Hello everyone and Welcome to another episode of Selling Greenville I am your host as always Stan McCune realtor right here in lovely Greenville South Carolina the upstate of South Carolina as always just a reminder all my contact information is in the show notes should you need a realtor should you want to discuss me helping you with buying selling real estate any of that stuff or do you just want to talk about the podcast I am happy to discuss any of that with you guys and then additionally if you don't mind since you're listening to this please go ahead and leave the show a rating or review different apps have that area in different places either scroll up or scroll down there should be a place to just hit that five star button hit the review button and just get a review out there so that we can reach more people with this show I'd appreciate that today we're going to be talking about Rumblings of a Slowdown Plus in addition to that analyzing some of the data it's really hard to look at the data in real time to determine whether there's a Slowdown but at least looking at the data historically and kind of what we might expect to happen here in in the future the Rumblings of a Slowdown well I'm just going to start by introducing this I keep seeing Realtors on different social media pages and and different things saying that they they just feel a Slowdown they feel like something something happened recently and they're not exactly sure what exactly it was and it's again it's hard to quantify in real time there's a challenge as well which is the seasonality of of this business and how all of that plays out as well so yes there is kind of always a summer slowdown there is a usually a big ramp up to July or or really a big ramp up to June and then a tapering off a little bit in July and then a little end of summer push in August and then a long taper that that kind of takes us through the holiday season before things start to rebound back up again in January and that tapering is both often times in terms of listings and in terms of sales so it's both a supply and a demand tapering for the most part so what that means is that basically just the entire Market tapers simultaneously so it's not like we have okay typically a bunch more listings but a bunch more buyers dropping out typically those numbers go hand inand and and that's lot logical because people that are buying a home a lot of them are selling a home and vice versa those that are selling a home are often times trying to buy a replacement home even those in the investment sphere often times if they sell something they're looking to buy something so we see those numbers kind of go hand inand it's hard to know with covid what exactly to expect from this year because this is a very weird year covid wise obviously we had things at at least down here in Greenville basically just open up and and everyone kind of operating as normal with really nowhere anym requiring Mass hardly at all everything opened up to to normal hours like just kind of business as usual but then we also have this Delta variant that of course I'm sure you guys have heard ad nauseabout that's kind of going around and that's threatening to perhaps disrupt some things we don't know exactly what that's going to do but my point in saying this is I it's hard to know how all of this impacted the summer of this year when a lot of people go on vacation I know a lot of people took June vacations rather than July vacations but I know a lot of people that took July vacations as well some people did both it St it it's reasonable that people might be taking more vacations this year than they took in previous years because a they've got more money stimulus wise they've received various you know stimulus checks and and now people are getting you know several hundred a month for their children that the government is sending out different things like that plus combined with the whole pent up Wander lust as it were that people have that they wanted to go on vacation last year maybe their vacation last year was cancelled and so they're making up for it this year all of that impacts the real estate market because a lot of what's happening when we have that little July slowdown that's people going on vacation that's people do you know doing things that don't involve real estate and that's why there typically is a little bit of an August bounceback so as we're trying to sift through whether there is a meta slowdown happening or whether there is is simply just a normal seasonal slowdown happening it's really hard it it's it's hard to determine what the Dynamics are there but there's definitely a Slowdown of some sort that has happened which we can track a variety of different ways perhaps the simplest way is that mortgage applications have gone down and that's a really good indicator of whether things are heating up or slowing down when mortgage applications go down that tell you okay there are fewer people looking to buy I think as well things got so crazy in June and we've talked about buyer fatigue in the past things went absolutely nutty during the month of June that I can only imagine that a lot of buyers just kind of said hey I'm I'm going to wait this out I'm going to I'm going to let this cool down I'm going to let this slow down and then I'll perhaps re-enter the market during the fall or I'll reenter the market next year whatever the case may be but we saw some statistics in the month of June and and GJ the the greater Greenville Association of Realtors has not yet released July St statistics excuse me they have not yet released the stats for July it usually takes them a few weeks to call that together but I've got the June statistics in