[Music]
Hello everyone and Welcome to another
episode of Selling Greenville your
favorite real estate podcast here in the
Greenville area of South Carolina I'm
your host as always Stan McCune realtor
right here in Greenville you can find
all of my contact information in the
show notes if you need to reach out to
me for any reason that is where you can
find me if you need to buy a house if
you need to sell a house if you need to
talk about the Pod or talk about real
estate in general go ahead and check out
my contact information there and as
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primary thing I ask you guys on the show
is please leave a rating and a review
that would be very helpful and hit the
little subscribe button all of those
things help ensure that more people see
this show today we are going to be
talking about thewhat we do pretty
much every monthtalk about the
greater Greenville Association of
realtor Market stats so typically
about Midway through a given month they
published the stats for the previous
month and so we're going to be looking
at the numbers for Mayand then
talking about a few other things here so
let's Jump Right In I will warn as I
always do some of these numbers are
going to benot accurate for this
month
and so I won't be talking about the ones
that will be inaccurate let me just say
it that way but I'll give you a
warning before wego through that all
right let's start off with new listings
so this is a a very importantmetric
that we look at because these have
really been fluctuating quite a bit and
we have seen really a tapering off of
new listings until just recently new
listings had been down year on-ear for
several straight months until March of
this year March of this yearnew
listings went up year year-over-year
1 7% and then April 2.4% and then may we
had a big increase it went up 11.5% year
year onye so may 2022 new listings were
1,958 and that compares to May 2021 was
1,756 so a lot more new listings which
is very interesting I wonder if this is
people realizing things are going to
change we need to hurry up maybe people
that normally would have listed their
homes in June or July or August
decided to go ahead and hurry up and
list their homes more quickly because
they're hearing all these Rumblings of a
Slowdown so may new listingswent up
to a very high level and and this is
also in a big contrast to May of last
year which had a very interestinguh
almost like a tapering off of listings
in may we had listings in May of
2021 actually went down from the
April numbers that's not the case this
year April of this year had
1,882 new listings and may had again
1,958 new listings so we're seeing new
more and more new listings come on the
market as the spring summer season
continues on if the trend
continues the way it normally would we
would seenew listings in June and
then inpotentially July as well kind
of take off it kind of depends it things
have changed a little bit the past
couple of years usually new listings in
July would taper off a little bit as
people go on vacationbut but again
if we've seen peoplelist homes in
May that they normally would have in
June or July we may see a little bit of
a tapering off in those months so we'll
just have to play that by ear and just
see what's happening pending sales
this is one of the numbers on here that
for the the most recent month is always
inaccurate so we're not going to be
talking about the May numbers but
because we didn't know what the April
numbers werelast time around we do
need to talk about the April numbers so
the April numbers for pending sales were
down
substantially year on year for the month
of April we saw pending sales drop
16.3% this is the rebalancing of the
market new listings up pending sales
down and so this is what we're seeing
we're we're finally starting to see some
data to support okay the market is
seeing a bit of a
rebalancing is it cooling I don't really
like that word not yet at least is it
correcting I don't really like that word
either I like the word
rebalancing andand the reason why I
like that word is because the the market
is completely
imbalanced and even if it even if we
see a
tremendously lower demand and a
tremendously higher Supply it will still
take a while before we actually see
something that resembles like a majoret
Market correction like prices flatlining
or potentially even going down right
now what we're seeing is just a
rebalancing so we've seen now pending
sales have been down year over year
for now five straight months since
December of 2021 and each month it's
gotten progressively greater so they
were down
3.8% December 2021 4.1% January AR of
this year 5.5% February of this year
7.6% March of this year and now
16.3% which that number jumps off the
page there's no other number that
really compares to that what what that
number that's the lowest so the let
me see here yeah that's the lowest
number that we've seen for at least the
past year I'd have to go back a little
bit further to dig into when we saw a
decrease that big and pending sales and
by the way pending sales to Define that
it's the count of properties on which
offers have been accepted in a given
month just so that we're clear on
that because that that can be a little
bit confusing the wayGreenville
registersthese things so our our
new contracts for the month of April
or yeah for the month of April they were
down 16.3% we won't know yet what may
what may is but I'm guessing
that it'll probably be close to that
number I I don't see that number going
dramatically down because I still see a
lot of activity happening because what
we're having right now is is still
people it's kind of like when gas prices
go up and everyone rushes to the pump
and then that causes gas prices to go
even higher that's what's happening
