The following is a transcript from our latest podcast episode. New episodes every Wednesday - available on Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, and Spotify.

Roni:

Happy New Year. Roni Haskell over at Keller Williams. I'm a local realtor, and today, I get to be here with Jay Byars, who's on County Council, also, mortgage equity partners and a family-focused man here in Summerville.

Jay:

My whole desire for County Council is just to make this community better. When we moved here, you could see the potential of what Summerville and Dorchester County can be, and just the resources weren't there. That educator background just gives me a vision for what I want to see. It's funny now, just seeing my kids from back in the day, some of them have come to work for me. I've certainly done a lot of mortgages for them, but then, now, I see them and their kids out at the parks that we've built and they're excited about the libraries we're going to do.

Like 12 years on Dorchester County Council, people think you want to be a career politician. No. I'm okay losing an election. We've done some hard things, some things that needed to be done, and I think it's really important people know, on Dorchester County, we didn't have a park system. We didn't have very good libraries. Our library was 40 years old.

When I first got elected as a Republican, conservative Republican, we started talking about trying to do a bond referendum to be able to build these things. Well, in order to do that, means you got to raise taxes. Most [inaudible 00:01:12] don't want to raise taxes. I don't want to pay more taxes than necessary either. But living in Charleston, Charleston's awesome. So we love Charleston. We love going to Isle of Palms. We love going to James Island County Park. But man, it's 30 minutes away, and that's without traffic. I'd love to be able to do those things in my backyard five minutes away from my house. When I start talking about that with people, people are like, "yeah." Well, it's going to cost us this. It may cost us $40 a year, but we're going to have these phenomenal parks [inaudible 00:01:34]. We're going to have first class libraries for your kids now, close to home.

$40 a year, I'm going to spend that in gas and traffic, trying to go down to Isle of Palms, versus just doing something here. So you take that with what we're doing, I feel like we've really transformed Dorchester County. And the next two or three years, you're going to see it a little metamorphosis in just a complete growth to a really modern county. And I'm super excited about being a part of that. We've got a great team. Our county council's great, our staff's great. You don't do this by yourself. You got to have a great team around you. I'm certainly passionate about it. Anybody that's been here, paid attention, you know I'm passionate about this stuff. And it really just comes down to, what do my kids want to see? What do your kids want to see? Are they going live and raise their kids here? What do they want to do? And take your mom out to the park and walk around. We've got those resources now. We didn't have them five years ago, so it's been a fun ride.

Roni:

There's quite a few parks and recreation spaces here, that I wish... My kids aren't grown by any stretch of the imagination, but they're not playing, like they used to, like they used to. And gosh, I wish that I had some of these things that are now part of our community. Because as a realtor, I get to introduce people to Summerville and Dorchester County, but I'm selling houses. But I ultimately, they're buying a house, but they really are buying a community. They're buying a community. Communities are built because of what it gives back to them as a family. And so, they're buying into the schools, they're buying into the parks and the libraries. You have to have the... And road structure. That's a big part of it as well, the roads, being able to commute and not taking an hour to get from one side of town to the other, to get to that activity that you got to go to. So all of that feeds into a really strong community, which is what I really am ultimately selling to families that are migrating in.

Jay:

Absolutely. And the things we've done makes this a better place to live. It's a better place to raise your kids. My girls, and we'll talk about that. But I got a 15 year old and 17 year old right now, and three years ago, I was the coolest dad on the planet. Now, they're teenagers, and maybe I'm not as cool as I used to be. So when the park opened up, I don't get to take them out and push them on the swing like I wanted to when they were eight. And now, they're out there. It's like, "all right, dad, this is cool. Hey, what are we going to do next?" Versus those young kids come in, the community that we built just with that Ashley River Park, we're going to build out on the miles stream and some of it's pine Trace. We're just creating some places where people can go spend time and make memories with their family and go fishing with the kids, do whatever, or just take your parents out.

Roni:

Throw the ball. We got dog parks, all kinds of things.

Jay:

What I like to tell people is "we're building a park, whether you're three years old or 93 years old, there's something for you to do." And that's really our vision is we want to make sure that you've got an opportunity to go outside and understand what makes our place special.

Roni:

So let's talk about family for a minute. You mentioned your two daughters. I've got a 15 year old, a 13 year old, and 11 year old. One thing amongst our... Well, there's a couple of things that parallel within our families, but one of those is that you've got a daughter who's a competitive gymnast, as I do as well. And we've had lots of conversations about... Really both of your daughters, at one time, for a long time, were competitive gymnasts. It's a different mentality with these kids. They have to be self-driven, because they're in the gym. My daughter's in there anywhere from 18 to 20 hours a week. Similar for yours? And it's not as seasonal sport as many are. These girls are in the gym year round.