front of me and they're crazy housing affordability went down to the lowest level it's ever been percent of list price received for June was 101.3 that's the highest it's ever been that means on average on average every house that sold sold for more than it was listed for by over 1.3% we've never seen anything like that it's it's you know the average sales price actually the average plateaued a little bit which is interesting but the median sales price which is much more important went to its highest level ever and may it was up 16% year onye for the month of May and June it was up 13.8% now up to 267,000 that's now the median price point you know it was 235 back in June of 2020 and that was a massive increase from June of 2019 we've just it's it's eye popping these numbers it's it's really starting to put the squeeze on first-time home buyers historical days on market and and this is the one that out of all these numbers this is the one that's that pops out to me the percent of list price pered received being over an entire percentage Point higher than 100% that one's a pretty eye popping number but this one's even more eye popping to me is the days on Market until sale so this is basically the amount of time well I I'll just read it I'll read what GG says the average number of days between when a property is listed and when an offer is accepted in a given month and you know on average this has typically ranged between you know like 40 and 60 days in the month of June it was 24 days it has never been that low and I mean if you look at the chart it's like a falloff for the the summer months this year of of how much fewer days on Market these homes have been compare that to June of 2021 it was 55 days so it it literally more than halfed it's down to it was down to 24 days and and so that's what that means is obviously there are properties that are you know overpriced that are languishing on the market that that drive that number up so what that means is that there is a plethora of properties that just sold very very quickly and obviously those properties were in that sub $300,000 price point and that is the price point that that's really getting the squeeze more than anything else right now and so what happens is a lot of times those buyers get get fatigued they're so tired and so burned out of getting you know outbid by others looking at so many houses submitting so many offers and they just get to that point where she's like you know what I just need to to wait it out and so that can cause an artificial not not an artificial slowdown but that can cause a a Slowdown that isn't a meta slowdown but it's a Slowdown that's it's almost like deferring business so I'm I'm kind of wondering if this is going to be an an interesting thing where we have something that happens during the fall that doesn't normally happen if we have perhaps a fall month that kind of ends up being a little bit spicier as it were a little bit more interesting a little bit more activity than we typically have I I don't know I I don't know what will happen in the fall but it'll be interesting to track certainly last year's fall was was extremely interesting and who knows who knows what's going to happen this year there are some other interesting things as as we look as I look through this data and and this could be indicative again if this is all accurate sometimes these GG stats are not for the month that they are looking at sometimes they go back and they revise some of the data so it's not always accurate but this is one that usually is pretty accurate is the pending sales so let me read what the pending sales is the count of properties on which offers have been accepted in a given month okay so that's a good indicator of activity when we look at pending sales pending sales for June 2020 Now reminder June 2020 was crazy cuz that was when we were really you know after all the lockdowns and everything that was when things really started getting crazy around here so last year it was very high it was 1612 was the amount of pending sales we had in June of 2020 which is right up there with some of the highest levels that we've ever seen you know March of this year was 1637 April of this year was 1632 May though went down to 1503 so so that that June 2020 number is pretty close to to the top well compare that to June of this year it was 767 it dropped off Again by more than half so we had and that number that number is comparable we haven't seen a number that low since November of 2019 so that is actually a very interesting number and and I'm not saying it's a cause for concern and I don't want to exaggerate what that number could mean but there were a lot less homes that went under contract during the month of June than would have been expected and why was that were there fewer homes that that listed no no as a matter of fact there were a lot of homes that listed during during the month of June for this year if I pull up the new listings it was 1956 which is right up there at the top I mean that is near the highest that we have ever had that's the highest number since let's see the middle of 2019 looks like it's it's hard for me to see the way they lay out this data but it looks like that's the highest since like perhaps May April or May of 2019 so it wasn't that we had a lot fewer listings for some reason we had in the month of June a lot fewer contracts and I'm really fascinated to see what happened in July once that information comes out and again I'm not overreacting to to this data because I'm out there in the marketplace and I'm still seeing it's very competitive and that there's still you know a lot of angst but it it feels like a lot of people in June went on vacation or decided