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Welcome once again to the Selling
Greenville podcast I am your host Stan McCune
as always realtor right here in
Greenville South Carolina and just as a
reminder my contact information is in
the show notes if you need to get a hold
of me for any reason mainly if you or
someone you know needs to buy or sell a
house in the upstate Spartenburg
Greenville Anderson lawen Travelers Rest
Easley any of those areas I can help you
that is what I do that's what I do for a
living this podcast is something that I
do on the side in order to help educate
people about the market but my day job
is that I'm a realtor and that's what I
love to do so reach out to me if I can
help you or someone else I would
absolutely love to and if you like this
podcast please go ahead and subscribe to
it download it rate r view it all of
those things help us to get it out to as
many people as possible and that's what
has me most excited about doing this
podcast is just getting it out to people
getting that content getting that
information about our Market out to
people that are interested that love
Greenville that are curious about
Greenville looking to move here
that's the goal of this podcast is to
teach people what the real estate market
around here is like last episode we
talked about what the market is doing
doing today I want to continue that
because that's on everyone's mind right
now where is the real estate market
heading and the interesting thing last
time was that there were a lot of
indications that our Market here was
very resilient was very much still a
sellers Market that sellers needed to be
in a lot of ways bullish but I hedged
that and I said that this is a
week-by-week thing we don't know what's
going to happen from one week to the
next
additionally we needed to get more
concrete statistics from the GJ which is
the greater Greenville Association of
Realtors they always publish their
monthly statistics and that really helps
us to identify what the market is
doing and where the market is going and
they just published their March
statistics so we're going to be talking
about that today we're also going to be
talking a little bit about some of the
data that I crunched last week comparing
that to what's happened the past week
and kind of seeing what is happening
where is this Market going what can we
expect so let's Jump Right In and let's
start off with the statistics that we
talked about last week if you if you
didn't listen I'll summarize it in
this way we looked at new listings that
have come on the market in the past
basically the past three weeks at least
as of of the date of that recording and
what we discovered
interestingly was that even though
showings were down by 30 to 40% Market
wide listings were down 10 to 12%
market-wide new contracts on new
listings were staying
consistent with last year's data over
the same period of
time so what I would conclude from that
is that still it's very much a sellers
market and it seems like the most serous
buyers are still in the market are still
putting homes under contract now we
don't know how many of those are going
to close and that's where it it's not a
full Apples to Apples comparison year
onye but at least in terms of what got
under contract during that time period
it was very promising that the serious
buyers are still looking at home
seriously are still putting offers in on
those homes and are still putting in
offers that sellers are willing to
accept now now that was last week A lot
has changed the past week and the the
market hasn't flipped to a buyer Market
I'm not going to say that yet but
really the trend has completely reversed
and so here is what we saw
happen this past week which we'll call
from April 9th to 16th we had in terms
of new listings three
373 that came on the market and again
this is every listing above $55,000
for all property types we just did that
to kind of get rid of of most of those
rental properties that will be show up
below $5,000 a month for rent in the MLS
because you can list properties for rent
in the MLS okay so with that criteria
pretty wide open criteria
373 that came on the market this year
from April 9th through 16th how does
that compare to 2019 well in 2019 during
the same time period we had
575 so that is U basically a
35% change year onye fewer listings
coming on the market so that is a very
dramatic change for that week now one
thing I want to mention this is a
holiday week this past week has been a
holiday week Easter was on Sunday there
was also Passover right before that so a
lot of holidays happening and that does
impact the way people approach their
home buying and home
selling strategies and we'll see that
here in a moment when we look at
showings so I'm not overreacting to this
data but I wanted to share it with you
in terms of how many of those new
listings went under contract
during this past week versus that week
in 2019 how many of those sold that went
under contract during that week so out
of the 373 that that went on the market
from April 9th to 16 77 of those are
under contract that's a that's a pretty
good number overall out of the
575 that went on the market between
April 9th and
16th of 2019 86 of those went under
contract and sold so this is also a
difference remember last time when we
did this podcast the number of homes
that had gone under contract during the
same time period on new listings in 2020
versus 2019 the number was higher in
2020 and I explained that while some of
those are going to fall out of being
under contract some of those contracts
are going to fall through and so the
numbers aren't exactly the same but it
was good that the number was higher than
2019 that meant once they do once those
contracts that are going to fall through
do fall through it's probably tracking
pretty closely well now the number went
down now we have a almost 10 and a
half% lower number for the past week
2020 versus 2019 again some of that may
be influenced by all the holidays
happening but I think it's naive to
think that some of this isn't also being
influenced by covid-19 by the
quarantines by the fact that the the
governor not too long ago issued his
strongest statement maybe people are
getting a little bit more hesitant
lenders are having a lot more delays
I had multiple closings this past week
delayed and that's for a variety of
reasons so by the way expect if you are
under contract right now there is a
pretty good chance that your closing is
going to get deled at least here in the
Greenville area and I'm and I'm hearing
that in other markets as well although
I'm not obviously an expert in those
