Voice of Real Estate
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Voice of Real Estate
The Truth About Home Prices in Augusta (And Why First-Time Buyers Are Now 40)
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Why is the average first-time homebuyer now almost 40 years old? In this eye-opening conversation, Jamie Wier of Blanchard and Calhoun sits down with Tiffany Heitzman, Executive Director of the Homebuilders Association of the Greater Aiken-Augusta Region, to break down what's really driving up the cost of new homes in the CSRA — and what's being done about it.
Hey there, it's Jamie Ware, the marketing director with Blanchard and Calhoun, here with Tiffany Heitzman, who is the executive director of the Home Builders Association of the Greater Aiken Augusta area? Region. Region. Okay. It's a mouthful. Yeah, it is a mouthful. Tiffany, how are you? I'm great. Thank you, Tony. So much for having me. Yes. So I'm super excited to have you because I think people just don't know what you guys do, right? But you guys have done this home builders community or this um building community campaign. Um, so people have been seeing more of you. So I'm getting questions like, who are these people and what are they doing? Yeah. So let's start off there.
SPEAKER_00Tell me a little bit about what you guys do. So the Home Builders Association has been around this year as our 70th anniversary. Um, and we advocate on behalf of housing. So our um goal, our vision, everything that drives us is that every person is able to own a home one day. Um and that looks different for everyone. Um, but that, you know, so we advocate locally on the state level and federal level. So even in DC, working on policies um and things that can help bring more houses to everyone.
SPEAKER_01Okay, and you guys are a nonprofit, correct?
SPEAKER_00We are, we are. We're like a chamber of commerce, um, but for the home building industry. So, and it's not just builders and developers, it's our real estate companies, our mortgage banks, our subcontractors, anybody that touches the home building process from before the dirt turns to when the keys are handed to the new homeowner.
SPEAKER_01Okay, so as far as community members, like people who, like you said, are looking to own a home, what kind of resources can they get from you?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so we have a website with all of our members. Um, and so in order to be a member, you have to be, you know, if you're a builder, you have to have your license. Um, but all of our members are insured and bonded. Um, so it's a great place to go. Um, because we heard a lot of horror stories after the hurricane about, you know, all these out-of-town um people coming and you know, pick up trucks, you know, and that you know, did a job, left, and didn't finish or whatever. So I just encourage everyone to always, I hope you use a member of the um home building industry or the association, but always make sure that they are licensed, they have insurance, they're bonded so that you're protected.
SPEAKER_01So it sounds like you properly like vet all of these people. Okay. And then what happens if they don't do what they're supposed to do or if you get complaints? Do you guys handle stuff like that as well?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, we I we try not to get too involved in the, you know, because that can be very emotional when it's somebody's, but you know, we have uh resources at the Secretary of State's office who who holds the licenses for real estate agents, for contractors, you know, and the and the real estate license uh board as well. And so we can, you know, contact them and say, hey, um, but also a lot of their we have an insurance program, um, uh builders risk insurance program, and so they have to be licensed in order to participate, and they have to be a member of our association. And so every year they audit their participants and then they'll send that list to us, and we have to verify that they're members of our association. They send it to the secretaries of the secretary of state's office to make sure their license is up to date as well.
SPEAKER_01Great. Well, that's good because if you're, you know, like you said, you want to work with somebody who's been vetted, who's local, um, and has some accountability for what they're doing. Absolutely. So on the other side, we've talked a little bit about what you do for community members. How do you help the builders? How do you help the people who are members of the association?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so we work closely with our government entities, um, our municipalities, our counties, state level, federal level. Um, I travel to DC several times a year. I travel to both capitals because we have two counties in Aiken. Spend a lot of time, you know, Atlanta, Columbia. We have a great working relationship with our local delegations. Um, so if there's bills that have dropped that are good for our industry or bad for our industry, they hear from us. Um, several of our members of our association have testified in Atlanta in committee hearings, Senate, House committees. Um, actually, one of our local builders is the chair of the state government affairs committee, Mark Ivey, and he'll be the state home builders president beginning in the fall of this year. So we'll really have some great local um uh representation on on a state board. But yeah, we work as hard as we can um on behalf of our builders um so that they can put houses on the ground and and sell houses, you know, y'all's company, you know, so y'all have houses to sell your agents. Um but yeah, we work, we meet with our local um government entities on a regular basis. Most of those we have um monthly meetings that we I take a group, myself included, um, and go and meet if there's issues going on with permits or if there's some regulations that they're looking at to add. Um, we we work tirelessly on those efforts.