in housing right nowinterest rates
mortgage rates everyone hears they're
going to keep going up so guess what
everyone is trying to to get in now
while rates are quote unquote low
they're not low in comparison to a year
ago but they're low in comparison to
what they will probably be at the end of
this year and so a lot of people are are
are still Panic buying we are two years
into a panic buying real estate market
it's crazy it's absolutely crazy but
the reflection of lower pending sales I
believe is a direct result of people
just no longer being able to afford
the house that they want because when
you combine mortgage rat skyrocketing
with prices skyrocketing of of homes
combined with the fact thatinflation
is causing everything else to be more
expensive it's just causing people to no
longer be able to afford housing so I
think that that is what we're seeing
reflected in that
number
interestingly and and again this goes
into what I was saying with with the
Panic buying thing closed sales were up
in the month of May 3.6% so in April
they were down it was down
4.7% year on-ear but and and you know
I was wondering I think I discussed this
last month is that going to be a trend
are we going to see that continue nope
May Buck whatever Trend there might have
been and it went back into positive
territory we saw a 3.6% increase on
closings year onye year so that will
be interesting to track you know it's
like as pending sales go downyou
expect to see closings to also go down
but we have seen this phenomenon
recentlyand by recently I mean the
past six months to a yearwhere that
has happened a few monthsseveral
times actually where there's been lower
pending sales but then higher closings
and the way I understand that is that
we're just seeing fewer homes fewer
contracts fall through and so I think
that that'sI think that's what's
happening there I'm not going to
regurgitate that we talked about that
extensively in the past days on the
market until sale interesting metric
it's the average number of days between
when a property is listed and when an
offer is accepted in a given month days
on Market until sale
now you I I like to say you always
hear people say you know house went
under contract within two or three days
and and you know that's been kind of
the norm in this market for homes that
aren't overpriced they typically go
under contract within just a few days or
you know homes that don't have weird
quirks to them but when you average out
everything the entire Market
obviously the number of of days is
higher than 2 or three days because
there are homes that take a few weeks or
a few months for whatever reason before
they go under contract so we have to
take this number with a grain of salt
specifically the grain of salt of
comparing it toprevious years so in
previous years the the average number
that we saw would fluctuate seasonally
between 40 and 60 days so that would
have been the typical seasonal average
for the Greenville Market we would see
40 to 60 days on Market until sale again
3 or 4 years ago it was still hot
housinghomes in desirable
neighborhoods priced aggressively still
going under contract right away like
that hasn't changed more recently that
has been the that was that way during
the Great Recession as as I've discussed
before so the change here is on a meta
level that we're seeing those homes that
used to take a long time to sell we're
seeing those now taking instead of 3
months to sell and then dragging all the
numbers down now those are taking one
month to sell so it's those homes that
are directly benefiting from this
current market those homes that
traditionally would have taken a long
time to sell all of that to say the the
days on Market until sale is a very good
indicator of how hot the market is
because again it goesit typically
adjust seasonally and and goes down that
number goes down as the market gets hot
during the times where where we were
in recession during the Great Recession
that number went way up it was in the
hundreds during the Great Recession
and so here we are in May of 2022 you
want to guess do you want to guess what
happened May thea month ago it was
the lowest number it has ever been in
the history of Greenville it was 20 days
okay again don't focus on that number
focus on the fact that that is the
lowest it has ever been so homes still
still in the month of May are selling
quicker than they ever have
ever in this market so what does that
tell me that tells me that as the market
rebalances again we are not seeing a
major Market CR not yet it hasn't
happened yet I I think we will see it
happen at some point but but right now
there is still this glut of demand and I
I think what we're seeing as well I
think a lot of invest investors there's
still tons of investor money out there
they are they don't know where to put
their money right I mean yeah the the
stock market crypto all of that is is
doing badly like it seems like you could
buy the dips and I'm not giving
Financial advice I'm not a financial
adviser but you hear people all the
time say you know buy the dips I
think investors are scared to do that
because I think they don't know that
this is anywhere near the bottom a and
that's that's what I'm hearing at least
and so I think a lot of investors are
are rushing to buy real estate right now
as well so it it's that's going to
be a super fascinating number to keep
tracking that was that number 20 days
on Market a year ago May of 2021 it
was 30 days on Market so that number has
gone down now
33.3% year on-year
and that is consistent with what it
has been all this yearJanuary it was
down 22.5% February was down 34.8% march
31.7April 38.5 and now may 33.3
we've been we've been in the past 4
months now now the 30% range of of days
on Market until sale going down and
so I expectagain just what I'm
