Hello everyone and Welcome once again to another episode of Selling Greenville what I like to think of as your favorite real estate podcast here in the upstate of South Carolina I am your host as always Stan McCune m and yes I am a realtor here in South Carolina that's why I do this podcast if you need a realtor or if you just want to chat all of my contacts information is in the show notes as always please reach out to me with any questions any concerns any ideas any leads on people looking to buy or sell houses I like all of those things and I also like it when you guys leave a rating or a review ideally both that's that's the best case scenario just takes a second just go ahead and hit that five star button if you haven't already leave a quick little review for the show that would be much appreciated today we're going to be talking about luxury houses and there is a lot of confusion on luxury houses and and of course in our Market here in the the Greenville great what we call the greater Greenville area or the upstate of South Carolina there is some unique aspects to the luxury housing market in this area and and again whenever I talk about real estate on this podcast it's always through the veneer of Greenville South Carolina I say some things on here that probably would be nonsensical to people in you know Austin and Los Angeles and New Jersey and and a whole bunch of other places this is strictly from a Greenville lens but this is the way the market is here and if you're listening to this you're interested in real estate in Greenville I can't really speak to those other markets but we need to talk about luxury houses because it it's something that there are a lot of misconceptions about now for starters how are we going to define a luxury house I I thought about this in a lot a lot of different ways it's kind of tricky to Define but I think the simplest way for us to Define it is basically three times a house that costs three times the median house price and the median house price right now is right around 250,000 so I think we can pretty safely Define a luxury house in this market in the Greenville Market as a house that is at least $750,000 you might find some homes that are cheaper than that that you consider to be a luxury home you might find homes that are more expensive than that that you consider to be a luxury home in this market I think that that's a pretty good dividing line in in the Greenville area so think about homes that are $750,000 and above and and we do have homes that are you know five six7 million those are unique homes those are not the norm but we do have homes like that in this market but there are a a decent bit of homes that are between 750,000 and about 1.5 million again that's not the biggest Market here because our median price point is 250,000 but we we do have a decent number of homes that fit that that loose description that loose price description so what happens when you start looking at homes and that price point a lot of interesting and perhaps counterintuitive Trends emerge one of the first things that I think a lot of people don't realize I think a lot of people think okay you know you're if you're getting a house that is three times the median house price that has to be just an unbelievable house that that's got to be a mansion and and of course those of you who are listening from other markets where like $750,000 is a shack okay I get it you're laughing a little bit right now but down here you know most people can't afford anywhere near a $750,000 house that at that point at that price point that no longer qualifies for a conventional loan down in in this area in South Carolina so you're having to get a jumbo loan you're having to bring more down there you have to have a lot of cash in the bank you have to be able to to have quite a bit of income coming in in order to be able to afford that loan much more than than the median income for our area and so there's a lot of Dynamics at play and what you find is the the homes that you're looking at at that price point particularly homes that are really in that between you know 750,000 and let's just call it 1.25 million roughly in that little range there you find that you are paying an extraordinary premifor location and or acreage now now the acreage becomes more into play typically in at the higher price points you know you'll see homes that are 2 three $4 million they they're typically sitting on like a massive estate but the homes that are in that 750,000 and a little bit above that you're paying you're typically paying for a premifor the location and here's the the thing that is unique about the the location that you're paying for it's typically based on school SCH districts decent neighborhoods but but maybe neighborhoods that are still somewhat transitional for instance I can't say that North Maine is a transitional neighborhood if you're from around here you obviously know that North m is not a transitional neighborhood but there's a lot of homes that are in a complete state of disrepair which I assume is because people just are sitting on the homes knowing that values are just going to keep going up and they don't feel like doing all the work because you know fixing up an old 3500t house is going to take a tremendous amount of work so let's just leave it in a state of disrepair but you can have a home that is worth you know close to a million dollars next to a home that is unlivable and we see that in some of these neighborhoods around here a lot of them obviously as I mentioned before you're paying for the school districts and of course the one that everyone that that has some money and and I don't mean that in a derogatory way but if you have money and you can afford to be in a good neighborhood in in an above average neighborhood and a three times above average neighborhood you're wanting to get in that Augusta Circle Elementary School District that is the trendy place to be that is the quote unquote yepy School District that that people want to be in just make sure that you have you