SPEAKER_01I bet you do. Yeah. So, in your opinion, um what is kind of the biggest challenge you feel like exists for the home building community right now?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think the I think one of the biggest challenges is the mic misconception that all of the real estate developers and builders are just sitting around counting their money, putting money in the bank. Sure. Um, but actually 28 to 32 percent of the cost of a new home is because of government regulations. That's local, state, federal. Wow. That there's nothing that builders or developers can do to reduce that cost. So it's you know, they're always looking at ways um to help get price points down so that more families can afford it. Um, I saw a statistic just a couple weeks ago that the average age of the first-time home buyer is now almost 40 years old, and that just blows my mind. Um, because I remember when it used to be 24, right? You know, you went to school or you went to tech or you got out of high school and got a job, and then you the next step was buy a house. And there's so many people out there now that can't do that because they can't afford it. Um, you know, and when we talk about affordable housing or obtainable housing, everybody automatically thinks that's like government subsidized housing, and that's not what it is. It's really those first-time homebuyers. Um, you know, my kids, I have a 20-year-old, I'm thinking about her. Um, that's what keeps me awake at night, is how she's gonna afford a house. But even, you know, our first responders who have limited income, our teachers, um, you know, people in the medical field, our EMT, our firefighters, all of those um that are just getting started in their career, how are they gonna be able to afford a home? So that's really what what we work on every day. So it's really the cost, and there's there's things that we can do, and there are a lot of things that we can't do to reduce that cost. Um, but that's the challenge, um, you know, to you know finding tracts of land. I know y'all deal with that on a on a daily basis. Um, you know, large tracts of land um where houses can go is getting, you know, smaller and smaller, those windows. Um, and then just the the community or the um personal opinions of people about housing. Um, you know, we we hear it all the time, y'all hear it all the time, like, oh y'all take down all the trees, oh you did this, oh you created more traffic. But they want all the things that come with that. They want the the 12, I mean, I think I passed 12 coffee shops all the way from my office to here. They want the groceries, they want the restaurants, they want the retail. But none of that happens without rooftops. Um, and you know, we we give, I mean, the home building industry is one of the largest industries that pays into the tax um bucket of money. Sure. With sales tax, with the permit fees and all the things that that we buy, all of our subcontractors, we have to pay sales tax on all of that. So we help fund schools, we help fund roads, we help fund other projects, all the SPLOSS projects. Um, so we're a huge contributor into the tax docket.
SPEAKER_01Well, and I'm sure for the builders, they are wanting to, they want to put these products out there. They want to make it affordable, but they also want to make sure that quality of their building is to their standards, right? Um, and like you said, you can only cut costs so much before you start going into quality. Um, what is some of the feedback you've heard from about that?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think now it's getting trying to get creative um on like what housing looks like. And um, I tell this story a lot. You've probably heard me say it, um, but looking at um different ways to provide different types of housing in one community, like a planned development. Um, I went to Orlando to the home builder show four years ago, and they took us on a tour to this neighborhood when Disney relocated to outside of Orlando, and this neighborhood was really built to um encompass all the people that were going to be coming to work for Disney headquarters. And it was this beautiful neighborhood, and it had a million-dollar house, and then next door to it, it would have like a $400,000 house, and then another $400,000 house, and then maybe a $500,000 house. And it had these courtyards that that the houses butted up to. And I looked and there was like 20 kids playing in that courtyard. They didn't care what type of house you were living in, right, or how much it costs. And I was like, and I literally I remember seeing, I was like, this is community, like what better way? Um, you know, and I think you know, in some areas, and in you know, we're like, oh, we want the white picket fence and the half acre lots, and that's really not the case anymore. I mean, there's national statistics anymore, even our age, the older generation, they want smaller, less to take care of. And so I think we need to be more open to that. Our counties and our um municipalities need to be more open to um, you know, exploring other options of except traditional, you know, half acre lots or or this or that. Um, you know, another thing I talk about a lot is because I live in a neighborhood that y'all they required sidewalks on both sides of the road. Very seldom do I see people using both sides. Like, what's wrong with one one sidewalk on one side of the road? Right. Because that saves a substantial amount of money. I mean, concrete, paving, all of that cost a lot of money. Or, you know, we have some municipalities that might require us to put six or eight trees in one lot. Well, those trees are two thousand dollars a piece. So right there, that's if you had to do six of them, that's you know, a whole lot of money. Yeah, yeah. Why not put three? You know, um, and then you go back a year later and and a lot of people take those trees down because they don't want to have to pick up the leaves or you know, they want more room in their yard if they have young kids that are playing football or or or whatever. So, you know, just thinking about those things, like you everybody has this picture of what it should be, but is that is that what everybody wants? Not necessarily anymore, right?
