Living Local with Frisbee Real Estate

Hey, we're excited today to have Daniel Andriotta with Integrity Financial Group here in Hendersonville. Daniel, thanks for taking the time to come and talk to us for a few minutes. Thanks for the invite. Absolutely. So we talk about community, we talk about activities going on, we'll talk about your business, anything else that may develop. But first, give us a quick overview of Integrity Financial. Sure. So we are an independent fiduciary financial planning and advising practice. ⁓ I started this practice, ⁓ well, laying the

First row of bricks and blocks in the wall, if you will, about 11 years ago. We did it the hard, long, old-fashioned way. I didn't buy anyone out. I didn't borrow any money. I am not proprietary to any institution. I don't wear a team jersey. So when we work with clients, we don't have to go to the company drawer and hope we can make something fit for them. I can take anybody anywhere. And we like to do everything from a planning and a process approach.

We handle any kind of portfolio management investment. We do a lot of long-term care planning estate planning business owner succession buy-sell agreements Pretty much anything but loan you money and file your taxes That's a great overview You mentioned a word fiduciary. That's a word we use in real estate. What is exactly does that mean? So fiduciary is a often a misapplied term some people ⁓ I see TV advertisements from some of the various bigger financial firms and

they would have you believe that everyone is not supposed to be a fiduciary, but that's not true. ⁓ The fiduciary responsibility means we act in the client's best interest at all times, ⁓ no matter what that does or doesn't mean for us. I feel like I am enabled to be a better fiduciary because I don't, ⁓ I'm not beholden to an institution, right? I feel like that lets me ⁓ be a better fiduciary.

for people because I don't have to worry if, I'm just making, using random examples. If Lincoln financial doesn't have the perfect product, but nationwide does, that doesn't stop me. can do that. I can take someone anywhere. And of course the investment world, we do our partnering and our clearing and our custodian through Schwab and or fidelity. So the client always has good experience, gets good service, things like that. But yeah, the fiduciary responsibility applies to everyone. ⁓

Everyone is supposed to be a fiduciary. There's a play on words there and how that word is thrown around, but that's the real meaning. Very well said. Thank you. So 11 years ago, you started it. What made you start that? So, my dad, ⁓ was 40 years old when I was born, little older than most people having kids. And some may or may not relate to this of your listeners, but he was the quintessential previous generation of life insurance agent. And, ⁓ folks, my age and older about the only ones who has a

who have a picture of what that used to look like. But as a very young man, I got involved in the business pretty much heavily on that side and didn't seem like it was for me. Wasn't, I guess it was boring. don't know. But, and as a young man, I knew so much, right? ⁓ It's amazing. We didn't need Encyclopedia Britannica. had me, right? But anyway, so ⁓ my love for cars took over. spent 26 years in the Ford world, six of that in finance, but

the rest of it as a fleet commercial guy. Used to work two truck shows a year with Ford Motor Company and I had commercial and business customers for 20 years plus. So working in the business owner space is nothing new. I kept a license or two over the years and about 12 years ago now, as my kids were starting to get married and have kids and my parents were aging, I said, I want to ⁓ rearrange this thing called my life and I want to work for myself.

want to have a better work-life balance. And I want to get in the financial industry. So we expanded our capabilities, what we do. And just kind of, like I said, a row by row, brick by brick, know, the front seat of the car, the kitchen table, the coffee shop, whatever it took. And of course we do have a footprint on office here in downtown Hendersonville, which I've been in for about six years now.

with free parking, I add. And where is that located? So I am on East Allen Street. I'm between King and South Main. 101 East Allen is called the King and Allen Building. It's just a couple blocks from you here. dark gray, blue color? It is. an older building. It'll be 100 years old next year. It's got so much local history. But yeah, it's a gray brick building, two story. The parking lot's on the corner of King Street. A lot of people think it faces King. Technically, it faces East Allen.

but we're real easy to find. Yep, that's a great building. And there's several businesses in there, obviously. Yeah, it's class A office. ⁓ It's a great local treasure that was preserved, kind of repurposed. And so I'm glad to be in there. What was it before? Well, started out, it was built in 1926 as the Ford dealership. Motor Company helped design that building. The neat thing about that building is we've got a whole haul of pictures from all of its history life.

