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Episode 8 - Living Local with Jennifer Balkcom with Alcova Mortgage
Date: 11/10/25
Duration: 21:31
Guest: Jennifer Balkcom
Website: Alcova Mortgage
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Episode 8 Summary:
Host Ed Frisbee sits down with Jennifer Balkcom, a Hendersonville native and mortgage expert with Alcova Mortgage. Jennifer shares her journey from banking and finance—starting as a teller in 1997—to finding her true calling in the mortgage industry. She talks about the value of community, her deep family roots in Henderson County, and the inspiration behind her work both in business and public service.
Listeners will learn about Jennifer’s path to becoming a North Carolina State Representative, how she balances her time between Raleigh and her hometown, and her efforts to secure funding for flood mitigation, schools, and local farmers. The conversation also highlights Hendersonville favorites like Pop’s Diner, Binion’s, and Mike’s on Main, plus must-visit local attractions including Point Lookout Vineyard and the region’s family-owned apple orchards.
Jennifer also discusses her family’s newest venture—The Best Dumpster Company—and how she and her husband continue to serve their community through entrepreneurship. This heartfelt episode blends local history, small-town pride, and practical advice on home financing, making it a must-listen for anyone who loves Western North Carolina.
Keywords: Hendersonville NC podcast, Living Local with Frisbee Real Estate, Alcova Mortgage, Jennifer Balkcom, Ed Frisbee, North Carolina State Representative, mortgage lending, Hendersonville businesses, Western North Carolina lifestyle, local community, real estate podcast, Henderson County.
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Transcript:
Hey, it's Ed. Thanks for joining us today. My special guest is Jennifer Balkcom. Jennifer Balkcom. know her with Alcova mortgage in the area and she does some other things, but Jennifer will touch on that in a few moments, but tell us a little bit about yourself. there's a lot you could tell us, but, maybe talk on the mortgage first and then we'll dive in from there.
So banking and finance has always been a part of my life. I started in 1997 as a little teller for Bank of America and worked my way up Mountain Bank that used to be here. I started working at Mountain Bank and then Mountain First was created and I worked for Mountain First and then I went to a credit union that was different into United Federal Credit Union. helped build that locally. That was a...
That was fun. was one of my favorites besides mountain first. never knew that. I'll try to you. you know, Lee Beeson, Lee Beeson is one of my very close friends. I the world of him. man. Great man. And, he, he, he helped push me into the mortgage. Uh, I, worked for him for many years and I decided through building United and all of its whether I was doing commercial, I did.
residential, was doing bank deposits. We were building what we call boots before bricks. So when Asheville was built, that we worked out of a car. And out of all of that, I enjoyed doing the mortgage side. That was my favorite part of building Asheville and then we built Hendersonville. So when I decided, was like, really think I want to lean towards the mortgage. And he encouraged me to go to a mortgage company.
And so I'd worked for movement for a little bit, but I didn't feel like that was a good fit. worked there for, I always believed that you should at least give it two years. That kind of how a business works. I've owned businesses. So feel like after two years, you either make it or break it. And so I gave them the two years and I went to Alcova, which you know, and they were family. They come to me and asked me and I looked over everything and it just, you know how you go and your stomach and your heart, you know, it's the right place.
So I've been with Alcova since 2019. Okay. ⁓ And is the office here or in Asheville? I actually have an office in Asheville. We did have an office in Hendersonville, but with traveling and everything, I didn't want to waste the money. So they have an office in Asheville and I usually work out of it. I'm a little flexible. You can work anywhere really and take a laptop, but I do have an office in Asheville. Internet and technology is amazing. What you can do from your phone. Yes.
Yes. So you grew up in the area? Borned and raised in Hendersonville. Hendersonville. was born in a little Dana, Edneville area. My family goes back many generations. My grandfather was county commissioner for many years here. My great grandfather served on Hendersonville police force for 38 years. My grandmother and grandfather were a firm family of the year for many years. We actually donated the Dana community building to the county.
which is just amazing now. I was able to help them re-renovate the building. the park there and everything, right? All that land was donated by my family. And then my grandfather, before his time as County Commissioner, founded the Dana Fire Department. So he was one of the original three that started the Dana Fire Department. I guess it runs in the blood. But I've lived here my entire life, never lived anywhere else. So have you seen many changes since you've grown up in the area?
Absolutely. It has changed a lot. But it's still home. know, it is still home. I always come back here. I love it here. Traveling, you know, it's always time to go home. You know, my vacation, I'm ready to come home. I wouldn't live. very blessed. God put me here and I'm glad I'm here. We love it here. And, you know, we moved here in 2008 and thought, gosh, we used to live in Nashville, Tennessee and love Nashville and thought we'd always like to go back there.