SPEAKER_01Well, and then you think about Helene, right? Um, when you talk about so many people after Helene went and took all of their trees out, yeah. Um, because they just didn't want that issue to come back up again. Um, you know, and I know you guys had a lot to do with kind of the aftermath of Helene and how you guys helped. Can you talk a little bit about your involvement and what you guys did? Yeah.
SPEAKER_00It was um it was pretty incredible. Um, I might, you know, I get overwhelmed sometimes about what we did. Um, but to say that, you know, that that's a great example about the hurricane. So the neighborhoods that had all a lot of trees in them, they got destroyed. Our new development communities hardly got any damage. Like there might have been a few shingles or, you know, some fencing that, you know, came down, but very little damage because there wasn't this humongous tree canopy in the way of houses, like, you know. Um, but yeah, so I remember it was like day four. We didn't have power, we barely had cell phones, you know, depending. I mean, I remember I would drive to South Carolina to get, and I was just sitting there, I was like, I gotta do something. Like we build, like that's what we do, like that's who I represent. Like we need to go do something. Um, and so we, I just, you know, got a few guys, a few of our members together, and I was like, because you know, nobody was able to work right then. Right. Some people had power, some people didn't. Um, and I was like, we gotta go do something. And so a group kind of formed. Um, I remember we met at Warren Baptist, and everybody was just like, okay, let's do this. What are we gonna do? And we just it was probably 150 volunteers, and we just had teams and neighborhoods, the neighborhoods that were the hardest hit, um, because a lot of them had elderly um people in there that didn't have the means or didn't have the resources. And of course, with communications being down, you know, not able to call anyone. Um, and we just started like getting trees out of driveways so they could get their car out, or getting trees off of the power boxes so that the power could be hooked back up once the power came back on. Um, you know, putting tarps on roofs until a roofer or a repair person could get there. Um, so yeah, I think at the end we did about $1.7 million in free cleanup, minor repairs. Um, we probably um presented over $200,000 to our region to help people pay for um their you know deductibles on insurance because we had some families that you know had two cars sitting in the driveway and their house. So they had $1,500 a car deductible to even get a new car and then a $35,000 to $5,000 house deductible. Well, unfortunately, a lot of people don't have that cash just sitting there to be used when it comes to that. So we did a lot of that. We paid for some temporary housing for some people to stay in hotels, um, food, clothing, shelter, whatever they needed. Um, we had a vetting process, we had an application process. Um, but yeah, and then we helped a lot of people in the service industry because everything was shut down. Um, and that, you know, especially, you know, our waiters, waitresses that weren't able to make income. So, you know, we helped pay electric bills or whatever they needed. Um, but yeah, about 200. And then the last year we are have been working with a group called the Long Term Recovery Group. Um, we had a couple of groups of um from disaster aid, Ohio that are made up of carpenters, trades that do this across the country. And they came here to Augusta um and they've been here for almost a year, and we've been either completely rebuilding houses or renovating um rebuilding houses that took on major damage. And a lot of those people didn't either have homeowners insurance or didn't have enough insurance coverage. Um, and so we were able to do that. We we were given a grant um and we're able to do that. And um, we did, I think, don't quote me on this, I think it's about 75 or 65 or 75 projects altogether. Wow. Um, and we're still working on a few that were finishing up, but it was incredible. And then our association um rebuilt a home on old um Evans Road. It was an army veteran. Um, he's 82, and he had no homeowner's insurance, and his house um was destroyed by three trees that came on the back end. And if you looked at the front of his house, I remember the first time I drove up, there was a gap from the front door to the frame about I don't, you know, about seven or eight inches because when the trees fell in the back, it like literally just lifted it, yeah, and just pushed the house off of the off the frame. So we um completely tore that down um and gave him a brand new house. It had asbestos, so the whole house had to be um remediated, and um we did that all for free. Um and it was an honor. And um it we a lot of our members volunteered, they came and painted, cleaned up, we furnished it, and we also made it handicap accessible for him so that if he ever had to be in a wheelchair or whatever, so he made his bathroom, you know, the doorways, all that. So it was pretty incredible.