know your kids in a Mercedes vehicle okay and that's again I'm not trying to be derogatory I'm just trying to be honest with you guys this is there are some there are certain expectations here if you're going to be in a school district like that but the the interesting thing is that the houses a lot of the houses in these areas and again I'm I'm I'm talking about the ones that are 7 150 and you know up to 1.25 or so million the quality of those homes isn't necessarily like in terms of just how nice they are when you walk in how they feel it's often times not that much nicer than homes than some homes that are5 $600,000 you might have a $900,000 house that isn't that much nicer or might not be nicer at all than a $500,000 house that's just in a different area you get a a five a house that it would be $500,000 and Five Forks and you put that house in the Augusta Road area that's zoned for Augusta Circle Elementary that house might close to double in value I mean that's just the way it is the land the location there's a reason why everyone says location location location it's that's a real thing you pay for the location and you need to make sure if you're if you're in that higher price point that you're paying for what you actually are using if you're if you're benefiting from that location in some way such as okay great you can put your kids in in probably the best schools in in the area perfect you're getting what you pay for if there's something else that you like about that location great but if you're just looking for a nice house well there might be cheaper places to find you might you might be able to get the same type of house you would normally be paying $8 $900,000 for and and get that out in Simpsonville or get that out in pedmont or somewhere like that that's not very that's still not far away from everything but you're not paying the location premithat you're paying in some of these other areas additionally I would just mention that many of the luxur communities and this is also something a lot of people don't realize if they haven't been actively shopping in the luxury market around here a lot of the luxury communities have either older homes or maybe not super old homes but but homes with outdated floor plans outdated fixtures homes that need updating to be modernized and and again people don't realize this there will be $1.5 million homes that I would I wouldn't personally buy for 500,000 because of how much updating it needs it has wallpaper from 30 years ago that's just way out of date all these chandeliers that are are just completely out of style now and and so you're you're getting yes a a beautiful home in many respects but it doesn't have the the modern amenities that we expect for the home itself the floor plan I mentioned before a lot of these have very boxy floor plans they're not open you know obviously once you get a a large home you know if you're if you have a 4,500 or a 5,000 ft home it's not as important for the for plan to be open because in theory all the rooms are going to be pretty big anyway but people still today even in the nicer homes they still like to have somewhat of an open feel whoever is cooking in the kitchen doesn't want to feel like they're completely cut off from everyone else and that's really the main thing is that kitchen being open to to the rest of the house with some of these older luxury homes you're not going to get that a lot of them are will be as well older homes that have been updated but there're still still old homes and so there's still might be quirks to okay there are things there are ongoing maintenance things that will have to be happening with this home just by virtue of the fact that it's a 70 80 year old home again a lot of people don't realize that when they're thinking about the the luxury Market here in the Greenville area but these are are some of the quirks and and there are exceptions of course this is not the entire luxury Market obviously we have areas like heartness for instance which is that unique we we've seen this in in other larger cities but it's more of that Community tightnit Community style way of Designing a a subdivision where everyone is kind of oriented around a common area and the houses are all very close together that's a very modern community Al although there are some classic aspects to it as well they they drew heavily on very traditional things but my point is it's not a one-sized fit all is not what I'm saying but there if you're looking if you're heavily monitoring the market and of course my job as a realtor I have to monitor all facets of the market if I have a client that you know calls me up tomorrow and says hey I'm looking for you know a massive you know equestrian estate I've got up to $3 million to spend I need to have some knowledge of that I can't just completely focus on one small part of the market and so I try to be educated on all parts of the market and so as I do this and as I follow the luxury Market these are things that I see over and over again in many of the modern luxury communities as well so now we're we're not talking about the older ones we're talking about the more modern ones the homes are on very small lots and and honestly that can be true for a lot of these older ones as well particularly if they're closer to Downtown Greenville they're they're often times going to be on smaller Lots but in in some of these Modern Luxury communities the lots are extremely small I I showed one recently where the house next door the roofs were like basically touching I mean they were like 2 feet apart it was as close to being in a town home without being in a town home that you could be and and often times as well they have extremely restrictive HOAs and and of course there's a reason for that they you know you you don't want someone to come in there and completely devalue your very expensive home by you know parking their ugly car on the street or whatever the case may be most of the people that buy into these communities aren't going to have ugly cars and they're not going to