A look at Southern Kentucky’s real estate market
Today’s HousingWire Daily continues Houses in Motion, a miniseries looking at U.S. real estate, hosted by Senior Real Estate Reporter Matthew Blake. In this episode, Blake is joined by Kenny Cravens, vice president of training sales at Coldwell Banker Legacy Real Estate Group in Bowling Green, Kentucky, and president of the Southern Kentucky Association of Realtors.
During the episode, Blake talked with Cravens about the distinctive aspects of the Bowling Green housing market and the city’s struggles to get more inventory.
Here is a small preview of the interview, which has been lightly edited for length and clarity:
Matthew Blake: What is the political climate like in Bowling Green right now? Are they amenable to new development and new builders or are they more like, “We don’t need to change the local character right now?”
Kenny Cravens: Yeah, I won’t get into politics because I try to stay neutral, but I think one of the issues is that we had at one point what would be considered a very rural — is now an urban community. Sometimes people on the coasts will see a city or an area of 130,000 people, and think, “Oh, that’s so cute, that’s so small.” But to us it’s big and for the last 10 years it has continued to grow. Some of the people locally — the ones that have been here for years, all their lives, it’s hard for them to accept that.
As far as development goes, when there’s a new development that wants to come in, typically you have a lot of opposition to that. The community will show up in droves. And so if 100 people come out in opposition to a project, you have a developer kind of there by themselves saying, “This is why I think we need it.”
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Below is the transcription of the interview. These transcriptions, powered by Speechpad, have been lightly edited and may contain small errors from reproduction:
Matthew Blake: Hello everyone, and welcome to “Houses In Motion.” Each week, as part of HousingWire Daily, we look at the people, battles, and issues of the U.S. real estate economy. Today is our fourth episode, and something I’m hoping to do with this podcast is cover parts of the country that aren’t reported on very much. In real estate, especially, so much reporting is focused on the coasts and the sale of ultra-luxury homes in New York and Los Angeles. I have more than partaken in this kind of reporting, living in LA and doing deep dives on the Bel Air and Beverly Hills markets. There’s value to that coverage, but today we’re doing something different. I’m looking at a separate part of the country, southern Kentucky, and specifically the city of Bowling Green. On the other line is Kenny Cravens, who is vice president of training sales at Coldwell Banker Legacy Real Estate Group. Kenny is also president of the Southern Kentucky Association of Realtors. Kenny, welcome to “Houses In Motion.”
Kenny Cravens: Thank you, Matt. I appreciate it. Really excited to get this started, so I’m looking forward to it.
Matthew Blake: Great, great. So, before we get into what I was teasing there about southern Kentucky real estate, let’s talk a little bit about you and why are you a real estate agent? Why do you have leadership positions now in the Kentucky real estate community, and how did you get into real estate?
Kenny Cravens: Sure. Well, I started my career, actually, I went to Western Kentucky University and then I stayed here in Bowling Green and started working at WBKO TV. It’s the ABC affiliate here. And I worked there for a few years, and then my wife and I moved to North Carolina. And I started working at WGHP in High Point Winston-Salem area, and we lived there for 12 years, started a family, and realized that we were spending a little too much time at work. And so, she actually got an opportunity to come back here, and we came back to Bowling Green. I worked at Channel 5 in Nashville for a little while, but realized again that we were just working too much. And not that real estate is a way to go to not work, but you can set your own hours a little bit. So that gave me the flexibility. My sister-in-law actually was the one who told me, she was like, “You could do real estate. You love to talk to people, you’re very outgoing. See what you can do.” And so, I went to real estate school, got my license and everything, and started here at Coldwell Banker 10 years ago. And it has been great. I have really enjoyed it. I obviously was doing a lot of working with clients. While I was doing that, I noticed that a lot of the other agents would come to me and ask me about technology. I’m a huge technology nerd. So, it is what it is.
