RRR focuses on housing
The builder-producers of “Rural Route Revival” are putting the finishing touches on the first of ten homes they plan to build in Olney and are patiently editing and shopping the proposed documentary-style TV series to streamers and TV networks.
Lance Groves said he and his brother, Corey, have learned a lot about what it takes to build affordable housing in rural Texas under current, inflation-charged market conditions. The 1,200-square foot, three-bedroom, one-bath house will be ready to show to buyers within the next month or so. Crews were recently putting up kitchen cabinetry when the Enterprise visited with Lance Groves.
The Enterprise: What is your plan for choosing a buyer for the house?
Lance Groves: I think we are going to slap a price tag on the side and ask people to [fill out] a credit application for this house [at a local bank]. Everybody go and get pre-approved and we will use some sort of AI tool and randomly select someone. If that falls through, we will go through the list Because we are selling it at a fixed cost, I am not going to open it up to bidding. It defeats the whole purpose so we will let AI do what we are incapable of doing and decide.
Enterprise: What did you learn about building homes in Olney during this process?
Lance: As we figured, it’s not affordable to build a house in rural Texas. To sell this house for what we want to sell it for, we are going to take a $50,000 hit. We were expecting somewhere around $10,000-15,000.
That said, that data is what we were after just as much as anything. We didn’t source this one through the city, … and paid $25,000 for the lot which is a lot to pay for a lot [in Olney]. We wanted a big porch and a solid slab. We spent a lot of money on concrete but it does show that there is a problem.
Enterprise: What do you attribute the higher costs to?
Lance: The price of labor has definitely increased. The price of materials has gone through the roof. What you were paying per square foot five years ago put a 1.5 [multiplier] next to it. But that’s what the housing market has done too. It turns out that … 40 to 45 percent bought in 2023 were bought by large corporations.
Enterprise: What do you think will bring prices down?
Lance: You talk about almost 50 percent of the housing market being owned by corporations. You can’t do anything about it. People are going to start putting back into their own towns. We are doing what we can for Olney but there’s nobody else coming. It’s on us, on each individual and each town and each Economic Development Corp in each town to decide, ‘What can we do to increase housing?’ It doesn’t make sense to build infill houses. If I were a builder coming to Olney outside of the projects we are already doing, the first thing I would do is find [a big piece of land] somewhere … and I would put houses out there on a half acre. Right now that is selling.
I definitely think we are in an interesting time with housing development in the state. You’ll see more communities along the highways. It can be done, it’s not gonna be cheap. But it has to be done.
Enterprise: What is happening with the Race Ricketts concerts you filmed?
Lance: Race just announced his new album is coming out [on April 6]. Corey and I helped fund that record and will be executive producers for that record. We released one of his sessions at the Main Haus to our YouTube channel [Rural Route Revival].
Enterprise: What’s happening with the Rural Route Revival TV show you have been filming?
Lance: We just got the footage back from episodes one and two [of the TV show]. We are still in the editing process with both of them. We have a lot of different options as far as where we will take the show – streaming platforms and networks that are doing a lot of things about rural America and the rural way of life that we are not closing the door on.
Enterprise: So what’s next?
Lance: We are content with finishing this house and going on to the next one. We are content with the shots that we’ve got back. We are waiting to see what happens with the Texas Legislature in the next few months as it relates to small town life. We are taking a calculated approach as to not rushing through any of this.
We want this show to not just showcase Olney, we want it to impact Olney. If there’s not a family that says, ‘Hey, I want to move to that town,’ after watching the show then we didn’t do a good job with capturing what this place is.