seeing boots on the ground me with my
buyer clients things are still
selling I mean urgently and and here's
the other thing to consider right with
some of these numbers one thing that
makes a really big difference is that
obviously not every price point and not
every type of house sells at the same
same speed right homes that are you know
in in Greenville $2.5 million tend to
take a a much longer time to sell but
what I'm seeing is a lot of the
inventory that's coming on the market is
in that sweet spot that sub
$400,000 or even sub
$300,000 sweet spot and that is what
everyone is vying for right now and so
what happens is when you get inventory
that when you get the the supply that
matches the highest demand category then
I mean you know it it's it's like you're
in thein the Sahara I don't know
what I'm talking about here I'm I I I'm
probably going to say something I'm
probably going to have like a naturalist
or or some someone listen to this and be
like you have no idea what you're
talking about I don't with this analogy
but I'm going to try it anyway but it's
like you know a dead animal in the
Sahara and it's like the Lions want it
and the hyenas want it and the vultures
want it and like everyone's coming after
it at the same time I feel like that's
what we're happening right now the
inventory in that below 400 below
$300,000 price point is so low and
there's so much demand for it that that
is just causingall these numbers to
still be crazy even though mortgage
rates are going upmedian sales price
I you know I
don't I'm just laughing now because I
really don't know when we're going to
see this go down but it was up
19.9% year on-ear for the month of May
that's a staggering number we have been
hovering around 20% now for since
basically December of
2021
it it's now the median price point in
the greater Greenville area is now
$315,000 that is an insane number the
average home te technically not average
technically median but just think about
it as the average because the median is
the the better way of thinking about it
it jumped from 263,000 in May of 2022 to
315,000 in Maysorry 263,000 in May
of 2021 to
35,000 in May of
2022 insane that is an insane number
in June of 2021 it was 235,000 and
now it's all the way up to 3
15,000 in January of 2020 it was
nearly 200,000 so in inlet's see
here in basically two and a half years
it has gone up from just a hair over
200,000 to 315,000 to buy the average
home in the greater Greenville area some
point it's got to stop right at some
point the flow of money into Greenville
and whatnot is going to dry uppeople
are not going to be able to afford
housing
something has to give but but right
now that number is still just popping
off the page it's just
insane but that's not the most insane
number on here believe it or not I mean
this is a this is just a row a murderous
row of insane numbers the percent of
list price received which I always like
to read this definition because it's
very specific and and different places
different markets will
will Define this differently so the the
percent of list price received is the
percentage found when dividing a
property sales price by its most recent
list price then taking the average for
all properties sold in a given month not
accounting for seller concessions okay
two important details is that not
accounting for seller concessions
which honestly is even more insane
because the past 2 years there basically
have not been sour concessions sour
concessions are like when the seller
helps the buyer with their closing costs
we almost don't see that happen
anymore it's basically
nonexistent and then the the other
important detail is it's taken the most
recent list price so it's not the
original list price it's the most recent
list price so it accounts for possible
pricing changes that have happened
and so long story short this is
another one of these where you have to
look at it
historically and so I like to compare
things to pre prepandemic cuz
prepandemic was still a sellers Market
but it was not as insane of a sellers
market so prepandemic we were very
consistent between particularly between
uh
2017 and
2020right hovering right around 98%
was that number so in other words if you
had a home listed for let's just say
$100,000 on average you would get
$98,000 for it again not including
seller concessions which were very
commonbetween 2017 and
2020 well those aren't accounted for
in that number so the so anyway you
would probably get 98,000 and you would
also have to pay 3,000 towards closing
cost so really it was 95 thou
95% but these numbers don't reflect that
sowe'll just say it was a it was
98% roughly but put a little asterisk
next to it what was it in May of
2022 well let's back up for a second
we saw we have seen consistently for a
while now that the average has been over
100% okay so a home listed for $100,000
would get more than $100,000 not
accounting for seller concessions but
there have been no seller concessions
almost across the board and so as a
result of that you can basically safely
assume that on average and I apologize
if you can hear my dog freaking out
upstairs I don't know what she's
freaking out about but if you can
hear her that'sthat's my dog Bailey
you can basically safely assume that
these numbers accurately reflect
generally speaking what is happening in
the market the averagesat or above
or whatever the case in comparison to
the list price well they've consistently
been like I said over 100% so we've been
seeing basically on average whatever you
list your home for you're getting more
for it than what it's listed for so
you're probably thinking to yourself no
dwe all know that that's what
everyone's been talking about that's
what's been so crazy about this Market
okay so to try not to State the obvious
we had it actually in the month of