Jay:

Year round. All the time. Katie Joe, my oldest, is a senior. She's stuck it out. This is her senior year. She loves it. She lives and breathes it. At her level, it's 20 to 25 hours of practice a week. Now, you start thinking about your school plus that practice week. It's a grind. And most of the girls that are in that, when they leave middle school, that's kind of that transition year of, "am I going to stay with this through high school?" And she stuck it out, and kudos to her. She's driven, she's super talented. I love watching her videos and just watching her perform, and you can sit there and watch her. And it just makes your day to see the smile on her face. And she loves working with her teammates, and it really teaches them a lot. When Amber and I talk about doing this with both of the girls and we let them do gymnastics, we looked at it as this is also character development.

Georgia, my youngest, super talented, just at one regional gymnastics, the champion is level six, but didn't love it as much. And so, now, she's playing tennis, basketball, track. So that desire to be competitive went into other things, but it's made them who they are. And it's really going to mold them as young adults. And so, I looked at that as part of their overall character and educational experience, because you know gymnastics ain't cheap. [inaudible 00:06:13] and DaVita's locally here, I think yours is a choice. And now, mine's training at Southeastern Gymnastics, it ain't cheap. It's a time commitment. Just gas back and forth. But I look at it as we're making an investment in those kids, those girls, to what they're going to be as adults, and how they raise their families.

Roni:

We pour into our families. We both feel the same way about doing that. Let's talk about Amber for a minute. She's a friend of mine, your wife, who's also a Keller Williams real estate agent, correct?

Jay:

That's right.

Roni:

What's it like living with one of us?

Jay:

Oh, when I get home and we talk, it's like the last thing I want to talk about is a real estate contract, because I do mortgages for a living. So no, I don't want to hear about that. And so, she's loving it. She loves the real estate. I know that you and she talk, and she sort of looks at you even... She watches what you do and how successful you are. And she just really admires what you've been able to do here. And she's a teacher by nature. And there was just a time, when COVID hit, things just went crazy, gymnastics went crazy, school went crazy, put a lot of stress on us. And I just told her, I said, "look, you're really great at people. You're great at educating." What we do is educating people, whether it's mortgage or real estate, but also, just it's a relationship business. She's great with that stuff, just like you are.

Roni:

So let's talk about mortgages for a moment, because you've been in the business for a while. You've talked about you really like to educate your clients, you've been able to serve them, you're very relational with them. That's how you've built your business so successfully. What brings the most joy? What would you say is the most joyous moment of your business side of...?

Jay:

Being someone that's an educator at heart and just being rewarded by altruistic nature, I love to see people just excited about usually their first home or if they had to overcome some challenges to be able to win a contract, as you know, has been difficult lately. And just get them into that home where they walk those kids in, and they're just excited about that. It is a business that you really can change lives. And being able to educate people about what long product, most of the time, that stuff's really boring to most folks. But when you're that person's trying to figure out, "how do I make my budget work? How could I be able to pay for my kids to do gymnastics or whatever and still be able to buy the house that we want to raise our kids in, in the neighborhood that we want to be in?"

That's important for us. We take that pretty seriously. You can look on the TV and you see all these other mortgage companies and it's really just about cheapest rate, cheapest whatever. And at the end of the day, they don't care about whether or not you're in the house of your dreams or not. They just want to make some money or whatever. We're more about, "look, we're more interested in you as part of our family, part of our friendship, and our relationship circle." And that's important to us. So when we see people excited about what this is going to mean for their family, and there's been times, and you've done this too, where you've been at a closing table and somebody's just so happy they're holding you and crying and what have you.

And we've certainly had that. And then, they go to leave a review online and talk about how great things are. Those are the reasons that we do what we do. It's exciting to be able to do that. It's really rewarding, and it allows us to be able to change lives. Why I wake up every day, whether it's county counselor, whether or not we're going to go do mortgages for folks, it's about, how can we help people, bottom line? That's how I am.

Roni:

That's right. That's right.

Jay:

[inaudible 00:09:27] that's how it works.

Roni:

Yeah.

Jay:

You should get into politics.

Roni:

No, Jay, you've tried a few times. I'm quite comfortable where I am. But although I do appreciate your service to the community at that capacity, in fact, this morning and since you were out of the woods,..

Jay:

I was.

Roni:

Yeah. What were you out there for?