other markets but here's the
interesting thing in all of this so we
saw listings go way down the past week
we saw new contracts go a a good bit
down now new contracts didn't go down as
far as new listings so why that's
important to consider is that as we
talk about whether it's flipping to a
buyer Market or a sell's market it's not
just about how many homes are going
under contract it's about how many homes
are being listed as well and if fewer
homes are getting listed then go
under contract and in terms of from a
year-on-year perspective then we're
actually going to start seeing it
shifting more to a sellers market and
that is certainly a possible outcome
from this as sellers become more
hesitant to list their home so don't
assume okay because new contract s are
down that's good for buyers well it is
good for buyers but that doesn't
necessarily mean that the economic
environment or that the the environment
for this real estate market is good for
buyers right now it is still very
much in the sellers Court in terms of
they have all the leverage right now the
sellers should not be taking
generally speaking lowball offers on
properties they should be
sticking to their guns waiting to see
what happens and realizing that serious
buyers are still out
there I would also say this a very
interesting part of the statistics is I
can look at what showings have been
doing the past week now I don't have the
the showing data for the 16th let me let
me double check that real
quick I'm refreshing my page here yeah I
still don't have the 16th yet but with
the exception of Easter Sunday which is
obviously you know a major exception
since Friday the 10th every day has had
more showings than that same day the
week before so Friday the 10th we had
more showings than we had on Friday the
3 on April the 3 we had and this is
according to showing time data it's not
perfect doesn't include every single
showing but it it includes a large
portion of the market
so 5502 showings on April the 3D versus
584 on April the 10th looking at
Saturday Saturday was this past Saturday
the 11th was 651 versus 641 on the 4th
and and that continues Monday was a
little bit higher Tuesday was a lot
higher Wednesday was a lot higher so
showings went up week on week new
contract went down but I think that that
is a positive indication that okay
buyers are still in the market even
though the new contracts went down again
some of that might have to do with
holidays we don't know but we may have
bottomed out in terms of showings and if
that's the case and showings are are
back on the upswing then new contracts
will follow and again
a lot of the the new contracts being
down is just the fact that new listings
are down you when you have new
listings down
35% honestly the fact that new contracts
only were down 10 and a half% basically
that actually is again really
positive data for sellers if you're a
buyer not as
much just be patient hopefully things
will get better hopefully people will
will start listing more
houses all right that is comparing the
data that we talked about last time
to what's happened the past week let's
talk about March as a whole now this is
interesting because even though covid-19
restrictions have been in place for a
while March had some very fascinating
data believe it or not during March
according to the greater Greenville
Association Realtors
new listings in the Greenville MLS was
up year on-year
2.6% so March of 2019 1,730 new listings
and March of 2020 was 1,775 new listings
imagine if covid-19 if the Corona virus
hadn't happened that number probably
would have been way way up now some
previous months we' had new listings
up 15 19% and and that's probably what
would have happened in March if it
wasn't for the Corona virus so what
does that mean that means we're going to
see a major major influx of new listings
that's my gut feeling is that we're
going to see a major influx of new
listings once things start to once
the concerns about the Corona virus
start to alleviate a little bit and and
at that point we might see a little bit
of a run we've talked about this before
we might see a little bit bit of a
stretch where it does kind of flip in
the buyer Direction that's that will
be a good thing for for a lot of buyers
here is another interesting statistic
so even though March new listings were
up almost 3% in terms of pending sales
they were down
60.7% all right that's that's a really
really bad number that means that there
are not nearly as many closings that are
going to happen in April end in May
on all of those listings that are out
there as we had hoped now the market has
corrected for that because new listings
have gone down in April to account for
that shift in the market for that shift
in the pending sales but but that's
not good that that that data is not good
if you're a seller you might have to
be a little bit more patient right now
if you're if you're trying to sell again
this situation is very fluid and these
are numbers from from all the way back
in March a lot has changed since then
and honestly the data that I've given
prior last week and earlier in this
podcast is more recent than this March
data so I would not be freaking out
again I feel like it's still still very
much a sellers Market but we need to
keep tracking these things and keep
paying attention to what's happening
closed sales year year on year for
the month of March was up 99.2% so March
of 2020 we had
99.2% more properties more homes that
were
closed that versus March of 2019 so so
that was good that's going to go way way
down in April that's just the reality of
the situation it's going to go down both
because there are fewer listings on the
market and the fact that things have
have just tightened up in
general all across the
board one thing that's been an
interesting statistic so far this year
is that both in February and in March
we've seen an uptick on days on Market
versus last year now we're going to see
that
continue throughout the rest of this
year probably due to the Corona virus
but it's interesting that in February
and March before the the full impact of
the Corona virus had had
completely impacted these stats that
February was a 6.6% increase of days
on market and March was a 6.5% increase
days on Market so that's very
interesting what about average price
average price in March on closed
sales on closed transactions went up
10.5% so that's great now this is going
to be a very interesting statistic to
measure by the way that's the highest
it's been in a really really long time
the data that I'm staring at only
goes back to March of
2019 but that's the highest we've seen