But they would come to me for different things, and we started working on different things. And John Huggins, my broker here, said, “Can you teach a class in some of the things that you’re doing?” And so, I started teaching, and then became more of a manager and got into that role. And so, that’s what’s led me to where I am here at the brokerage. And then, you mentioned the volunteer aspect of president at the Realtor Association of Southern Kentucky. So, something I was taught many years ago, my parents always told me that if you can do something to give back and to help, you should. And with what I’m doing, I was able to help and give back. So, I really love doing what I’m doing. I’ve started on just some of the committees there, and we have a huge event that we do every year called “Hope For Hunger,” and the Realtors come together, and our business partners, and we help to feed local children and adults here in the community who are going hungry. And it’s one of those things that’s close to my heart. And I guess just with all of those things, then I moved up through the ranks and this year, I’m serving as president. So, it’s just something that I love to do. I’m able to have the time to do it, and so, I like giving back to the community. So, that’s me in a nutshell.
Matthew Blake: Yeah. So, it sounds like you found it to be a fairly natural transition. What was it like switching the workflow from… I imagine TV journalism, you also had irregular hours. So, what was it like switching up from the career that I think you had done for about 15 years to the workflow and the hours of being an agent?
Kenny Cravens: Yeah. One of the biggest things that I teach our Realtors now, I teach our agents the same thing, is that when you go from a regular nine to five job and you get into real estate, you have to treat it as a job still. Even though you have some flexible hours, you still have to treat it as a business. So, having that discipline of coming from TV news, where I was all over the place. I’m bouncing here and there, and it’s not necessarily a typical nine to five job, but you do clock in and you do have your hours set. With real estate, you need to do it that way, and then you also need to be available for your clients and that type of thing. I think for me, what transitioned best was the fact that I conversed with people so much already.
And so, as a journalist, like you said, you know this very well. You’re constantly asking questions, you want to learn about people. Well, that’s the same thing that you need to do in real estate. You should learn about your clients so that you know what it is they’re looking for, so you can find the right house for them, and so you can go out and do the research for them. So, that’s one of the things that I tell Realtors every day is that you should be ready to go out, converse, listen to people, and really listen, and then do your job that way. So, for me, it was a natural progression. I know there are a lot of people in TV who do go into real estate. They’re very successful. Some of our other most successful agents, teachers. Those who come from the teaching profession, they’ve already had that. They’re used to being in front of a class, they’re used to conversing with their students and parents and those types of things. So, they make a very good agent as well. So, for me, it was just a natural progression.
Matthew Blake: And most of your colleagues, is being a real estate agent their second career?
Kenny Cravens: You know what? It used to be, Matt. We’re starting to see a lot of younger agents now. I think that comes with a little bit of the difficulties of going to college and not necessarily having something when they come out. So, we’re getting a lot of agents who are younger, fresh out of school, and just want to get their career rolling. Oftentimes, still, they’ll do this as not necessarily a second career, but sometimes as a second job. We have a lot of people who…we have bartenders, we have servers at restaurants, we have people who are doing other jobs and then they’re doing real estate. And a lot of times, if they’re good at it, then it rolls into, “Okay. Now, I’ve done this for a year,” and then they become a full-time agent. So, we are seeing it start to come down a little bit. I don’t know if that’s nationally, but locally, we’re definitely starting to see more younger agents come into the field.
Matthew Blake: That’s interesting. So, when you say out of school, like, out of high school? Like, sometimes you have 20-year-old agents in some cases, or?
Kenny Cravens: Not usually straight out of high school. If they’re out of high school, they usually have a parent who’s maybe in the business, and they come on and they’re a team member with them. But most of the time, it’s out of college. We have a lot of college graduates who, maybe for a year or so, they’re bouncing around and trying to find a career in whatever field they studied, and maybe there’s not an opportunity there, and so they’ll come to us and start in real estate. So, typically, it’s a little bit older. And it’s tough. When you’re that young, it’s tough to have any type of sphere of influence. It’s hard to get your clients going. Most people, if they come from a career, they already have their sphere set up already, whether it be family, friends, former co-workers. So, they’re typically set up. So, the younger ones have to work a little bit harder at it, and really use the marketing and the tools that they have available to them.