Jay:

So we were out walking. As you know, we built a really nice park on the Ashley River last year. We've been working on it since 2012 when we bought the property. We had to get a referendum to pay for it. Well, we bought additional property on the Ashley River. And the property we're walking on this morning is about 120 acres, really good high property. And it will allow us to expand the 83 acre park that's already on the Ashley River and go across Bacon's Bridge Road. And the property that we were on this morning is just phenomenal. It's beautiful. People don't realize, if you're moving to Charleston, there's a couple things you got to pay attention to. Hurricanes and earthquakes. People don't realize that. This is a seismically active zone. So in that particular piece of property we were walking this morning, there are hills that you don't see in the low country. You're walking up and down hills and topography that you just don't really see, because of the seismically active nature of the Ashley River itself, which is the fault line.

Roni:

Nice. I didn't know that.

Jay:

A lot of people don't, because it's been private property. We now own it. When we open it up, people are going to see it. I'm an upstate South Carolina guy, so I grew up in Spartanburg Greenville. And when I walked through the woods through these hills, it reminds me of the woods that I played in as a kid. You got 40, 50 foot hills that you just don't see in the low country, because the low country is typically pretty flat. And so, the topography is phenomenal. So we're going to be able to do some really special things there. It's about another mile of Ashley River fronted. So that adds to the three quarters of a mile we've got. So we're looking at a lot of trails. We're looking at doing a ropes course through the trees out there potentially, which is nice.

These are really mature old a hundred plus year old trees along the Ashley River. So there's no shortage of ideas that we started talk about today. Just getting out there and walking. And the thing about what we're doing with Dorchester County, and all of County council bought in with this, our staff bought with it, community's bought in with it, we passed a referendum to pay for these things. The low country's special, Summerville is special. Dorchester County is special, but we've also got a lot of growth pressure and we want to be able to conserve those special places, so that people can get outside and really enjoy what makes this place special. So getting out in the woods this morning, I came in here in camo and boots. And we were out walking around and just enjoying ourselves. But I thought I'd change into something a little more appropriate.

Roni:

Although anybody that knows you would know that your camo is highly appropriate for daily wardrobe.

Jay:

It works for me. Hey, what you see is what you get.

Roni:

So I'm going to hit you up since I have you captive audience and we're filming this, I'm going to ask you, I'm a runner. Can we have a nice running trail in this park?

Jay:

Yeah. That's part of what...

Roni:

Y'all heard it.

Jay:

Okay. No, without a doubt. Now, it would be a cross country trail.

Roni:

That's perfect. I'll take it.

Jay:

In fact, what we were walking through today, there's already trails there from the previous landowners, that we would probably just improve, put some boardwalks across some of the creeks. So there's a lot of Cypress Creeks down through there. So we would do some of that, because the Ashley River Park itself, that 83 acres, is phenomenal. It gives us about a mile and a half of trail throughout the park, this getting across. Because we're going to put a ton under Bacon's Bridge Road and be able to connect the current Ashley River Park to what that expansion would be. And then, we're going to build a bridge across the river to Rosebrock Park, which has got a mile and a half of trails. This property's large enough. Plus, we're looking at buying some additional property. You could conceivably, say, five to 10 miles of potential trails through this property. That would be very good cross country trails. Now, we're not going to be paving those trails. It's down by the river. You want to keep the natural area, but throw on your cross country runners and get to work. That's what we're going to do.

Roni:

I've got them. I just don't have any places to use them with a terrain, that if I'm training for something, especially if I'm going to upstate or into the mountains, it's hard to train for a race on trail in our low country.

Jay:

You're absolutely right. Most of it's just flat.

Roni:

Yeah. So I'm excited about that. And my running community will be excited about that as well.

Jay:

I'm personally excited about that, because I look at it and it's like I think about the races we can do, the training that people can do. And I know that you run a lot. I used to run a lot. Now, if I run a hundred yards, I need oxygen. But at the end of the day, I like to be able to get outside and just really get through there. I do a lot more [inaudible 00:13:59] now, so I'll throw on a 30 pound backpack and just kind of go and walk through there and get going fast. I love that. For me, that's just a good workout.

Roni:

Well, and there's a strong community around here for [inaudible 00:14:09] as well. And it ultimately, we'll go back to what you said earlier, there's something for everybody. No matter what their age or their interest is, there's something for everybody. And you have been a strong leader in our community to get this vision created and oversee the implementing of it as well. So appreciate. On behalf of our county, I would like to say thank you, Jay, but behalf of being a friend, I really thank you for coming on today and sharing your advice and highlighting also, not only what you do for the county, but also, what you do for the mortgage side and kind of diving into your personal world as well.

Jay:

Thank you for having me. Appreciate your friendship. This has been awesome.

Roni:

Good. Glad. Thanks. Thanks for joining us today. I'll see you in two weeks.