And so it was that, was a hosiery mill in the 40s. In the 50s and 60s, it was called Robotyper. ⁓ They had the technology back then to type on one typewriter and print on multiple printers. They used player piano technology. We've got pictures and stories of all of this. It's really a hall of history there. ⁓ It became, the county took it over. It was... ⁓

Board of Education, Tax Office, Land Records, permitting, it was many things. ⁓ And then it was sold to ⁓ someone private, sat empty for eight years, just sat there. And in the very early stages of the talking and planning for the downtown parking garage that now is on the corner of Fifth, there was talk of we could just take that building down and put it there. ⁓ But a local guy with deep roots, Andrew Riddle, great guy.

⁓ he and some others bought it, had a, had a great vision, repurposed it. lot of original elements are preserved. And so it's worth coming to see me to get to see the building. That's a great idea. And you mentioned hosiery. What some young listeners may not know what that means. They may think of water hoses. They think of it was something in the textile world. Got you. ⁓ you know, North Carolina socks kind of probably, I don't know that I know fully, but, North Carolina.

More central, but even this part of the state back in the day, as it were, ⁓ this area was big in the textile industry. And so it was, ⁓ yeah, it operated in that building for several years. Does that mean you're from Hendersonville? I am a true Hendersonville native and lifelong resident. So far. is rare. Yeah. So what are some of the biggest changes you've seen here in Henderson? my word. What hasn't changed traffic would be one. so obviously the growth, you know,

it's a little too late to keep the secret. It's out. Everybody knows it's a great place to be a great place to come and visit. You know, growing up, our, our influx was summer residents. ⁓ you know, people used to say, you know, it's almost Florida tag season, ⁓ because they would, you know, descend and then of course go back to Florida for the winter. many still do. And, ⁓ then we kind of, kind of morphed into, ⁓ one of the retirement Mecca is really of the whole country.

You know, we have great climate. We have great healthcare in Western North Carolina. Nice people, just a good place to be. ⁓ But now, especially since the work from home, COVID probably accelerated this a bit. The demographic coming here is much younger than people realize. ⁓ You know, the I can work from anywhere kind of thing. People are drawn here. We got great mountains, great water. ⁓

you know, hiking, we got something for everybody. Yeah, it seems like the younger crowd really is into the hiking outdoor activities like biking and things like that. We have a lot, not just Henderson County, but our immediate area has a lot to offer for that. We have good schools. It's a good place to be. And I have noticed, it seems like if you look at the history of Henderson County, a lot of those people that use this area as a second homes tend to come from Charleston area as well as parts of Florida. Yeah, historically, really first, the folks coming here for the second homes.

were from Charleston, know, I guess Florida caught on later. And most of Florida, you know, most of the traditional summer residents of decades ago had retired from the Northern part of the country to start with, you know, so ⁓ we, like I say, the word's out. So this next question could actually tap on two things related to you, but what do you love most about serving this community?

⁓ You know, you can make and do the most good locally wherever you live, serving the community. That means running a quality business just like you do. You guys run an awesome business here, being a good citizen, a good corporate citizen. ⁓ You can serve the community, raising a good family, being involved, you know, be involved in a great church, be involved in the Chamber of Commerce, be involved in, you know, athletics, ⁓ you know, ⁓ have your kids involved in things. ⁓

Just be a good, to me, you can do so many things all within, you know, the shadow of where you live. ⁓ we all want to make the world better, but you can start by your world. Yep. Well said. And you once served as County commissioner for Henderson County. did. ⁓ my term ended, ⁓ the first of December at 24. So I'm less than a year out of office. ⁓ still very involved. I get as many or more phone calls now than I ever did, ⁓ which is fine. I'm happy to help folks. I stay in.