Matthew Blake: Yeah. And so, you’re a trainer of them. Well, what are some of the things that you like to tell some of these younger agents in terms of this is how you can gain traction?
Kenny Cravens: Sure. We have a lot of tools here at Coldwell Banker, and that’s one of the first things that I show them is just all the different things. And I don’t wanna become a commercial, so I just wanna make sure that people understand that there are a lot of tools out there to use. They need to set up a database, first of all. I mean, that’s just first and foremost, everybody you know. And then you need to start hitting them. You need to start texting, calling. And that’s another thing, I said texting first, you notice that. People, a lot of times, are scared to pick up the phone and call somebody, but they’re very willing to text. And oftentimes, the other person on the other end, they’re okay with texting because, here’s the thing. They get a phone call and they’re like, “Man, I just don’t have time. I don’t know how long I’m gonna be on the phone with them, and I’m in the middle of something else.” But a text, they can reply back a short answer and take as much time as they want. So, that’s a trend that I’m seeing now. And, of course, for the younger ones, that’s awesome. They love that.
So, those are some of the things that they can do. Setting up email campaigns, that’s a huge one for us, is making sure that you get everybody you have on an email campaign, and start sending out different emails. You don’t wanna blast it to where they’re getting something every day, but you wanna make sure you’re staying in contact with them. So, that’s a huge one for us as well.
Matthew Blake: Yeah. And toward that end, you mentioned at the start that you’re really into technology, you like to talk to other agents about technology. I think for me, as a reporter, sometimes I struggle to understand sometimes what brokerages and agents mean by technology. My sense is sometimes it’s the customer relationship management system, sometimes it’s like administrative backend stuff. So, why don’t you talk about what you mean by technology, and what you imbue agents with when you say the word technology.
Kenny Cravens: Sure. So, for me, technology is a lot of online marketing. You wanna be able to use Facebook, you wanna use social media, you wanna get out and make sure that you’re getting on, and again, I’m gonna say Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn if you can, Pinterest, all of these different mediums, Twitter. All of these different social media mediums are where people are, that’s what they’re… unfortunately or fortunately, that’s some…a lot of people’s daily routine is to scroll through their feed. And so, you wanna pop up on that every once in a while.
So, we teach that, and show different ways that you can use Facebook advertising. Also, with us, it’s really big to make sure that you are letting people know what’s on the market. So, we have a lot of systems here that will literally pump out advertising and the new listings. So, when a new listing comes up, then it’ll go out on social media and let people know. And then if you’re the one posting that, then somebody calls you and says, “Hey, I’ve just seen this house that was listed. I’d love to see it.” So, those are some of the tools that we use. And like I said, technology, for me, is mostly your online derivative. We have, online means, obviously, on your phone, too. So, I have a lot of agents who just wanna do everything on their phone. I have some who don’t wanna use their phone at all. So we make sure that we have both aspects of that. You can use your laptop, iPad, Surface. Whatever it is you’re using, we make sure that you’re covered there.
Matthew Blake: So, let’s talk a little bit about what’s going on in Bowling Green right now. There’s a national narrative of, not just a narrative, it’s a proven fact of low inventory, high demand. Is that what’s going on in Bowling Green, or how is Bowling Green different from that?
Kenny Cravens: No. I think Bowling Green is right there with the national narrative. And like you said, it’s not necessarily a narrative, it is what it is. We definitely have the same trends that you’re seeing nationally. I think that Bowling Green sometimes is a little behind the national, but we have definitely seen a shortage in listings. We were literally, for the first part of 2021 and through the spring, and even just recently, we started to catch up a little bit. We were seeing more homes sold than were coming listed. So, we continue to go down, down, down. So, we had a real problem with having enough homes listed. One of the things that, here in Bowling Green, it’s one of the fastest areas of growth in Kentucky. Actually, it has been the fastest area in Kentucky for the last probably 10 years. And that’s because of all of the industry that we’re able to bring here. Bowling Green has been very good about a lot of diversification. We’ve not settled on one type of industry, where… I lived in North Carolina, and the furniture industry was huge there. And as the furniture industry started taking a hit, then that economy was taking a hit as well.
