- July 5, 2024
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When Toby Tobin began the radio show, “Real Estate Matters,” on WNZF NewsRadio, his goal was to educate.
Ten years and 521 shows later, he is still educating.
Tobin recorded his 10th-anniversary show on July 2 to be aired at 11 a.m. Saturday, July 6, which happens to also be Tobin’s 81st birthday.
Tobin was joined by his new co-host, Flagler Home Builders Association Executive Officer Annamaria Long, as well as his first co-host, David Alfin, who is now the mayor of Palm Coast.
Tobin said the idea for the show was Alfin’s, while Tobin’s contribution was to come up with the title. But Flagler Broadcasting President David Ayres said he had been talking to Tobin about hosting a radio show for years.
“The idea came with him and David Alfin that we needed a real estate show,” Ayres said. “We needed shows about pets and all the different sectors of the community, but of course real estate is the big one that everybody has an interest in for a lot of reasons, and Toby was the guy for that. And it just really took off. It's such an important program.”
Tobin said the goal of the show has not changed over the last 10 years.
“What we hope to do is to educate,” he said. “There's so much contention around growth, housing and affordability. But people have such little understanding of the depth of the problems and no concept of what the solutions are.”
Tobin said he reads many articles and social media posts that unsubstantiated statements.
“People say, we're going to have a housing crash. And it's an opinion, but it's not a fact. And there's no supporting data for that. The data actually supports that we're not going to have another housing crash,” he said.
Alfin said Tobin is a statistical watchdog, often pointing out mistakes in the Flagler County Association of Realtors MLS data or the Flagler Home Builders Association data.
“If the data is bad,” Tobin said, “the conclusion will be bad as well.”
Long said anytime she needs numbers and statistics, Tobin is her go-to.
“So to be asked to sit next to him as his co-host is a great honor, and I’m looking forward to it,” she said.
Tobin’s interest in data comes from his first career in the technology sector. He had been the Southeast regional sale manager for software company Bottomline Technologies but was laid off when the dot-com bubble burst. After a consulting job didn’t work out, he began investing in real estate in Flagler County.
He got his real estate license in 2004 and launched GoToby.com in 2006. Due to health issues, he has not kept up with his website as much he’d like over the past year, but he’s stilly fully invested in “Real Estate Matters.”
Long replaces Walker Douglas as Tobin's co-host. Tobin likes the fact that both are millennials.
“I think that brings a nice contrast, a kind of bookend to the age spectrum,” Tobin said. “But I think Annamaria’s connection with the Home Builders Association is very important, because they're tuned in.”
Long said she wants to bring in new knowledge and interesting guests to the show.
“I want to use the data and knowledge that Toby has, and the knowledge that I have to help our listeners understand why real estate matters and what that means to them,” she said.
Tobin opened the 521st episode of “Real Estate Matters” by comparing Flagler County housing data from last month to June of 2014 when the show went on the air. Home prices, the number of listings and building permits have gone way up. Foreclosures have gone way down.
The median price of homes that were sold in June was $369,995. The median price 10 years ago was $161,250.
As the show wound down, Alfin congratulated Tobin for his 10 years of providing information entertainment to Flagler County listeners.
“I’m happy to have done it,” Tobin said, “and I plan to continue doing it for several years going forward.”