you know want to park them on the streets but you know there might be other restrictions with regard to having trampolines in the backyard or what different things you can do back there or how how high your fence can be because they don't want it to be super sectioned off and all sorts of of different things like this the the covenants and restrictions are often times extremely strict and everyone expects for them to be enforced and so that's something that can be frustrating to people that have you know the money to buy into a nice Community like this is is it's like I want to do what I want to do I don't I don't want to have to you know completely be to the whim of these other people unfortunately in most of you modern communities yeah that's exactly what you're going to have to do you're you're going to have to be at their whim and some of them they have might even have septic systems and whatnot that that could prevent you from doing things like putting in an inground pool and doing other things like that basketball court whatever the case may be you have to be very careful to make sure that you don't have assumptions that you can do you know things that you plan to do at your house that you won't be allowed to do or won't be able to do because of of the covenants or because of how the community is laid out now if you want something in Downtown Greenville let's say that you're you know you've got a a good budget and you're like okay I'm looking for a very nice Downtown Greenville home single family home right not a condo nothing like that just a just a nice house downtown Good Luck Good Luck because unfortunately pretty much I with some exception but like the closest homes to downtown Greenville the closest single family home have almost all been converted to commercial most of them are like law firms now and you know if you want something that's like walking distance to Downtown Greenville that's really really hard I you know my wife and I when we were looking for our first home we were really close to purchasing a home that basically in Downtown Greenville that was like dirt cheap this is during the the financial crisis like you know back when we were still severely impacted by it in 2010 Obama had issued that that first-time home buyer tax credit all of these different things that we were trying to take advantage of and unfortunately we couldn't take advantage of it because you know I had just we had both just graduated from college my wife and I we didn't have any credit history we barely had any income but there was a home that to this day I really wish we could have purchase but it was a fixer upper it would have been probably a headache house and every now and then I drive by it and think about how cool it would have been CU I worked downtown at that time that was before I was a realtor how cool it could have been to I could have literally just walked to work every day well that's pretty much non-existent in fact that house I I looked at it recently and sure enough it's now designed commercial only it's it's used for commercial purposes now there are some houses that come for sale in areas like the Cleveland Park area or Cleveland Forest neighborhood right there along the swamp rabbit near the zoo there's the East Park historic district that's relatively close to downtown Greenville we referenced North Main North Maine is you know you're not walking from North Main to Downtown Greenville but it's close enough it's close enough Hampton Pinkney that one is is another one if you're if you're looking at Google Maps one that's that's very close to downtown Greenville these are all areas that have older homes for the most part now you will see some exceptions particularly if you're in like that Cleveland Park area that's or like altta Vista that's another one that comes to mind you'll see some newer homes and some of those but these are not really walking distance to downtown I mean if you're in that that if you're if you're willing to walk like a mile to a mile and a half then okay sure but like you're not talking about like some of these cities where you can get a house and like you know you're like two minutes to a BEDA or you know just a few minutes away from you know walking to a grocery store from a brewery or something like that that's not the way Greenville is laid out if you want true downtown living you have to go the condo route that is pretty much the only way that you can be in the heart of the action in downtown Greenville is by living in some sort of condos and I'll mention I have shown some of these Downtown Greenville condos some of these very very nice very expensive ones so to speak and a lot of them are not being well built in my opinion and I think a lot of people a few years from now are going to come to regret the decision they made purchasing a conduit in that downtown Greenville area because a some of them are cutting some serious Corners I'm not going to call out any any of them but some of them are definitely cutting Corners and but in addition of course there's a lot of these going up I mean it's it's going to be hard to if if people are looking to sell their condo that they just purchased three years from now they're looking to sell they're probably going to be competing with new construction for close to the same price point as what they're trying to sell for that's going to be be tough because there's a lot of these condos going up all over the place in Downtown Greenville and that's only that trend is only going to continue until at some point the market gets tapped out which I think if there's a market that we have that get that will get Tapped Out relatively quickly I think that that's the one that's going to happen first is that that luxury condo that luxury downtown condo Market because that's such a a niche market for for our area here but that's really the only way that you can live down down you're not going to be living downtown in a house it's just not going to happen building yourself so basically hiring a builder to create your own custom