in at least a year that is an
extremely promising number I hope that
that number doesn't go down if that
number if the average sales price goes
down then that's a a a bad indicator for
us so it'll be a few weeks before we
have the data for April but that'll
be something that we need to keep a
close watch on percent of list price
received this is a very important number
that we track in this market so this is
when you look at what the home is listed
for and the way I understand that the GG
does these
statistics they aren't saying the
original list price they're saying the
last list price so it is possible that
there were some price reductions in here
but when you compare after any price
reductions what the list price was
before the house went under
contract what percentage of the list
price was that contract for this also
doesn't include closing costs so there's
the number is helpful for for comparing
to other comparable numbers but
understand it's not the end all
Beall that number in March it it went
down by 0.1% year on-ear but still was
very strong
98.2% in other words if you list a home
for $100,000 or if your home is on the
market for
$100,000 you should expect a an average
offer to be 9
88,200 for the month of March also that
number is exactly the same for the month
of February which was also
98.2 so those are all some very
positive things I won't get into any
more of the statistics the greater
Greenville Association of Realtors
publishes a lot of other statistics as
well it kind of gets in in some into the
weeds a little bit if you're interested
in having access to any of those
statistics I'd be glad to show you
some what I have and show you some of
the statistics that I've run as well
just let me know overall the market is
still unsure of what to
do and overall I think if you need to
sell I would sell now you don't know
what's going to happen we don't know if
this is going to get worse but here's
the thing if it doesn't get worse from
the standpoint of of the pandemic right
let's let say that the pandemic gets
better businesses start opening back up
everything seems to improve there's more
optimism that might not be a good thing
for you in terms of listing your house
because this all these people that
aren't listing their homes right now
that have cut back dramatically on
listing their homes in the month of
April there's a decent percentage of
them probably over half of those people
are going to list their homes at some
point so so you don't want to be one of
those people that Waits too long and
then you're listing your home at the
same time that everyone else is deciding
to list their home so I'm telling my
seller clients listen this is still a
good environment to sell a home in we
haven't seen PE we haven't seen yet a a
mass recession happening there's
still a lot of optimism in the markets
there now people are getting laid off
there are being some pay cuts but that
could get worse before it gets
better if it were me I if I knew I
needed to sell my house here in the next
few weeks or the next few months I would
go ahead and do that now versus waiting
we don't know what's going to happen in
the future and if you're a buyer well
you have fewer options right now so you
might just have to be patient you might
just have to write it out and just wait
and see you know for more inventory to
come on the market market and you
might find that there's going to be more
multiple offer situations now than we've
run into in the past and that's just the
reality of the situation I have run into
multiple multi offer situations
recently and if you're a seller and
you're not having that that don't worry
that there's a lot of other factors that
go into play that result in multiple
offer situations some of those are just
homes that were listed below what they
should have been to be completely honest
but the point is that there are still
a lot of serious buyers in this market
and we need to be considering that
as we approach our strategy moving
forward be patient is what I'm telling
everyone right now if you're buying if
you're selling you have to be patient
you're not exactly sure what to
expect just write it out have have
optimism know that at some point the
markets will cor correct in some
way hopefully more of that inventory
will come back on the market hopefully
the people that need to sell will be
able to hopefully the people that need
to buy will be able to find the home and
and have the home hit the market that
they're looking for the last thing I
want to discuss is peak season okay so
in
Greenville and and the upsate in general
pretty consistently our peak season is
April April through August and
specifically the month of
May and the month of August those two
months and and June we should include
June in there so May June and August a
lot of people go on vacation in July May
June and August are the months that we
tend to see the most number of new
listings coming onto the
market that is probably going to change
now let's say that they open open things
up let's say the governor opens things
up here in the next few weeks there are
Rumblings of that that that our
governor may allow people to have more
businesses opening back up less
quarantine type of of measures then we
might see a scenario where May or June
probably more likely June is where
things go nuts where we get a ton of new
listings come on the market I think
that's very possible it's also possible
it happens in may we don't know exactly
what's going to happen but it's going to
be very interesting take keep a close
watch and I'll keep a close watch on
what happens in May June and August you
know what people a lot of people are
canceling their travel plans for the
summer so people might not be going on
vacation in July like they normally do
or maybe more people will go on vacation
in July if they can you know people that
are have gone really Stir Crazy have
some Cabin Fever we have no idea but I'm
going to keep you guys in the loop the
entire way we're going to be following
this thing I'll be giving updates in
real time as I've been doing once again
if you want to get in contact with
me you can look in the show notes my
phone number is there my email address
is there please let us know if you have
any questions if you want me to address
anything on this podcast I would love to
hear that as well at some point I'd like
to get some some feedback in terms of
topics to discuss but we've got plenty
to discuss right now and and plenty
of things in the market to track if I
can help you with anything let me know
I'll be glad to and until then stay safe
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