But the longer we're here, we're like, no, this really is just the place to be. It's beautiful. The four seasons, the people, ⁓ the topography. Yep. It's got it all. So my husband, that was the reason. So he's from Ocala, Florida. But the reason he moved here was he wanted all the seasons. He said, I want to see snow. I want to see, I want to see it all. I'm thinking we haven't had a snow in a while, that is the reason why he moved here. He moved in 2004 is.
when he moved to here and he hasn't, he stayed. So tell us if you've been here that long, I don't like to put people on the spot, but so I'll say a top three ⁓ restaurant choices or food choices for yourself or the you recommend visitors. Hey, you got to try out X, Y, oldest restaurant we have here that's still, I think I looked at a couple of months ago is Pop Steiner. yeah. Kim is amazing. They're good people.
Pop Steiner is a must just because it's been around for so long and you can have breakfast or lunch. It's amazing. We love the environment there. So Pop Steiner is one I would definitely recommend. Who would be the other one? Now my family loves Binions. Old Quaddabong, you can't miss Binions. You got to love Binions. And the rolls. Yes. Everybody loves their rolls. And the peanuts. And the tombstone playing on the TV. You can't miss Binions. That's just an all time given.
And then what is another one that's really good that's been around for a while that's locally? That's interesting. You're picking like ones that have been here a long time. I like my like, I believe in giving back to the people. I eat everywhere, but I just, those are your people who, know, you just kind of know and love. would say, ⁓ what's another one that's really good down to, I was trying to think of one downtown that's been around for a while. Mike's on Maine.
Patty. I remember when Mike was alive and then Patty had bought it and took it over and she was so happy that she was doing that and she's done such a great job continuing. know how long it's been, Mike's on Maine? I don't remember the history of it because originally it was a pharmacy, right? So it would have been during Mountain First times. So probably in the two, four, five, you would have to ask Patty, but it was it was during my Mountain First times that that happened. Early 2000s? Yes. Okay. Probably early 2000s. Nice.
And it was a pharmacy prior? Way back. Okay. Way back. But Mike had it as a restaurant and she just bought it from Mike. I see. And so Patty took it over. it, I'm not sure how long Mike had it prior to that. Okay. Yeah. Well, we'll dive in now. So if people might recognize you, they see you or recognize your name or your voice, whatever, but you also do something else for our community. And that would be a state legislature. yeah. Is that correct? Yes, that is Am I saying that correctly? That is correct. And you've been doing that?
A few years, I think. Yes, this is my second term. Okay. It's my second term. Thank you for your service. Thank you. I think it's hard on the family. It can be. think a lot of people... a real job. I hate to say it that way. Yeah, because... A full-time job plus another. Yes. Yeah. So I do a lot of things. I was telling them I wear different hats. So, yes. I think a lot of people don't realize how much time you're away. And for them, it's $13,951 a year.
My apartment costs more than that a year. That'll pay your gas. Right. Yeah. So I think it's seven months a year. Well, this year, this year was, um, we are usually in session from January to June this year. It kind of went to July, but you gotta think I live four hours away. So I don't get to go home to my family. I usually leave on Mondays because sometimes we had rules committee and on Monday afternoons and you have committees. just cause you're not.
voting, you still have committees. And then sometimes I could leave Thursdays and sometimes I would leave Fridays if we have votes on Thursday. So roughly I was coming home either Thursday night or Friday from January 11th to the end of July. Wow. There might have been like we were off for Easter. ⁓ We were off for the 4th of July. So there was some time off, but you got to think we I'm down there. So my family, my husband's running our household.
with our son, getting him to school, doing our businesses while I'm in Raleigh that long. So that's long session. Now we do go back, like we've been back a couple of times a month. August we went back twice, September we went back twice, and ⁓ October we've been back and we'll be going back the week of the 17th. So we still go back, but it's not as every single week being gone away from your family.
We still travel, like I went to Washington this week. We just got, I just got back Wednesday from that. So you still have other things, you know, policy events that you go to, to help with your community or your state. There's a lot of info. It's a lot of information overload. I think the one thing usually people ask is like, what did you not know that you know? I think a lot of people don't realize you have so much that you're touching, whether it be medical industry, law enforcement, you have to know a little bit of everything. And it's just.