SPEAKER_01And I think I remember hearing this story a couple of times because it, you know, I it was all over, um, which was great. I mean, talk about building community, right? Um, and I'm sure he's so grateful because if if this didn't exist, you know, what would he have done?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, FEMA offered him, we helped we actually, one of our members who's in the insurance business, she helped him um fill out the FEMA application, took him down to when they finally opened in Augusta. Um, and they offered him, I think it was either $8,500 or $8,900. Yeah. You can't do anything with that thing. And that didn't even, that wouldn't have even paid for the trees to get removed off of this house. Right. Like, because I think the quote we got back when we, because at first we were like, let's get the trees off. We didn't realize the extent and thinking that FEMA would be a resource for him, so we were gonna help him do that. So we were like, at least let's get the trees off um and get the house tarped so that if it doesn't you know substain any more damage. Right. And um, I think the quote we got back from having the trees removed was like fifteen thousand dollars. That's wild. Yeah, and he's on a fixed income, right? You know, so security, yeah, it was crazy. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Now, do you guys still keep up with him?
SPEAKER_00We do, we do. I'll reach out, I talk a lot to his brother, his he has a younger brother, um, and I, you know, check in and um and you know, he called me he called me a couple weeks ago, asking me a question about insurance, and you know, I said, you know, call Samantha, she'll help you, you know. Yeah, that's awesome. And you know, I don't go by there a lot, but sometimes if you know I'm going that way and I can turn to head back to wherever I'm going, I'll just go by there. And it just brings a big smile to my heart.
SPEAKER_01I bet. Yeah, y'all did a great thing. And I mean, thank goodness for for what you guys did. So speaking of building community, right? Um, I know that that's a big campaign you guys launched.