No, I don't know that that's the case, ⁓ having been here my whole life, my kids went to public school here. I did, my wife did. I run a business, we've been involved. So you give it enough time and you proverbially know most people. I need to use words with two syllables or less. You tend to, and people know you, and they're like, well, I can reach out and ask him a question. yeah, enjoyed that work. Still very involved in... ⁓

in the community, the county and so forth and keep up with what's going on and so forth. Try to be a good active citizen. you see growth continuing to happen for the area? heavens yes. ⁓ That's not the answer most people want to hear and I get that. Let me share something that may help a lot of folks on that point. This ⁓ seemingly recent angst over growth and influx and development and all of those kind of things, right?

I want your listeners to believe me, it's nothing new. I have copies of letters to the editor of the paper back when we had a paper and people wrote letters to the editor complaining about growth and development and all of that dating back to 1980. Well, it's nothing new. It is nothing new. So that tells you, could, you could extrapolate several points from that potentially.

But what that says among other things is, if you didn't start out here, then you were part of someone's angst back there. Not personally, but just you were a part of that bigger growth. Maybe the neighborhood you came here and moved into, the people around it didn't want it built. They didn't want the roads paved. They didn't want the trees cut. It's nothing new. And so, you know, I've always, when I would meet so many people that weren't from here,

I've always, even when I was just in any business setting, I would say, what brought you here? Why'd you pick us? You know, because they come from everywhere. And they all said pretty much the same list of things. We love the area, love the weather, know, taxes are not bad, things like that. But they all always said the people are so kind and so welcoming. And I'm just going to tell you, I feel like that tone is changing. I think there's, there's, you know, and so I would encourage people who,

quite frankly, some of the ones who have the loudest voice against growth and development are some of the ones who have benefited from it, that have been here 10 years or less. And I would encourage them to say, hey, you know, it's not practical to say the community that was so welcoming to you has the option to stop being welcoming. You know, I don't want to see us exploding growth. ⁓ Trust me, the folks who have deep roots here didn't want a lot of the building and development that's already existing.

So, you know, needs to be managed and directed, but I would encourage it on the people side too. I think if we'll all calm down, it's probably going to be okay. You know, our demo, have a tremendous amount of senior demographic. And if you do the math based on averages, 20, 25 years from now, depending on what growth we have of the younger demographic, you're going to see probably by attrition, a lot less people living in this County. I mean, you have to factor that in.

You know, if everybody coming here was 30, then we might be doomed for the next, you know, 50 years. But so many people here are senior adults and you know, I hope they live a long time. I'm not trying to kill them off, but I'm just saying if you look at it practically, I think, and there's ebb and flow, you know, sometimes you feel like you're getting too full and sometimes you feel like, okay, we've, know, gosh, we've lost a lot of people. We have less residents. So I encourage people to.

rest assured it's going to be okay. Let's try to make good decisions about growth and development. It's a welcoming community. It welcomes you probably. And ⁓ so join in and still be welcoming because hey, we may have someone move here that has the best idea in the world about growth and development or that is a great engineer or starts a great company and gives our young people great job opportunities. And so they don't feel like they have to move away. Well said. I personally like the growth.

And I like, I know people aren't big fans of roundabouts and things like that, but I, I, I like it. I'll go on record as saying I love roundabouts because I hate sitting at red lights. And you know, most people don't like them because they feel like either they are someone who's driving beside them, doesn't know how to use it, but give us some time. Everybody will catch on. But, you know, I like roundabouts. It's a way to keep traffic flowing. It's a clever concept. is. And most, a lot of people's main, ⁓

complaint about growth and development here is often our roads can't handle it, things like that. In North Carolina, the state does road projects, the DOT, not the local government. Cities can do some streets, ⁓ but the county does not do any street or road work at all. And so it is very easy for traffic loads to get ahead of maybe road capacity sometimes.

So it's, you know, just start allowing 10 more minutes. Again, if we relax, be calm, everything will be okay. So this is a loaded question for anybody that lives around here, but what's changed for your business in the last year? So, I think the answer to that is probably going to be a little bit unique to whatever industry person you're interacting with. For me. ⁓ I will say in the last year in my business, ⁓ a factor that is often not.

correlated to what we do, saving investment, retirement planning, all those kinds of things. Legislation is huge, or at least it can be at the state level. If they change a tax rate or they change something that qualifies for tax deferral or whatever, but certainly at the federal level. We've had an administration change, they brought in new policies and those are changing. So I'm gonna say, and I've said this a lot one-on-one to folks, of course, as a disclaimer, we can't give blanket financial advice.