home can be an interesting option as a as a workaround so we've got all these different quirks with luxury housing well what about just hiring your own builder going about it you know customizing everything your way just making a nice house from from the ground up it it can be a really great option but only if you have a lot of time obviously a lot of money for a luxury home custom built and oodles and oodles of patience particularly the way things are right now now one of the the trends that we're seeing is is regarding like lots and and the price of acreage people are that own land are really doubling down on the prices just upcharging these small Lots charging a fortune for acreage it's it's really starting to get crazy out there I mean I have you know every now and then I I'll I'll look at the price per acre from just like two or three years ago compared to what things are listed for right now and it is astonishing it's and you get something that lists for like you know know several $1,000 you know let's say 50 acres that list for $500,000 out in you know like upper Pickin or something like that kind of out in the boonies but it's $10,000 an acre that'll sell overnight there are so many people looking for that and that'll sell to a cash buyer and so what people are doing is is they're they're holding on to this land just saying hey if you won't pay up I'm just going to keep this it doesn't cost me that much to hold on to land at the end of the day I'm just going to keep it and so the prices of of lots and of land alone is extremely prohibitive right now and and not to mention that a lot of the lots that are for sale are either unbuildable or difficult to build on or they're in neighborhoods that wouldn't justify luxury housing anyway you know you might be able to buy a a lot in a transitional part of Greenville but you're not going to you're not going to throw up a $900,000 house there when you're next door to homes that are barely if if they're going to crack 200 they're barely going to crack 200,000 we all know that that you know the path everything that's in the path of progress will increase in value but you just can't overshoot the area that way in addition to all of that many of the builders are are so backlog backlogged and they're choosing on who they will build for they're not building for anyone and everyone you're interviewing them and they're interviewing you in the process they want to make sure that they don't get stuck with a client that is going to be super duper picky you need to keep that in mind as well think of it if you're interviewing Builders think of it as they're interviewing you as well and and honestly some Builders won't even talk to you until you have the land in your possession so you you may actually need to and in many cases you will purchase the land that you want to build on before you can even have that that Builder conversation and if you're really wanting to have the the interview with the builders to inspire confidence and kind of get a plan together in place to help you figure out what land you're going to purchase that can be difficult that's a hurdle that you can probably find some builders that are willing to talk to you before you have the land but they really want to see that you have the land in your possession there are some instances where there are some there is some land for sale that's being sold by a builder and the Builder has plans already for it and they're willing to work out something with you to to kind of bundle it all together into one purchase both the land and for them to to do their their plan to build on it with you making some modifications but that's the exception that's not the rule there's not a whole lot of those out there and by the way all of this takes a lot of time you're look you're finding land you're you're designing a home you're meeting with Builders you're interviewing etc etc we're talking about potentially multiple years maybe 2 three years before from the time you start the process until the time you finally have that home completed so again that's where the patience and the time factors in and it it's it's going to cost some money it's not cheap right now to build a luxury home and even if you go into a production built neighborhood those are tricky right now as well so there's there are a lot of challenges presented with the with the new construction options it can be a good option but you need to understand what you're getting into on the front end that this is even more difficult in a lot of ways than buying a production built new construction home on the I don't want to say lower end but in that more median price point area that 250 to 350 price point area in some ways that's easier because some of these luxury home builders are are are making this increasingly diff difficult in in many many ways and so there's a lot to consider as you're as you're looking for a luxury home if you're looking to move into this area from out of state and I I get these calls all the time people that that have some some good money because you know they might be moving from one state where they sold their house for $1 1.5 million made quite a bit of money they have a good salary they're coming down here and they can can purchase you know just about whatever they want outside of those you know homes that are like $2 million plus and then they start looking they realize oh this market like there's not a whole lot out there and that can be really surprising part of that is is the low Supply that we're having but a lot of that is just the way the luxury Market is here in Greenville it's very unique it doesn't compare to a lot of other cities I imagine that will continue to change and continue to morph but for now that's the situation that we find ourselves in that is it for today's podcast episode I appreciate you guys listening if you have any questions my contact information is in the show notes as always please leave me a rating or a review hopefully both for this show and until next time I hope you guys stay safe [Music]