Wayfinder Realty w/ Kinstle & Co

09/25/2026

Chicken Saltimbocca sounds like one of those dishes that should be complicated and expensive.

It isn’t.

Chicken, prosciutto, fresh sage, a little flour, butter, white w**e and a few other basics—and you’ve got a restaurant-worthy dinner without a restaurant-worthy grocery bill. I served mine with asparagus, keeping the whole meal simple, affordable and something you can actually make on a weeknight.

And apparently, I REALLY wanted to prove how fast this dish is. 😂

Somewhere during editing, the playback speed of the video got changed, so this episode moves a little faster than intended. Rather than scrap it, I narrated over it and rolled with it. This is real life. Sometimes dinner comes out exactly as planned and the video doesn’t.

The good news? Chicken Saltimbocca really is a quick dish—even if it’s not quite as fast as this video makes it look.

Simple ingredients. Great flavor. Affordable dinner. And one slightly over-caffeinated cooking video.

This week on **Sold on Flavor — Chicken Saltimbocca.**

Tonight on Sold on Flavor, we’re making Chicken Saltimbocca over Li...

09/18/2026

This week on Sold on Flavor, we’re heading to the Bayou.

Creamy Bayou Chicken & Sausage — seasoned chicken, smoky sausage, and a rich Cajun-inspired cream sauce that brings the whole thing together.

This is one of those meals that looks and tastes like you worked a whole lot harder than you actually did. A little heat, a lot of flavor, and that sauce…you’re going to want something on the plate to make sure none of it gets left behind.

Serve it over rice, pasta, mashed potatoes, or grab yourself a good piece of crusty bread. I’m not judging.

Creamy Bayou Chicken & Sausage, this week on Sold on Flavor.

This week on Sold on Flavor, we’re heading to the Bayou—or at least...

09/17/2026

What is IT, NOW!

There is a creator on TikTok I enjoy who starts his stitches that way, “What is IT, NOW!” Lately, every time I look at what is happening with the economy, I hear his voice in my head.

Let me provide my best disclaimer. I am not an economist, I am not a financial advisor, you get the picture. Credentials? I don’t got them. I also find financial news disgustingly boring on almost every level. It’s a dirty job, but someone has to do it, and unfortunately my profession requires me to pay attention.

Money is an interesting thing. If you ever want to see the difference between what feels right and what is perfectly legal, go back and watch the 2016 presidential debate between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. This is not an opportunity to tell me which one you like or dislike. That isn’t my point. Listen to the conversation about taxes and the rules surrounding money. There are rules, people learn the rules, and people with enough money generally hire really smart people to understand every inch of those rules.

There is a great line from Watchmen: “Who watches the watchmen?” Then go watch Goodfellas. Organized crime takes over a business, uses everything of value and, when it no longer serves them, disposes of what is left. Every once in a while I look at private equity buying a company, loading it up, splitting it apart and selling off the pieces and think, huh, that looks vaguely familiar. Except, of course, one has attorneys and paperwork.

Anyway, back to the boring stuff.

Inflation is running at 3.4%. Mortgage rates are hovering around 7%. Oil is around $100 a barrel. Our national debt is approaching $40 trillion and, wait for it...drumroll please...the Federal Reserve raised interest rates another quarter point yesterday.

Welcome to the s**t show.

Why do I depress myself by paying attention to all of this?

Because eventually I am going to sit across from a young family, a retiree, someone relocating, someone getting divorced, a first-time homebuyer, or someone who has spent the last 30 years working and is trying to figure out retirement. They aren't going to ask me about monetary policy. They are going to ask me a much more direct question.

Todd, is now a good time to buy a house?

Yes. Maybe. No.

Yes, if you have the money, you're established in your career, you have reserves, you're reasonably confident you're going to stay put for a while and the house fits comfortably into your life. If you're approaching retirement, I also want to know that buying this house isn't consuming the money you're depending upon to fund that retirement. Most importantly, you need to be able to afford the payment you're agreeing to today. Not the payment somebody tells you that you might have if rates come down and you refinance. If that happens, fantastic. But I'm not going to build your financial future around something neither one of us controls.