But I'm just going to say that it is a very good climate right now and for the foreseeable future by all indicators to make some very good financial planning decisions. ⁓ There is one thing that kills my business or the financial world. It's not a depression. It's not a recession. It's not high gas prices. It's not high unemployment. I those things don't help. But the one thing that will freeze it in place is called uncertainty.

Everyone, I don't know what's gonna happen, so I'm just gonna freeze and stand here at parade rest until something gives that makes me feel comfortable. So what do we have now that can give us a measure, to the degree you can have it in earthly life, a measure of certainty? Well, that is, like it or love it, or hate it, whatever your feelings are, what's called the big, beautiful bill. We now know for the next, I'm gonna say four to six years anyway,

⁓ a reasonable anticipation of what federal tax rates are going to be. So now we can use that as a tool, as a planning tool, ⁓ to say, okay, now it's a good time. Should we be having conversations about maybe you're saving and investing differently? Maybe you're not doing so much tax deferred savings. ⁓ We still owe $37 trillion in counting. So if you live another 30 years, my opinion is you're not going to pay less in taxes at that time because the bill gets paid.

And ⁓ people tend to focus on saving in a way that gets it off their taxes now. I say this and I'm not afraid to say it in generally publicly, do all you can to pay the least tax you can. makes sense. But pay your taxes now with a smile. They're probably on sale. And because we owe so much federal debt. And so for the next foreseeable few years, we can know what those tax rates are going to be. So let's take advantage of that, use it. It may mean something different for the next person I talk to.

over the last person I spoke with, but it's a part of what we do. you know, everybody talks about the markets and, you know, the charts and graphs and the lines and, you know, the stock market and bonds and all these kinds of things. But the legislative policies we live with ⁓ can be tools and have a huge impact on how you do your financial planning. So that's probably been a big change for us. And it's a really good time. It's always a good time to make good decisions.

But I'm just going to say that the climate and the atmosphere is very, very in favor of a person getting more focused, more intentional about saving, planning for the future, investing, making retirement income plans. You need to have a distribution plan for retirement that is as equally as important as it is to have a saving plan and an investing plan while you're working.

That's great information and great reminders. So switch gears a little bit. I thought you're going to touch on Hurricane Helene. I'm happy, yeah. Well, that touched on all of us. one of questions, but I know it affected you personally. You share that real quick with people. Sure. So we all know that you're not supposed to have to deal with a hurricane or flooding in the mountains, ⁓ but that Hurricane Helene proved that at least it can happen.

And so, yes, definitely affected us all, but it did affect me personally. So Hurricane Helene hit Friday, September 27th of 24. On Thursday, before that day, you know, we had had quite a bit of rain leading up to the day of, if you want to call it that. And so ⁓ my then 85 year old, four month widow to mother-in-law had a lot of water rising at her home. So we brought her to our house just, you know, as a precaution.

And ⁓ we built our house in 1997 here in town, raised my kids there and so forth. Don't know why, always thankful that I probably haven't spent 48 hours in 27 years without power. For whatever reason, I have very resilient electricity and I'm glad. And I said to my wife, you know, we live in a subdivision. It's pretty wooded, got some hills. I said, this could be different. We could have some problems.

And at five o'clock that morning, the loudest sound I've ever heard is four trees, two of which I can't reach around coming into our house. ⁓ My mother-in-law was already up. My kitchen area, I took the brunt of it. She's sitting on the other side of a wall in the living room. It's a wonder she wasn't in the kitchen. I had three gas lines from my water heater, stove and furnace, some in the basement. Limbs went all the way down through that, busted all those loose. So we got three natural gas lines pumping in our house.