My banking, finance, agriculture, I sit on the Ag Committee. on a family farm, growing up on a family farm, I do feel like I can contribute. ⁓ I sat on finance my last term this year. I did not decided to go to appropriations that hands out the money versus trying to figure out how we're going to get the money. But my finance background, I went to it and I loved it. ⁓ So I've served in different realms trying to give back, but I also felt like you need to serve on a committee.
to learn too. So I've tried to do both of those just so I have an aspect of everything going on. But yeah, it's been good. And this past year was a little different because of the hurricane. It was. never a lot of people going through a disaster for your community and working to get funds. Like that was all new to me. Again, I've never.
⁓ I was never a politician. I never served. I was never elected official. I truly was a hometown girl that decided to protect her community. And so I believe that you should give back and God looks at that in different ways. And I prayed about it and God said, I want you to do this. And I was kind of telling you a little earlier, God used Paul to do a lot of things. And so he picks the people he wants to put there. And I just felt like God led me to do it. And I, you got to do what he says.
And so with that, feel like we, we worked and I worked with our Senator Tim Moffitt very hard to get as much money as we could for our community here back in Western North Carolina, just with all different aspects, whether it was farmers, $400 million we brought back to our farmers to help them and keep them running. We do not want to lose our farmers. And, we also had schools.
So we worked with our superintendent to help get those schools like Atkinson and things like that that may have had damage to bring that back. Some of our parks had been destroyed, some ⁓ debris removal, that's been a big topic, but just trying to get all those things. ⁓ A lot of flood mitigation, I worked with them to help get back so we can prevent things like that from happening in the future, like protecting certain areas that needed this long time ago to help.
protect in the future. Because now you're like, okay, this has happened. How can we prevent it in the future? So we've looked at those aspects too. So it's been a learning curve, but it's truly trying to do the amount you possibly can with limited amount of money. Because you got to think you have to work with the feds because the federal side of it with FEMA.
get your portion and if you give too much then you miss out on that federal portion and trying to get as much money as we can for our community. It's a tightrope, I guess, if you're walking and ⁓ I feel like we've did a good job of trying to get to walk that tightrope and still get what the community needs. Well, thank you. I don't read enough news to speak intelligently about it, but I read headlines. That's a good thing, Ed. ⁓
I've read enough headlines to know how hard you worked for that. thank you. you. But you mentioned the creeks and the flooding. There's a project that started a month or two ago near downtown. Is that part of those funds? Yes, Yes, they it's like behind the Harris Teter that area, whatever part of that was part of the mitigation funds that we were able to get. That's well needed. Yeah. Yes. So that is part of that. That was part of the helping protect.
our community, we learned we don't want that if there's a way to help prevent and mitigate that, then let's do it. So yes, sir, it is. Do you know anything about it? Like what the point of it is to help? I've just driven by notice. So water flow and moving that and making sure. So you think about a project, you put the dirt, it's going to flow further and it's got to raise higher. And when you raise it higher and it keeps it. So I think a lot of I don't know all the information on the project, but I do know that they are working to help mitigate those.
flood waters away from that area. That's good. That seems to be a spot that it is. Yeah. Catches a lot when it sky city many, many years ago and the wind Dixie it, it's always flooded there. never knew that was there. Yeah. Where was that? Where Harris Teeter instead of it being horizontal, it was vertical all the way out. And there used to be sky city. There was a wind Dixie there. ⁓
And then at the end there was a pizza joint when I was very little. I had a pizza party there with all my friends. And so there used to be a pizza joint and then it became a Mexican restaurant. it called pizza joint? I don't remember the name of it. I was trying to think, but I couldn't remember the name of it. But I do never knew there was a Winn-Dixie here. That's wild. And then they had, Hanitzios I believe was in there at the end after, and then they moved to the Western Sizzling now.
Cause that used to be a Western Sizzlin when I was a little girl. That looks like a Western Sizzlin. Yep, it used to be there. So that's where they moved into, but they were originally right there on the end of the building. So did you ever, I'm sure, well, yeah, of course you're a native. So across from there, they've torn it down now, but that was a popular restaurant for a long time on Spartberg highway, uh, across from Western Sizzlin almost across from Dunkin Donuts. They just tore it down next to the car wash place. it Brady's Oh Brady's or?
Where are you at on Spartanburg Highway? Where's it at? Across from Western Sizzlin'? Almost. It's a little closer to us. Across from Dunkin' Donuts, El Paso... Oh, Kelsey's! Kelsey's, thank So sorry. Which was Quattobalm on the street for a long time. I always heard how good that was. love their honey mustard. It was so good. I always have... Their salads. I would order those all the time and go get them when I worked down at the bank. But it closed like early 2000s, right? It did. Yeah, so I never experienced it. food.