Here in Bowling Green, we’ve been very fortunate. Obviously, the university here, Western Kentucky, is one of our largest employers, and we have a couple of great hospital systems. Fruit of the Loom is the, corporate headquarters are located here. We have a lot of…we have Logan Aluminum, we have Bilstein Steel. So, we have different types of industry. We’ve got Valspar paint is made here, Corvette plant. So, the Corvette has been made here since I think 1980. Every Corvette ever produced has been made here in Bowling Green. So, it’s, very proud of that. So, again, it’s a diversified economy here. So, I think that’s boded very well for Bowling Green. The good news is that we’re continuing to set sales records. So, even though we’re low on inventory, houses are still selling. So, it’s just that we… I think we’re kind of underbuilt here right now, and that’s something we need to see an increase in is more new builds.
Matthew Blake: Yeah. There’s a lot of interesting stuff to say about, I think, what you just said. One thing that struck me, I really appreciated how you walked through how Bowling Green, it seems like it had some diversity economically, maybe it’s doing better than, say, like, Louisville or other elements of Kentucky, Tennessee-type area. One thing that you mentioned is Western Kentucky University is there, Logan Aluminum, the Corvette factory. Basically, that sounds to me like a lot of jobs where you actually have to be physically present to be at the job. And so, living in the big city, there’s all this talk, like, I was on a Zillow earnings call last week, and they talked about the great reshuffling, and how people are no longer tethered to where they work as to where they live. But it sounds like from what you’re saying, at least, in Bowling Green, that most of these jobs are you are tethered to the job. What would you think about that?
Kenny Cravens: Yeah. That’s a good point, I’ve never really thought about it. I know that, as you mentioned, if you’re in manufacturing, you’re gonna have to show up and be there to actually complete the manufacturing process. I think it’s a good mix still. We have places like Fruit of the Loom, and I guess the university, you would still have to be there, but a lot of those were done virtually. So, you’re able to do, as Western Kentucky was able to do, virtual classes. Same with our school systems. We had a lot of virtual classes throughout 2020. And then they did a hybrid, so you had some students who were going and some students who were staying home. Same thing with Fruit of the Loom, a lot of their employees chose to stay home and just do things virtual. So, Zoom and Microsoft Teams and Google Meets and Classrooms, all those are huge right now.
We actually do the same thing in our office. We have an education room, where we’re completely set up. We have some students who are in the classroom, and then we have other students who are joining us on Zoom. We’ve got a complete education room, where I’ve got my Zoom people on one screen and my presentation on another screen, there’s a camera that follows me around. We have offices in Glasgow and Somerset also. So, they’re able to join us remotely. So, I don’t know, I’m digressing off of where we were, but I think you’re right that this area, a lot of people are still going to their jobs, and just like normal. Whether that’s right or wrong, it is what it is. So, yeah, we’re fighting through that.
Matthew Blake: Yeah. And you mentioned the demand is there, the supply isn’t there. What are the obstacles in terms of building more homes? Is it that national home builders just overlook Bowling Green? Is it there’s not enough buildable land? What’s going on there?
Kenny Cravens: Yeah. Land is big. You’ve got to… we don’t necessarily have enough developments right now. You’ve gotta have a developer come in and, typically, buy a large swath of land, several acres, many acres, and start developing. And that’s a high cost. It takes millions of dollars to go in and put in the streets and the infrastructure needed to actually develop a piece of land. So, we don’t have very many lots, when it comes to housing lots. We’re looking at, and this may sound big to some people, but we look for a quarter of an acre to build a house on. Obviously, it’s nice to have half-acre, one-acre lots, but those are gonna be at a premium. So, we look to develop about a quarter of an acre, and we put a 1,500 square foot house on it. And right now, with the prices the way they are of lumber and supplies and everything else, the contract labor, we’re looking at, in Bowling Green, $230,000, $240,000 for a house that’s 1,500 square foot. And I would not have believed that 10 years ago. It was more in that $140,000 range. So, it’s just really ballooned, and I think that’s where, as builders, you’re right, there aren’t very many national builders here. It’s pretty much all local, and we just can’t keep up.