The power stayed on. get up and walk in there and all you see is the outside and trees. You're frozen, you're in shock, you're a lot of things. But in the moment, we're running around flipping lights on and off trying to group up to leave. Thankfully, we didn't become a firecracker. No kidding. But yeah, the fire department got there quick and got the power and the gas turned off. And oddly enough, I was able to get out of our neighborhood. Had we stayed much longer, there would have been so many trees down that we...

couldn't have been in the house and couldn't left the neighborhood either. Yeah. It got worse after. yeah. Yeah. So, went back into the neighborhood the next afternoon, ⁓ after when there was some calm and, we went to our daughters and so we were safe there and that worked out well, but, went back in the neighborhood the next afternoon. And of course it looked like a war zone. mean, just, trees everywhere there had the residents of the

neighborhood had cut just one vehicle wide path in and out. could scrape in and out of there. so what the trees didn't destroy on our personal journey, the rest had to be tore down. So we've had to totally 100 % rebuild our house. And just this morning, thank the Lord. And I do mean that literally. We got all of our final inspections. So hopefully within a week or so we'll have our gas and power and things like that. And we'll be back in the back in our home a little over a year to date.

Correct. Yeah. Wow. ⁓ and you've rented a house and we have, we have, we've been in a rental, we've been fortunate, been thankful. And let me just say on that point, ⁓ two points. So, so many, you know, they after a fever comes a chill. get that, but do not forget. You talked about being a good community citizen. Here's, here's the perfect way. Still. So, so many people are dealing and I mean, suffering, struggling with.

the effects of Helene and trying to, you know, get back to where they were or get to a better place than they are now, whatever that looks like. So you want to, if you're wondering, Hey, what can I do to be a good Henderson County citizen? Boy, you can, you don't have to look far, ⁓ jump in and be of help, whatever that looks like in those areas. and number two, ⁓ I tell people this in our practice, I don't handle PNC or property and casualty insurance. We do some lines of insurance, but nothing of the property and casualty line.

Um, I tell them all the time, if you're trying to find a way to save $500 a year.

Eat out one last time a month and you're there. Don't scrimp on your homeowner's insurance because your homeowners, should you have any kind of claim, is simply going to pay you based on the provisions you had in your coverage. That's how that works. If it's loss of use, if you have to be in a rental, if it's contents, if it's replacement, whatever it is, they're going to pay out based on the provisions that you chose.

It's, I don't encourage being insurance poor. Your home is probably your biggest asset and do not be afraid to protect it. Well, I see that often in real estate and bet you do people. Yep. Try to save. yeah, there's a balance. get it. Exactly. And listen, come to us. We advise people in areas that we can't serve. We often tell you, make sure you got your legal documents in order of your will, your trust, your estate plan, whatever that is.

⁓ make sure you have an umbrella policy on your auto insurance. If you don't know what that is, you can reach out to us. We'll explain that. you know, we look at your homeowners with you and, know, give you our thoughts if, know, you don't want to be under protected for sure. So real fast, we're going to wind down in a moment, but tell me, do you have a favorite coffee place in town that you go to? If not, you don't want to pick a favorite, maybe your top two or three.

Yeah. So I am what I call a reverse coffee snob. All right. ⁓ you know, if your coffee order has more than about four words, ⁓ you know, we might need to meet and chat. I am a, favorite coffee place, I guess would be my kitchen or my office because I'm a Folgers in a Maxwell house and a coffee mate kind of guy. Right. ⁓ these coffee orders nowadays are way too complicated. There are too many flavored creamers. My wife, my daughter also, they love that stuff.

Sometimes I, they, I literally, this is true. They have to send me a picture of the label of the creamer from home so that I get the right one in the store. Right. It's, it's got, it's everything, but coffee, you know, it's like, so, ⁓ soy, exactly. Caramel, raspberry, all these things, all those things have a place, but for me, the coffee isn't where they belong. ⁓ so, that's, that's, I am the reverse of most people in that.

How about a restaurant? have a favorite? Or two or three? I do. I like them all as you can tell. So we are big Chick-fil-A fans. All three of my kids worked there as teenagers and for several years. and I know the owner locally is a great guy and we like the company, but we love the food. It's, I've never had a bad meal at Chick-fil-A. I am a true carnivore. So anywhere that serves an awesome steak is my kind of place.