Maybe, if you can make the payment but it is going to require some adjustment. Maybe you're renting now and watching rent continue to eat away at your disposable income. Maybe life is changing. Marriage, children, divorce, retirement, relocation. There are a hundred reasons why someone might need or want to buy a home that have absolutely nothing to do with whether CNBC thinks this is a good housing market. That's when we sit down, look at the numbers and figure out whether it makes sense for you.

And no, sometimes you probably shouldn't buy a house. If you're new in your career and there is a reasonable chance your job will move you in two years, let's talk about that. If buying the house empties your savings account, let's talk about that. If the only way the payment works is if rates come down next year, we definitely need to talk about that. If you're nearing retirement and you're pouring everything you have into a house while expecting that house to somehow fund your retirement later, we need to have a very different conversation.

Sometimes the best real estate advice I can give somebody is, don't buy a house right now.

Then there is the other side of this crazy market. Roughly 40% of owner-occupied homes in this country don't have a mortgage at all. Among the people who do have mortgages, nearly half are sitting on rates of 4% or less. Think about that. If you own your house outright, you probably don't have to sell it. If you're sitting on a 3% mortgage, how excited are you about selling that house and replacing it with a mortgage around 7%?

Not very.

So buyers are frustrated because affordability is difficult, while a whole bunch of sellers have equity, low payments and absolutely no financial reason to panic. Inventory is what it is. Buyers still need houses. Sellers may hold out for their price because, quite frankly, many of them can.

Real estate professionals don't control any of this. I don't control mortgage rates. I don't control inflation. I don't control oil prices, the bond market or the Federal Reserve. And despite what anybody tells you, I don't know where mortgage rates are going next year.

What I do control is what happens when you sit across from me.

My responsibility isn't to convince you that now is always a great time to buy real estate. My responsibility is to understand what you're trying to accomplish, present the data, explain what I see and give you the information you need to make the best informed decision you can.

Sometimes that answer is yes. Sometimes it's maybe. And sometimes it's no.

I'll admit, when this broker talks about the current state of housing, his heart breaks a little bit every time. There are people doing everything they were told they were supposed to do. They work, they save, they build their careers, they raise their families, and some of them still look at the cost of owning a home and wonder how the hell they're supposed to make the math work.

I don't have a magic answer for that.

Find someone you trust.

09/11/2026

☕ Coffee Shop at Home | From Coffee Cherry to Cocktails

I did A LOT in this episode of Sold on Flavor.

Not with the expectation that everything would appeal to everyone, but with the hope that there would be something—or maybe a few things—that would.

We start with coffee itself. A roughly half-trillion-dollar worldwide industry. We follow coffee from the tree, to the coffee cherry, through processing, roasting, grinding and finally into your cup. And yes, those “coffee beans” we’ve been calling beans our entire lives are actually seeds.

Then we get into the kitchen.

We make homemade syrups, cold brew, break out the Moka pot, and put it all together with a Brown Sugar Cinnamon Oatmilk Shaken Espresso, Salted Caramel Cold Brew, Dark Chocolate Mocha and Maple Vanilla Latte.

And because this is Sold on Flavor, we keep the coffee shop open a little later with a couple of Espresso Martinis.

Maybe you want to make your own cold brew. Maybe it’s one of the syrups. Maybe you’ve always wondered how a Moka pot works. Maybe you just want a really good coffee drink—or maybe you’re sticking around for the martinis.

You don’t have to want to make everything in this episode.

I’m betting there’s something in here you’ll want to make.

Welcome back to Sold on Flavor.

Coffee is a half-trillion-dollar global industry, but how much do w...

09/07/2026

What Does a Lower Cost of Living Really Buy You?

It’s a holiday. For a lot of us, that means family, friends, food and hopefully spending some time with people we don’t get to see nearly enough.

When people talk to me about relocating South, inevitably we talk about the cost of living. Property taxes, housing, heating bills, insurance and just the everyday cost of living. We compare numbers. But I think sometimes we miss the bigger point. What could you do with the money you’re no longer spending just to maintain the same lifestyle?

When I lived up North, I accepted the cost of living. There was an expense associated with living in New England, and that was just part of the deal. Expenses continue to rise regardless of where you live, but have you ever stopped and asked yourself if there might be somewhere you could live the lifestyle you want and give yourself a little financial breathing room at the same time?

