KnoxMob wants to build affordable homes across Knoxville to solve for the missing middle
After selling a shopping center in Brazil, Barros moved to Knoxville and started buying vacant lots. Now he's building homes that most working families can actually afford.
Eduardo Barros pulled up to the coffee shop for our interview for Teknovation. In his hand was a little box of Brazilian chocolates, a sweet sample from a famous chocolatier in São Paulo.
It’s one of the things Barros loved about Brazil. Well, that and the coffee, which he said is also made differently in South America.
Moving from the West Coast to Knoxville is a pretty common pipeline. But Brazil to Knoxville? Not so much.
For someone like Barros, the move has been another extension of an adventurous career. He has previously lived in France and New York and, of course, São Paulo, where he is originally from. In the latter half of his career in the capital markets, starting around 2010, Barros dove into real estate. Ever since, he’s been hooked.
“In 2015, my sister Andrea and I decided to open our own family shopping mall in São Paulo. We were medium-sized, with about 20 stores, and the region we selected for it was very good and growing fast,” Barros said.
In 2020, one of Brazil’s biggest real estate investment trusts, Sao Carlos Participações, offered to purchase his shopping center. Barros turned it down.
They came back one year later with an even better offer. The second time, Barros couldn’t refuse.
The journey north to Knoxville
“I started to think about what’s next, and I always had the dream to bring my family into a different multicultural experience,” Barros said.
His cousin Elias was living in Knoxville when he noticed Barros was looking for new investment opportunities. Elias was working in construction and called Barros to visit East Tennessee. At the time, living in Brazil, Barros had never even heard of Knoxville.
But once he visited, he loved it.
“The quality of life here is high; the people are polite; and the city is big – but not too big,” he explained.
Barros moved his wife and two kids (Duda and Enzo) across the world to pursue a new kind of life.
“My kids were eight and five when we left our comfort zone for a new language, new friends, new school, and new culture. But it’s been the best thing for them, and three years later, they’re doing very well.”
KnoxMob was founded to address the missing middle housing shortage
Even before he relocated his family, Barros said he had started buying lots of land in Knoxville. Today, his company has more than 50 lots in its portfolio.
“We realized the booming market here,” he said. “My concern was with a niche market that the city calls missing middle housing. Our vision was to remain affordable and focus on single-family housing options under $300,000.”
Barros and his cousin launched KnoxMob Housing Solutions Corporation to support that mission and vision. They are working with Clayton Homes to build neighborhoods with modular and manufactured homes in that price range.
KnoxMob manages the construction, controls the home listings, and helps market the assets.
A plan to scale
In its first operational years, KnoxMob has already sold more than 30 houses. In 2027 only, Barros expects that number to jump to 50. To reach those numbers, he hopes to begin 25 new construction projects early next year.
In all of his big plans, there is one bottleneck: land availability.
“We have to buy land, buy land, buy land. And so we’re focused on finding the owners of vacant lots, even small lots, and trying to make them offers,” he explained.
Right now, his land bank is concentrated in the City of Knoxville. Barros and his team haven’t done quite as much development in the county, since the topography is so variable and would require additional development costs to make some properties usable.
One day, Barros hopes to expand the business into other small- to medium-sized markets like Chattanooga, Greenville or Asheville.
Pushing through pushback
Something many developers experience across the United States is pushback from community members about growth in their neighborhoods and pockets of town.
Barros and his team experienced it firsthand with one of their neighborhood development projects, which proposed 25 homes on five acres off Martin Mill Pike. Neighbors vocalized concerns about adding traffic to the area’s narrow roads.
The Knox County Commission ultimately approved 16 homes, a fraction of the original 25.
“So, we are going to construct. It could have been more, but it’s okay. It’s going to be really good; we had fun designing it, and we’re learning as we go,” he said with optimism.
“We’re showing the city that we are here to help. Our mission is to help the city’s growth with affordable housing, bringing people good products in this price range,” he added.
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