SPEAKER_00It is, it is. So I guess about three years ago, we were sitting at a meeting in Savannah. I I remember it vividly. There was a couple of Savannah builders in there and a couple of our builders in there from Atlanta. And, you know, we were just talking about our industry for many years, and and really still some today. We're we're always we always played defense. And I remember like, guys, like, why can't we play offense? Like, why do we always have to be on the defense? Like defending our industry, defending we we put roofs over families, like we build houses. That's incredible. Like, I you know, I'm thankful I have a house to live in. I want my kids, I want everyone here to to be able to have a place they call home. Um, and so I just said, why don't why why are we always playing defense? Why can't we play offense? And they're like, you know, we are all like, oh, wait, you know, and so um after a lot of thought and kind of strategizing what that looks like, because nobody's ever done that before. Um, you know, we brought in a team um that helped me. I had the tagline, like, we build community, you call home. And that's usually, you know, you know, in marketing, that's usually the hardest part is coming up with what what is that, what is that overall theme. So we just started putting it together and it just caught on and our builders gave um to fund the campaign. We have some community partners um that, you know, we have Jim Hudson Cadillac, like whoever, you know, they drive the community and they just embraced it um because you know, all of those industries are tied to the home building industry because if people are living here, they got to buy a car. Or, you know, like Georgia Power, they power the community, you know, um, you know, all of those type um companies, you know, all are touched by the home building industry. And so for us, it was really more of a public service campaign of like educating the public about what the home building industry brings. And I use this example all the time too. My daughter plays um soccer at Arsenal. And well, every time I go in the fields, every sponsor, every sign that that sponsors our team, which we're very grateful for, um, or that sponsors Arsenal, are all tied to the home building industry. It's the real estate companies, the mortgage lenders, the insurance companies, you know, the subcontractors. And I'm just like, you know, they're not just the these builders, developers, our members, they live community. Like they give back, they're they didn't blink an eye when I called them for like, hey, we need to do this for the hurricane, we need to do this for so and so, or we need to do this for this organization. I mean, they never say no. Um I think that's what we haven't done a great job of telling our story on is what these guys really do. And you know, I go to the the recreation fields and on the back of the shirts, there is at least one, probably three or four that are tied to our industry that support our kids, you know, on the soccer fields, on the baseball fields, on the on the football fields. So yeah, that's what building community is.
SPEAKER_01Great. No, and and I love it. And I know you guys also have a podcast. Do? Tell us a little bit about that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So this year being our 70th anniversary and you know it's kind of like do you wait till 75? So yeah. But I'm like, that's 70 years. That's incredible. You know, there's not a lot of associations that are that have been around that long. And so we really wanted to do something different and tell more stories about people that are building community in our community. And so we started the Building Community podcast. We don't have this fancy studio. We do it at our office that it works. You know, uh but it it works and it's been amazing. And for me, you think you know all the stories or all the things but it's been incredible for me to learn stories of you know how how things came or how someone got in the industry or um other um awesome nonprofits that are doing amazing work um in our community that are truly building community. I remember a couple weeks ago we had um Ken and Tom from Pierwood Construction and I always thought Pierwood was like his family's name or maybe a relative or something. And so learning the story of how Pierwood it was the street that him and his wife lived on their first house. And he he didn't name it he didn't want it to be in his name because he wanted hopefully one day that the legacy of Pierwood construction would continue. And now Ken's you know the second owner and you know how Ken came to work there was he answered a newspaper ad. I know a lot of you people don't remember those days when there used to be newspaper chop one and that's how Ken and Tom have been working together now for I think 30 years.
SPEAKER_01I know it's crazy because you know especially when I mean you and I we do obviously a lot of networking we're out in the community community a lot um and you really don't you don't necessarily know um kind of how things come about until you sit down and you get to have a conversation with them and talk to them and you're like oh that's so interesting.
SPEAKER_00Well we just had Dr. Jackson Drumgold from Bridge Bell Dest. He's awesome one of my favorite people um I remember the first so funny story about Jackson we like people were telling me I needed to meet Jackson people were telling him he needed to meet me and then we finally connected. Yeah and I remember the first time I met him I was just like I was so drawn and in awe and I was like wow I need to do more and be more you know like he just inspired me.
SPEAKER_01Yes.
SPEAKER_00And then like I had him on um last week um and he had had that desire for bridge builders since night since he was 19. And I think in like at 19 I was like worried about what I was going to wear Friday night or what you know what I was going to eat for supper. You know like and he had this this vision and this dream and this fire to do something to help kids foster care kids. And then here it is correct. But 40 years later or how I'm a I hope I'm not aging you Jackson I'm sorry if I am but you know 30 40 years later and that desire still burned. And I think for me like it made me realize like it's never too late. It's never too late to make a difference. It's never too late to change something in your community or step up or step out you know it's it's never too late.
SPEAKER_01That's true. And I mean what would you so obviously you guys have all of this you've got building community you've got the podcast all the things you guys do to help with not just our community but with different clients builders hopefully future homeowners how can our community help you how can our community get involved in all the things you guys are doing.