Years ago, when I would educate restaurateurs about P&Ls, I would always bring it back to three numbers. What are you bringing in? What are you spending? What do you have left? Revenue, expenses and hopefully profit.

Our lives really aren’t that different.

We spend a lot of time thinking about the first number. How much money do I make? For many of us, though, there’s only so much we can do to dramatically change that number. What we don’t always consider is the second one. What does it cost me to live the life I’m living?

For a lot of us, geography was really determined by chance. We were born somewhere. Our family was there. We built a life there and eventually we just accepted that this is what it costs to live where we live.

Does it really have to be that way?

If you could maintain or even improve your quality of life by living somewhere more affordable, why wouldn’t you at least take a look at the math? Because at the end of the day, of those three numbers, I think one matters more than the other two.

What do you get to keep?

Maybe that extra money means another trip home to see your kids. Maybe it means seeing the grandkids four times a year instead of twice. Maybe it means bringing the whole family together for a week at the beach. Maybe it’s traveling to see old friends, taking the vacation you keep putting off, or simply having enough left over that you don’t have to think quite so hard every time you want to do something.

That’s the part of the cost-of-living conversation I think gets overlooked. Having a lower cost of living isn’t necessarily about living with less.

It might actually give you the opportunity to live more.

If you’ve ever wondered what your numbers might look like somewhere else, give me a call. Sometimes finding your way home starts with simply doing the math.

09/04/2026

There are some Southern foods you probably shouldn't mess around with unless you're prepared to be judged. Banana pudding is absolutely on that list.

This week on Sold on Flavor, I'm making Homemade Southern Banana Pudding completely from scratch. No pudding mix, no shortcuts. Homemade vanilla custard, fresh bananas, vanilla wafers and all those layers that somehow get even better once they've had time to sit together.

Now, living in North Carolina, I understand I'm stepping onto sacred ground here. Everybody seems to have a grandmother, aunt or church potluck version that is THE banana pudding. 😂

So before I claim any kind of victory, I need my Southern friends to weigh in.

Did this recovering New Englander get it right?

Check out the new Sold on Flavor and let me know in the comments — Southern approved or do I need to pack my bags and head back North? 😂

🍌 Homemade Southern Banana Pudding
🥄 Made completely from scratch
❤️ Comfort food the way it should be

There’s banana pudding, and then there’s homemade banana pudding....

08/28/2026

There’s just something about diner food.

Nothing fancy. Nothing trying too hard. Just a big plate of comfort food that makes you wonder why you don’t order it more often.

This week on Sold on Flavor, I’m making one of those classics — the Open-Faced Turkey Sandwich.

But we’re doing the whole thing from scratch.

I roasted a turkey breast, made homemade stuffing, turned the turkey drippings into gravy, and made carrots in a butter, garlic and honey glaze. And instead of putting it all over the traditional toast, I went with a toasted baguette.

Turkey. Stuffing. Gravy. Crispy bread. And plenty of it.

Now I need your help with something…

What’s your favorite diner — and what’s the dish you order there?

Put both in the comments. I’m looking for ideas, and your favorite diner meal just might end up on a future episode of Sold on Flavor.

There are certain meals that just belong in a diner, and an Open-Fa...

08/26/2026

Whistling Past the Graveyard

Recently a friend asked a pretty simple question, “How’s everyone doing?”

Avoiding politics, not great.

Ironically, I don’t think either of our two political parties gets to claim the high ground here. Both have been in power, both have promised to make things better, and yet for a whole lot of people their daily lives haven’t gotten much easier. The bills still come, everything seems to cost more and the amount left over at the end of the month seems to keep getting smaller.

I believe capitalism has done more good for more people than probably any economic system we have come up with. I also believe what we are practicing today looks less and less like capitalism and more like crony capitalism. What’s that? Pretty simple. We pick winners and losers.

And once we start doing that, we change behavior. People and companies are willing to take bigger risks when they believe somebody else will be there to catch them if things go wrong. The problem is the people making those decisions usually aren’t the ones left holding the bag.

Case in point, the financial crisis of 2008.

Banks made risky loans. They charged more money to people who were already over a barrel to begin with, packaged those loans up and sold them throughout the financial system. Eventually people started defaulting and the whole thing began to unravel.