I’ve got a few right now that I’ve got under construction, and I see very well what’s going on. I have a plumber who tells me it’s hard to get PVC. I have an electrician who tells me it’s hard to get the little blue boxes that go in for the outlets. It’s just things like that that you don’t really think about until you start building massive, and that’s why everything just slows down. So, we’re still at a tough place right now with the supply chain. And that’s nationally. We feel it just like everybody else. So, that’s our issue right now, I think. And I don’t know what the answer is, but I’d like to see some type of incentives for builders, to where they can go in and say, “Hey, let’s make sure that they’ve got the supplies and let’s help them out and make sure that they’re building enough affordable housing.”
Matthew Blake: Yeah. What is the political climate like that in Bowling Green right now? Is the local government there amenable to, sort of, we need developers, we need builders, or is it more like… Well, I don’t know about changing the local character, and I don’t know if this is really a good use of tax money. What is the climate like there?
Kenny Cravens: Yeah. I won’t get into politics, because I try to stay neutral. But I think one of the issues is that we have what would be considered at one point a very rural community. But it’s not. It’s an urban community. We now, and, again, it’s hard to, and I love the fact that you’ve got me on here because sometimes people on the coast will see a city or an area of 130,000 and think, “Oh, that’s so cute. It’s just so small.” But to us, that’s big. And it’s increased, I don’t know how much in the past 10 years, but we just continue to grow. And I think that some of the people locally, the ones that have been here for years, all their lives, it’s hard for them to accept that. And so, we’ve got a couple of roads that are just almost overwhelmed. And so, the infrastructure is not necessarily there to handle it, and so they don’t want more people, they don’t want more housing. But the reality is that’s what we’ve got, and that’s what we are. So, we need to get past that, get past that mentality. I don’t think that…
So, you mentioned local government. They are huge in developing downtown. And that’s great. And it’s an area that could see some more growth, as many downtowns had this issue years ago, when the malls started popping up, and everybody starts to move to the suburbs, then the downtown falters. But they have a TIF area there, so, there’s tax incentives for people to build and develop in the downtown area. So, that’s a start. But as far as the development goes, and housing, both sides. When there’s a new development that wants to come in, you typically have a lot of opposition to it when it comes…from the community. Not necessarily the officials, but the community will show up in droves. And a lot of times, that’s what they’re basing their vote on. And so, if 1,000 people, not 1,000, but if 100 people come out in opposition to the project, and you have a developer who’s there by themselves saying this is why we think we need it, sometimes they’re outnumbered and it doesn’t go the way that we as Realtors and developers would like to see it.
Matthew Blake: Why are there people in opposition? I mean, maybe that’s too obvious of a question, but why are there people in opposition to, like, in this scenario you were just describing. What are the reasons they get?
Kenny Cravens: Yeah. So, what happens is when you develop a piece of land, well, there’s nothing in the city, there’s no developable land anymore, because it’s all taken up. So, you have to go into the county, you have to go into the outer reaches of the city. And once you start going out into those areas, they’re what people consider farmland. And they just don’t want it. They just say, “Not in my area. I don’t want you to put down 200 houses in this area, and create traffic and people and all of that. This is farmland.” And so, that’s where it goes. And like I said, it’s just they’re very vocal, they have a great grassroots program for themselves, and they come out and make sure that those things don’t happen. So, it’s difficult sometimes.
Matthew Blake: I wanted to talk a little bit about your leadership at the southern Kentucky Realtors Association. What are the biggest issues facing members there? And when you have meetings with them, what is at the forefront of their minds?