We like Binions. Yes, love Binions. Love the bread, love the steak, love the peanuts. love throwing them on the floor. Like there's people that worked there that I went to high school with and worked there for years. most places I go with some form or another of old home week, as we say. But yeah, Binions is great. You know, Binions has a tremendous amount of business, transient business. You know, people, they're a half mile off the interstate and, know, while you're waiting for a table, which is most of the time when you go there, you know, you encounter people that are from somewhere else, headed to somewhere else.

That's very interesting. Yeah. It is interesting. So you mentioned Chick-fil-A Joel Benson. Yeah. assume my three children worked there as well. Yeah. I hope to get Joel on here and talk to him about Hurricane Helena. He had a lot of damage personally. Sure. And it's been a challenge, can you think of anything else, Daniel? We talked about earlier that maybe I forgot to mention you do have a website. Yes, we do. So you can find us at Integrity Financial Group NC like North Carolina integrityfinancialgroupnc.com.

Our contact information, phone number and all that is there. You can reach out to me directly during business hours, 828-329-7820. Come have a conversation with us. It will cost you that conversation and no more. ⁓ And if you have any thoughts or questions or concerns about your financial journey, they're probably founded and they should probably be examined. ⁓ We'll try to be of help and of service to you ⁓ anytime. Happy to help you.

Anything exciting for your business in the coming months or year? Do you have other people in your office? So we do have some folks that we work with, partner with on occasion. Locally here, it's typically just me and my office. As ironies go, my oldest son lives in Hendersonville, Tennessee, ⁓ and is in the same same industry. And I have a couple of folks locally that are ⁓ that are in related fields. For example, we have a will and a state and trust attorney that we partner with often. ⁓

never had a complaint from a client. And it's good that we work together well so that the financial plan and the estate plan travel well. There's a couple of areas that if we run into that we need some help, we call in some folks like health insurance. We're licensed to do that, I don't do it. And sometimes on the Medicare supplement, I've got a good friend and colleague in the industry who he's really strong in that space.

And so I tell people, all of us are smarter than one of us, but, ⁓ you know, everything we do has gone through, know, everything we talk with a client about, or a potential client has went through a lot of hands before it got to mine to get to theirs. I always tell people a lot of, a lot of folks in a tall building with, you know, glass frontage have, have had their hands on this before, just like your auto insurance policy. You know, you go to see Tim, your auto insurance agent. Well, it didn't originate there. It's went through some hands before it got to him.

But yeah, we feel like we're equipped well with Schwab and Fidelity in our corner ⁓ and things like that. ⁓ yeah, always a busy time end of year. ⁓ We work with a lot of business owners, so they're starting to look at the year and what do I do and how do I save and things like that. And it's a good time of year for folks to just, it's always a good time to sit down and just reevaluate. The best financial plans in the world are written in pencil.

because man, things change, right? Doesn't mean you throw it all out and start over, but it's like taking a long car trip. You change lanes from time to time, but you still get where you're going. You have so many good quotes that you say could be bumper stickers. Yeah. Really impressed. It's all the time alone in the car I spend, but no, we just, know, folks just be intentional, worry, go fund me and hope are not solid financial strategies. They're just not, but.

If folks have more cashflow than they think they have, we can help you find it, help you direct it to where it serves you best.

I think as I'm sitting here listening to everything, I realized I need to make an appointment with you, Daniel, at some point soon. I know we've discussed that in the past, but sure. Thank you for taking the time. Yes, sir. It's been extremely informative for our listeners and Daniel Andrea with integrity financial group. Check him out online integrity, financial group, NC.com. Yes. We may have you back just to talk some other subject in the future. So I'd love to do that. I'd love to do that anytime. ⁓

You know, being of Italian descent, we're seldom short on words. People hear my last name and there's no way you're from here. I promise I am. Yeah. I thought of the race car driver. Yeah, exactly. yep. I promise I'm from here. now my dad, course, was not originally, but, if you hear the name Andrea again around Henderson County, they're probably related to me. Gotcha. Awesome. Thank you again. Thank you, Ed. Appreciate the team here. Frisbee real estate doing a great thing. Absolutely. You'll have a super day.