Then we were introduced to a phrase that still bothers me.

“Too big to fail.”

Really?

So the government steps in and bails out the banks because allowing them to fail would supposedly destroy the financial system. Fine, I understand the argument. But think about what happened next. The institutions were protected with public money while many of the same institutions proceeded to foreclose on the homes of the public whose money had just helped protect them. Executives kept their jobs, bonuses were paid and golden parachutes existed while families packed their belongings into moving trucks.

Jon Stewart made what I always thought was one of the most interesting observations about the whole thing. If we were going to spend the money anyway, why not help pay the outstanding mortgages? The homeowner stays in the house, keeps some dignity and the bank still gets the money it needs to stabilize itself.

Same money. Very different outcome.

Instead, we protected the institution and let the individual absorb the loss.

That’s where I struggle.

If the government has decided it wants to take its hands off the wheel, okay. But at least take your foot off the gas.

Personally, I’m fine. I have a home, food on the table, people I love and plenty to be grateful for. I can get up tomorrow morning and go about my life. But discernment tells me this isn’t about me.

I’ve said before that I am my brother’s keeper. I believe that. And if those words actually mean something, then I don’t get to look around at my own life, see that I’m doing okay and decide everything must be okay.

People are struggling.

Disposable income is simply what’s left after everybody gets paid. The mortgage or rent gets paid, the electric company gets paid, the insurance company gets paid, the grocery store gets paid, the car payment gets paid, the credit cards get paid and whatever is sitting there afterward belongs to you.

For a lot of people, there wasn’t much sitting there before.

Now add years of inflation, the declining purchasing power of the dollar, housing costs, insurance, groceries, utilities, cars and interest rates. Add wages that haven't kept pace for many households. Then we're surprised when people tell us they don't feel particularly good about the economy.

We can sit around and argue about inflation, monetary policy, government spending, deficits, taxes, tariffs and which political party deserves the blame. There is probably plenty to go around.

Meanwhile somebody is standing at the grocery store register looking at the total and deciding what they can put back. Somebody just opened their homeowners insurance renewal and wondered how they're going to absorb another increase. Somebody is keeping a car with 180,000 miles running because a $600 or $700 payment simply isn't an option. A young couple is looking at the price of their first home wondering how anyone affords one anymore.

These aren’t statistics. They’re people.

They’re our neighbors.

That’s the part I don’t want us to lose.

I’m not suggesting everything is terrible. I don’t believe that. I’m certainly not interested in spending the rest of my life angry about the world. There is still tremendous opportunity out there and there are still a whole lot of good people doing good things.

So tomorrow morning I’ll get up. I’ll count my blessings. I’ll look for the good in the world and I’ll look for the opportunities in front of me.

But gratitude doesn’t require blindness.

I can be thankful for what I have while recognizing that the person standing next to me may be struggling. I can believe in capitalism while questioning a system that protects certain people from the consequences of their decisions. I can believe there is tremendous opportunity in this country while acknowledging that for a lot of people the math simply isn’t working the way it used to.

Maybe that’s what worries me most.

We keep telling ourselves everything is fine.

Maybe we’re just whistling past the graveyard.

I’ll keep counting my blessings.

I just won’t use them as an excuse to look the other way.

08/24/2026

The Listing Agent Is Not Your Agent

Buyers walk into an open house, they like the agent, start talking and assume everyone is essentially working together. Or maybe they are driving through a neighborhood, see a house they like and call the agent whose name is on the sign. It makes sense. That agent knows the house, they are friendly, they are answering your questions, so why wouldn't you talk to them?

Because the listing agent is not your agent.

That doesn't mean you should treat listing agents with hostility. Quite the opposite. Most are professionals simply doing the job they were hired to do. The important part is understanding who hired them. The seller hired that agent, and that agent has a legal responsibility to represent the seller's interests. Anything—and I mean anything—you tell that agent that could potentially give the seller leverage can become information that agent is obligated to share with their client.

There is a big difference between asking, "What year was the roof installed?" and saying, "My wife and I are only in town for the weekend, we just got our annual bonus and we're hoping to buy something while we're here because our grandchildren live nearby." The first is a question about the house. The second just told the seller's agent you have money available, a limited amount of time and an emotional reason to buy the house. If I were representing you, those are three things I probably wouldn't want the other side to know.