Kenny Cravens: Well, I think it’s just like we’ve talked earlier. It’s still the lack of inventory. And that’s what they would like to see us do something about. I don’t know that anybody necessarily has an answer to it, but it’s the growing population. Again, we’ve under-built for the area, but one thing that we are seeing is just the fact that we have such a great place to come. We have people coming in. We have a lot of investors will come in and they are amazed at what their dollar can buy here. So, they’re used to maybe paying $0.5 million for a three-bedroom and two-bath, and we can get that for them for under $250,000 all day, any day. And so, they’re amazed at that, and so we have a lot of investors coming in from other places. But yeah. I think the biggest issue right now for us is to get our inventory back up. And luckily, in the past two months, it’s actually gone up.
Just to give you an idea of where we are, and again, I know that some of your listeners will hear this and think, wow, that’s not very many houses, and it’s not. But we had 315 listings for the whole MLS in June. That went up to about 345, I think, in July, and now, at the beginning of August, I think we’re around 360 or 370. But to give you an idea, we’re typically well over 1,000. So, two years ago, we were 1,042 homes in our area at this time. And typically, it would have been more like 1,400 in a normal market, six-month supply, let’s say. It would be more in that 1,500 homes. We cover seven counties here. Obviously, Warren County is your main one with Bowling Green, but we continue to struggle with listings, and making sure that we get enough. So, if you ask me what was the one thing on our local Realtors’ minds is getting more listings.
Matthew Blake: It seems to have been the issue that’s dominated 2021. Do you see any let-up in sight, in terms of inventory not being such a paramount concern for you and your colleagues?
Kenny Cravens: Well, the good news is that, as I mentioned, we’ve actually gone up in listings the past couple of months. So, if I would look at that as a trend, then yes, we are trending towards getting more listings and starting to come out of this. It’s gonna be a buyer’s market for a long time, let’s just be honest. Right now, the only thing that I would see changing this from a seller’s market to a buyer’s market might be interest rates. So, here’s what I’ve been saying. This is an unusual market, in that it’s definitely a seller’s market. So, they’re able to put their house on the market. Days on the market are down lower than we’ve seen in a long time. They’re getting top dollar, they’re getting multiple offers, they’re getting sometimes more than asking price.
However, buyers are in a great position, because they can buy more with their money. When you see interest rates at 2.75%, 3%, that is awesome. And as that percentage goes up, you can see how much less house they get every time it goes up. So, if you’re looking at a 2.75%, they can get, I think it’s about a $290,000 house for $1,200 a month. Well, as soon as you go up one percentage rate, so up to 3.75%, now that same $1,200 gets them about a $240,000 house. So they just lost $50,000 in buying power. So, it’s one of those situations where it’s both a seller’s and a buyer’s market. I know that the buyers don’t agree with me when I say it’s a buyer’s market, but their money just goes a lot further. So, that’s the good thing about this right now.
Matthew Blake: Interesting. So, one final thing I wanted to talk with you about, kind of a pet interest of mine, is brokerage, and what consumers think about brokerage, because as a reporter, I’m very focused on what brokerages are doing well, which ones are doing poorly. But when I talk to friends of mine who have bought a home or thinking of buying a home, who their agent was affiliated with, often, like, was not something they even acknowledged or seemed aware about. And it seems like from the little I know about your area, Coldwell Banker is a pretty dominant brokerage. I know EXP has somewhat of a growing Kentucky presence. I guess two questions. First question, what do you see as the purpose and the value of brokerage? And then the second question is, how do you see consumers interfacing with a brokerage?
Kenny Cravens: Sure. I’ll start with the second question first. And what I see is that consumers want a name that they can trust. So, Coldwell Banker has been around for 115 years. Coldwell Banker Legacy Group here in Bowling Green has been around for 35 years. The trust, the reputation is there. So, I think that that does influence, to a degree, what people are looking for. I would be probably lying if I said that the agent is not one of the most important aspects, however. We preach to our agents that you need to make sure that you have a rapport with your customers. And so, that’s typically…they’re gonna go with the agent that they like. But with that comes, where was that agent trained, and how do they do their business? And so, I think that’s where we come in. And like I said, I think we give the best, and have the best, so I’m gonna obviously tout what we do. I haven’t worked at another brokerage, so I can’t tell you exactly what they do. I can only tell you what we do, and tell you from that aspect. Competition is competition. It is what it is.
