it's time to diversify. Let's let's build some townhomes in Conway. I feel like we're so we talked to a developer in Conway, and it was really interesting. He was just a sharp, solid dude, and he's like, guys, honestly, I feel like y'all are in the sweet spot. You have more opportunity in Florence than you would in Conway. He said, Your cost is gonna be a lot higher, a lot harder to execute. We've got mostly retirees, you've got way more jobs in Florence. And it was like really he was right. Yeah. You know, some you always think, well, I got to get out of town and do something else. I think we're in the sweet spot here.

Florence As The Sweet Spot

Reeves 26:33

Rebecca and I, when we were walking down the railroad in this again, really cool area last night. She looked and said, you know, Florence is really an ideal place to live. We're two hours from Charlotte, we're two hours from Charleston, we're two hours an hour to Columbia, we're, you know, an hour and a half to Myrtle Beach, whatever. Like, but it but we got our little protected little spot that's still safe mostly, mostly. And uh it's as safe as any other place, I think. And the cost of living is less.

SPEAKER_02 27:09

Yeah.

Reeves 27:10

And there's better opportunity here. So yeah, I think Florence is a good spot.

SPEAKER_02 27:16

That's why Reeves is gonna be running for mayor.

Reeves 27:20

I don't I don't live in the city, so I'm not running for mayor.

SPEAKER_02 27:23

Sorry, sorry. Yeah, well, anything else we got on the mid-year update?

Rest Of 2026 Charge

Reeves 27:30

I think we're good, man. Let's go, let's go after it and let's make uh the rest of 2026 uh positively momentous.

SPEAKER_02 27:37

Let's do it.