Things have changed since COVID. I see more unrepresented prospective buyers walking through open houses than I remember seeing before. Here's something else consumers may not realize: open houses are not necessarily the most effective way to actually sell a house. Only a relatively small percentage of homes are ultimately purchased by someone because they attended that property's open house. So why do agents continue doing them? Exposure for the seller is certainly part of it, but there is another very simple reason. Open houses are a great place for real estate agents to meet buyers who don't have an agent.

There is nothing wrong with that. It's part of the business. I hold open houses too. I want to sell the house, but I'm also probably going to meet ten or twenty people who are considering buying real estate. If one of them doesn't have representation and we connect, that could become my next client. The buyer just needs to understand that when they walk through the door.

What surprises me even more are the people I meet at open houses who tell me they already have an agent. I'll ask if their agent knows they're looking at this house and sometimes they'll say no because they "didn't want to bother them."

Bother them.

Seriously. That's our job.

I get compensated for providing local expertise to my clients and advocating on their behalf. If you're interested in a property, I want to know. I want to make the phone call. I want to ask the questions. I want to find out what I can about the property and the situation surrounding it. Most importantly, when I speak with another agent, I can make sure that agent gleans from me exactly what I want them to know and exactly what my client has authorized me to share. That's very different from my buyer casually walking through an open house and unintentionally explaining their financial situation, motivation and how much they love the kitchen.

Representation matters because both sides of a real estate transaction don't necessarily want the same thing. Everybody may want to get to the closing table, but the seller generally wants the highest price and best terms they can get. The buyer generally wants the lowest reasonable price and the best terms they can get. Somewhere between those two positions is where a transaction gets negotiated.

The same thing happens on the other side with For Sale By Owner properties. NAR has published research over the years showing that FSBO properties typically sell for less than agent-assisted properties. You'll sometimes hear that translated into a specific dollar amount that a seller "loses" by selling without an agent. I'm careful with that claim because there are a lot of variables involved and comparing two groups of home sales doesn't necessarily prove that representation caused the entire difference.

What I can tell you is what happens when I'm representing the buyer of a FSBO.

My responsibility is to my client. I'm going to look at comparable sales and determine what I believe the property is worth. I'm going to look at the seller's situation and see if there is an opportunity for my buyer. I'm going to negotiate price, due diligence, repairs, concessions and terms. I'm going to use whatever information is appropriately available to put my client in the strongest position I can.

That's not me taking advantage of somebody. That's me doing the job my client hired me to do.

And that's really the point.

The listing agent isn't the bad guy. The buyer's agent isn't the bad guy. The FSBO seller isn't the bad guy. Real estate doesn't have to be adversarial. In fact, the best transactions usually aren't. But being cooperative and being represented are two very different things.

If you're buying a home without representation, the seller may already have a professional sitting on their side of the table whose legal responsibility is to look after them. That professional can be incredibly friendly. They can answer your questions. They can help keep the transaction moving. They can genuinely want you to have a good experience.

They still don't represent you.

So go to the open house. Ask about the roof. Ask about the HVAC. Look around and decide whether you like the house. But before you start explaining why you need to move, when you have to move, how much money you have available or that your wife has already figured out where the Christmas tree is going...

Remember who you're talking to.

And if you already have an agent and you're worried about bothering them?

Bother us. That's what we're here for.

08/21/2026

There’s Beef Pot Pie… and then there’s this.

This week on Sold on Flavor, I’m taking one of the ultimate comfort foods and giving it a serious upgrade: Red W**e Braised Beef Pot Pie.

We’re starting with chuck roast, slowly braised until it’s fall-apart tender in a rich red w**e gravy with vegetables and herbs. Then the whole thing gets tucked under a flaky, golden puff pastry crust.

Basically, if beef stew and pot pie went out to a nice restaurant together, this would be the result.

It’s rich. It’s hearty. It’s unapologetic comfort food. And with fall right around the corner, this one hits at exactly the right time.

Red W**e Braised Beef Pot Pie — this week on Sold on Flavor.

Making Real Estate Flavorable. 🥧🍷🥩

This isn't your ordinary beef pot pie.We're taking chuck roast an...