Obviously, everybody wants to get every client, and you want to make every sale, and all of that. However, real estate is one of these…it’s a business where we all have to get along. And we all have to have the professionalism about us to where we can still work with an agent, whether they’re at XYZ company, or Coldwell Banker, or wherever it may be. So, that’s an interesting dynamic in real estate, is that we have to work with competitors every day. As far as consumers go, like I said, I still think that they look for a brand they can trust, and rely on that.
Matthew Blake: Do most of your clients come to you because you’re Kenny Cravens you think, or because you’re Coldwell Banker, or is it just…?
Kenny Cravens: Yeah. I would hope that now it’s because I’m Kenny Cravens, but in the beginning, it would be where I worked, and just knowing and saying, “Oh, yeah. I saw your sign,” or, “I saw a sign,” or, “I knew an agent with Coldwell Banker,” that type of thing. So, you’re gonna get both. You should, like I said, make sure that you’re keeping up with your clients and have a good rapport and be friends with them. And that’s one of the interesting things about real estate also. When you go in…when you walk into a grocery store, you don’t necessarily become friends with the checkout person. You may see them occasionally and know them, and maybe even know their name, but you don’t necessarily become friends with them. But when you work with a Realtor, you often become friends. And it goes beyond. We love to go visit our clients and see what they’ve done with their home, and see how their family is doing and those types of things. So, that’s another dynamic that comes from real estate that’s interesting. But yeah, I think, going back to your original question, I think the brand is important.
Matthew Blake: Thanks a lot for answering all my questions here. I found this very interesting and enjoyable. I guess we will leave it at, I’m a die-hard basketball fan. You have a University of Kentucky signed ball behind you. We’re actually on video right now, and I can see Kenny’s office right now. Why don’t you explain that basketball to our listeners before we go?
Kenny Cravens: Yeah. That was actually a gift to me from my broker. That’s the 2015 Final Four team that I was…I was at the game, and sadly, lost to Wisconsin, one of those Badgers. I have some friends who are Badgers fans, and I just, I get ribbed on that one a lot. But yeah, I’m a huge UK fan. My dad played football at UK, and that’s where my love of UK comes from. I love the Wildcats, and I bleed blue. Even here in Western Kentucky land, and I went to Western Kentucky, I love the Hilltoppers too, and I love them second behind my Wildcats. So, I would never cheer against them unless they’re playing my Wildcats.
Matthew Blake: Oh wow, because I know that Western Kentucky, at least when I was a little kid, they had a pretty good basketball team. But you would root for Kentucky against Western Kentucky.
Kenny Cravens: Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. And again, it only comes from the fact that I’ve lived Kentucky basketball and football since I was a toddler. So, it’s just something… I’m one of those, I’m very dedicated. I stay with whom I started with. I’m a big Bears fan also. So, Chicago Bears is my team, and the Bulls, but anyway, I stick with who I’ve always been with. Even when I moved to North Carolina, there were a lot of people who said, “Oh, you’ll be a North Carolina fan now.” No, no. Can’t do that. Definitely can’t be a Duke fan. I’m sorry. That’s just completely out of the question. I would attend some Carolina games, but no way I could do Duke.
Matthew Blake: Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. I’ve never rooted for Duke. And with that, I think that is a good way to end our “Houses in Motion” podcast. Kenny, thanks so much for coming on. Really appreciate your time.
Kenny Cravens: Thank you so much, Matt. I appreciate it. And thanks so much for keeping Kentucky and the Midwest on your radar. We appreciate it.
Matthew Blake: Of course. Talk to you soon.
Kenny Cravens: All right. Bye-bye.