SPEAKER_00Yeah I think tell the story of what our industry does and provides in our community um I was you know prime example I was at the hair salon a couple months ago and a lady came in and you know she was running behind and she immediately started complaining about all the traffic um and I was just and I don't know you know me you know me I'm not very shy but like usually I just would have sat there and not said anything like you know she's running late I get it I've had those days. Sure. But I just was like well aren't you and she had a coffee cup from one of our local coffees in her hand and I was just like but aren't you so glad that you were able to stop on your way here and grab a coffee even though you're running late and she was like what and I was just like well you know if there wasn't traffic here you wouldn't have been able to stop and I said you actually passed four other coffee stores on your way to get to that one and she was like I never thought about it like that. So I think having those um conversations and speaking up you know you can you I I I don't agree with everyone people that are dear friends of mine I don't agree with all of theirs they don't agree with all of mine but we can have some really great conversation and I think speaking up speaking out um not don't be afraid um you you know we see it um you know everybody get can get behind a keyboard and type and say whatever they want behind a keyboard um but I think we need to not be afraid of that to like maybe we should get on those keyboards and talk about instead of all the negative talk about the positive right um or you know when you are sitting at a lunch place and everybody's like complaining about the traffic but like you wouldn't be sitting in this restaurant if there wasn't traffic correct restaurants can't survive without people um a mo most of our businesses can't survive if there weren't people here to to you know use those businesses so I think that's really what it's about is we we have to quit being afraid of um all the people that you know might feel differently than us um and express what's important to us or how we feel about things.
SPEAKER_01100% and I mean that's part of adulthood right in growing is being able to disagree on things but being able to have a conversation about it even even when you don't agree. Yeah that it's okay we can have different opinions and still be friends and still be colleagues.
SPEAKER_00Yeah absolutely and still make this community great absolutely I mean we have disagreements with our elected officials all the time because they see it one way, we see it another way. Sure. But you know we have those meetings and we are respectful of each other and usually we find somewhere to come together um in the middle where both of us walk out there like okay that was a step in the right direction for both sides. But I that that's what it takes. Like you you gotta feel you know always say if you feel a little uncomfortable you're doing something right. Right. You know because if you feel comfortable then are you really challenging are you growing? Correct. Yeah yeah so I think that's the big thing is we you know I I say that a lot too like in my faith you know we we tend as you know if you if you're a believer or or you don't um speak up or speak out you know but all the other others are very loud and all that and you know I'm like okay I need to be you know I need to speak up um in in any regards I use faith as a um as an example but yeah I need to like if that if I don't feel that same way it it's okay to speak up and share my opinion.
SPEAKER_01100% yeah hundred percent well so to kind of conclude our wonderful session one I'm so glad you agreed to come and we got to chit chat um but then two like tell me something you want the community to know.
SPEAKER_00Yeah so I just want to thank you and Blanchard and Calhoun y'all have been a member of our association for a long time. Y'all are active you participate we've had several of your um team members that have served as you know chairs or or on the board and we're just very grateful for y'all for that. But I really want people to when they think about um you know the home building industry and and what we do on a daily basis we really are building community that you call home and I really can't think of a better way that that sums it up. But you know also know that you know it's okay to speak up or speak out. I think we can all do it in a respectful way. And every there is someone or some organization in our community that could use a hand. Whether small you know or or large you know I always think about that okay what can we do to help our community to help our community move forward today or next week or next month. And I think that's what it's really about. And I don't mean that just from money. I remember that you know I I I think about that in time or resources. You serve on several boards I serve on several boards you know I I bring whatever I can to whatever organization that is humbly asked me to be a part of or and I think that's that's really at the end of the day you know we're building community.
SPEAKER_01And if people have questions or they're curious about the home building process or maybe they have questions about the traffic I mean are you guys a resource for that absolutely you can call or email anytime go to our website home buildersakenagusta.org I know it's long um Facebook social media we're on all the platforms I'm available at any time um I I encourage you to just reach out love to have a conversation if I can be a resource if you're uh fixing to do a remodel on your home or sell your home or add on to your home or build our home you know please visit our website call us we'll be happy to provide you a list of licensed um contractors that's awesome that's all we've got today