to take a break from Real Estate clo now here's the you have to offset this was another thing so if we look at closed sales closed sales in June were the highest it's ever been so that is the you know homes that went under contract in April and May they closed in June our closed sales in June were the highest they've ever been so we're definitely going to see that taper off I mean we we can definitely expect to see you know in July and perhaps August as well that that we're going to see closed sales kind of take a dive because those contracts you know or it was a low number homes the the pending sales of homes that went under contract so what does all this mean well we need to to monitor this closely just to see you know is this something that's broader in the market or or was this something that just kind of just more of a blip on the radar more of the seasonality of things being a little bit different this year than it normally is we don't know but I will say this I'm not freaking out because we need a little bit of a Slowdown if this is a meta thing and and things are slowing down a little bit that'll be tough for sellers in the upcoming months sellers will have to readjust their expectations they've been used to seeing all their neighbors you know have 25 showings and 10 offers and end up selling their home above list price sellers are going to have to adjust their mindset that that that obviously is not going to always be the case and it may be sooner than later that that is not the case as far as buyers are concerned I think that buyers that have decided to pull out of the market need to consider whether now is the the right time to enter back in whether now is the time okay maybe I can take advantage of this it may not be a a meta slowdown it may just be a temporary slowdown this may be an opportunity for some buyers and I am seeing some listings have to start reducing their pricing and and again this is anecdotal but I'm seeing what appears to be more price reductions than I remember seeing earlier this year and so that's an opportunity for buyers to to you know maybe some of these homes are overpriced but if they're starting to sit on the market sellers are getting nervous sellers are like man I I thought that this Market was a was a sellers Market what's going on here and so they might be willing to accept a lower offer than than they originally were as far as [Music] looking at the the normal what normally happens if we compare listings that come on the market the number of listings that come on the market compared to the number of pending sales month by month usually the best month to buy and you could perhaps say the worst month to sell but it it doesn't it doesn't always work out that way I I'm hesitant to say something like that but at the very least from a metadata standpoint the best month to buy is the month of October that's the month historically when listings exceed pending sales by quite a bit so that's and to put that in economic terminology that makes sense to to most of my listeners that's when there is more Supply than demand the the the most amount of more Supply than demand is typically the month of October so keep that in mind again if you're a fatigued buyer don't worry the fall is coming up and the fall it it we get fewer lists things usually so there is there are fewer options out there for you there's fewer houses for sale but at the same time there's less competition and that month of October historically is a pretty good month for listings historically there is I think it's people that are it's kind of like a pre holiday push so it's people that are like okay I definitely don't want to sell my house you know around Thanksgiving or around Christmas or around new years or anything like that so there's like this pre holiday push in October people list their homes but that outpaces the number of people buying and so then we see the taper after that the the real big taper that happens in November and December there's there's really not a whole lot of homes that that come on the market at all during those months due to holidays people traveling and all of that so that's what we're seeing short little episode here to give you guys a little snapshot of the market I think there are I think the Rumblings of a Slowdown are accurate I think something did slow down I'm not exactly sure what that means draw your own conclusions but I I do think the main thing that I conclude from this is that there is some sort of an opportunity for buyers right now that perhaps there wasn't and hasn't been for the past you know 8 10 months and I think that you as a buyer should take advantage of that and if you're selling just just be aware that this is kind of a weird market and it's kind of a fluid situation you might not be in a situation where you know you're getting the the type of offers that you were before if you're a house flipper for instance you might not find that there is quite the frenetic activity that there has been the past few months maybe there is maybe there isn't again it we're just looking at metadata and different situations are different if you're listing a house below that median price point you should be gold you know that median price point in the 260s roughly 265 houses below that price point you know that are in good locations in good school districts those are gold right now you won't have any you won't have any problem selling those but some of these other price points and some of these other locations could be difficult so that is something to keep in mind if you guys have any questions let me know my contact information is in the show notes I hope you guys stay safe and have a great rest of the week [Music]