It was great. But now it's completely gone. It is. Now it's an empty lot currently. I've heard there's some new businesses coming in. I hope so. Drive-thrus. We'll see. Awesome. That'll be good. It'll be good for us. How about we touched on food? How about you have people visiting and you say, hey, you got to go check out this spot. Jump off Rock is a popular area. You're hiking. Do you have anything ⁓ else you may tell a visitor you got to check out when you're in the area? So I'm.
I'm a little favoritism towards my farmers out in Dennyville. You have to go check our farms out. Like if you're October through our season, you got to go check out granddad's and then the next pumpkin patch. That's always fun. Costans is down through there. All those, I enjoy going to those farms. I guess because I grew up and I just had such fond memories. mean, some of them were tough, but they gave me all my life's lessons. so.
Those are some great places. need to go visit our farms and know what makes this community what it is. So I would say definitely want to visit that area. Also point lookout. So point lookouts up there where we call world's edge and it has a beautiful view. I mean, it's out that way and you're missing the mountains. If you haven't seen that view off, there's great views up there. Yep. So I would say, ⁓ that's where I would, I would head in that direction. And point lookout is also a vineyard.
It is. It is. That's what it's known as. Yes, it is. We used to grow enough the kids would hang out. So it was it was it was forest. And as kids, we would go out. That's where we hung out and and bonfires. Look out. called World's Edge. OK, got you. We called it so. But point lookout, it's it's just beautiful. If you want to see the true mountains and it's a great view and enjoy their vineyard, it's great.
We had an article written recently. We put on our blog about like the top orchards. It's hard to pick the top. gosh. Yeah. I think it listed like 14, but we have more than 14. Oh yeah. We have more than 14. Yeah. Maybe that are open to the public I to anybody, but yes, there's a lot out there. But they're not all open to the public. Maybe that's how the articles written. So yeah. No, we have great orchards.
And the steps, oh my gosh, there's my favorite apple donuts. There's the steps and the justice. I forgot about them too. Like you can't name them all. There's just so many, but my one year, my whole, like a whole group of us took and went to all the apple orchards and bought the apple donuts. Cause we all were like, who has the best? And so everybody had somebody different and they didn't, they took the labels off. Like we took the labels off so you couldn't just say, well, we, I like this farm. So we all just kind of set them out and um,
Mine in particular, because there was a group of us, everybody was different. Of course, no one was the same really was steps or to double up their Apple. They're a great family too. They are. They're good people. so we tried to do something similar a few years ago with the Apple donut tasting. ⁓ that was hard to accomplish, but sky top was probably towards the top and Jeter mountain and they're new. They are newer. I haven't had theirs. I'm gonna have to try theirs. It's really good. And they've done quite a.
It's beautiful up there. I've been to several events up there, but it is just beautiful up there. They've taken it to another level. Yes, they have. It is beautiful up there. When I go to their event, I've been to several events up there and it's great. So Jennifer, how would people reach out to you if they want to talk to you about mortgages? So you can reach out through Alcova's website. So it's alcova.com backslash jennifer balkom.
And Alcova is A-L-C-O-V-A.com. Yes. Good job. Thank you. I have to spell it out for the transcription. Yeah, that's good. And Jennifer Balkam, J-E-N-N-I-F-E-R-B-A-L-K-C-O-M. Yes. That is correct. And if people wanted to talk to you about political stuff, do they have a way to reach out to you? You can go to the General Assembly, the North Carolina General Assembly and...
You can find my name. There's contact. There's contact and information that you can contact me there. Oh, tell us, you told me off camera earlier, but tell us about your husband and a new venture. Yes. we've, my husband's always been a contractor in grading in concrete. And if you know anything about construction, it can take a hit to your, to your body. So.
We decided we wanted to do a little extra and we started a new dumpster company. Oh, the best dumpster company. That's what it's called. That's what it's called. That's perfect. It's easy. The best dumpster company. best And so how do people find that? You can look it up. We actually have a Facebook page now. We're still working on our website, but we had got our Google page. So you should be able to put best dumpster company in and it brings it up. Awesome.
So yeah, and they deliver and all that, I guess deliver roll offs. We have different sizes. So yeah, give us a call. need to have him come in and talk. Yeah, absolutely. He would probably enjoy. would probably have different answers. He will. He will. He will. All right. Thank you, Jennifer, for taking time to talk to us. Thank you for your work at the state level and thank you for helping people find money for mortgages when they need to. well, thank you for inviting me and having me on the show. Absolutely.
Thank you all for watching and or listening and keep living local.