October of last year dip below 100% now
this was actually something that I
didn't exactly predict that that would
happen but I told everyoneI I did a
podcast prior to October saying that
October is usually one of the best
months to buy arguably the best month to
buy from the standpoint of getting good
deals well it turns out that I was right
on that but after the month of October
it jumped right back up in the month of
November to
100.1% December 100.3% January 100.1
February 100.1 well then we saw
something that we had never seen before
in March it went to
101. 2% so it had been hovering well I
shouldn't say we had never seen it
before but we had never seen it before
in that time of year for it to go that
high because you know March is not
exactly the hot real estate season yet
right it's usually leading up to it we
had seen those numbers happen in June
and July of 2021 but we had never seen
it happen in March and so I remember
thinking when I saw that like oh boy
here we go what's about to happen April
it went up again
10.4% May another new record
10.7% the highest we have ever had since
they have tracked this in Greenville on
average the listings are getting
10.7% of what the home is listed for
that is an insane number because again
if you're grading on a curve that's even
higher than than it should be because
that's not accounting for seller
concessions and there are no seller
concessions so when you look
historically back at 2017 2018 2019
where it was 98% again those real
numbers were probably closer to like 95%
when you account for seller concessions
and how this compares toMay of
last year again it's it's way higher May
of last year was 100.8 % so we now have
almost an entire percent and May of last
year was crazy and we're still seeing
people the all these crazy bidding wars
and people going way above list price
and so the way you have to to look at
this again balance it out there are
homes that are that are listed for you
know $2 million that kind of
dramatically alter all of these stats at
the the end of the day if you have a and
this isn't that uncommon you might have
a $2 million house that it's listed for
2 million but that s sells for 1.7
million well that dramatically impacts
the stats because that's a that's a
$300,000lesspurchase price than
what it was listed for and that's a a
big percent but when you get to the
$300,000
$250,000
$350,000 properties that are listed
we're seeing those go way above still
way above what they are listed for it's
still not uncommon to see 30 40 $50,000
above list price offers coming in on
these properties and
and again I'm I'm just kind of at a loss
for words because we we are seeing parts
of the market rebalancing but these
numbers are still popping off the the
page in terms ofwhat homes are are
going for and still still very much a
sellers Market is kind of the long
story short housing affordability
index I'm not going to get into this
very much I'll just say it is down 16.7%
year on-year down from 90 to 75 bad
number right that this is this is the
number that at some point will become
really relevant is just like generally
speaking when people just can't that
live in Greenville just can't afford
Greenville anymore at what point do
we see Mass gentrification happening
such as what has happened in areas like
Austin areas like Boise I I don't
want to see that but if this number
keeps going down thenthat's going to
be a big problem we are going to see
that month supply of inventory this
is one that's going to be inaccurate for
our current monthso we have to look
at the month of April and it it stayed
the same year on year but it went up
ever so slightly month- on-month so
March of 2022 we had one month of
inventory April of 2022 it went up to
1.2 that's nothing that is nothing that
is not a a big increase and that is not
a lot of inventory so we'll have to
see with pending sales being down all
that is
and we are seeing a lot more new
listings coming on the market as I
already said we hope to see these
month supply of inv inventory start to
tick up a bit but again still sitting
at
1.2 that is not much inventory at all
so we'll have to we'll have to keep
tracking that number that is one of the
most important numbers to track from the
standpoint of seeing what the market is
doing because obviously the more homes
that are on the market the less of a
seller's market that it is simple supply
and
demand there's a lot of other
numbers on here that are interesting
for for the closed sale I'm not going
to spend a ton of time on this but for
the closed sales the vast majority of
them were in the $250 to $500,000 price
point and interestingly the the biggest
increase was in the $350 to $500,000
price point and and from the
standpoint of increase year-on-year
inclosed sales so we sawfor the
month of May 2022 a
48% increase in closed sales from May
2021 on hommes priced $350 to
$500,000 massive increase I'm I'm
really Blown Away by that and then the
250 to 350 price range went up 33% year
onye that's not so surprising because
that's now kind of what the average
house costs by bedroom countwe
we've been seeing big increases in
closings onhomes that are two
bedrooms or less or it should probably
say two bedrooms or fewer but I'm
reading it two bedrooms it says two
bedrooms or less that that number was
up 13.4% year on-ear whereas the three
bedrooms were only up 6.2% year on-ear
and four bedroom closings down .5%
year on-ear so we're seeing people as
they're getting they're no longer able
to afford three bedroom or four bedroom
homes they're having to buy two bedroom
homes is what we're seeing two bedrooms
or
fewer that's all that I'm going to
get into for those numbers for right now
long story short it is still very much a
sellers Market it is stillvery
competitive out there at most if not all
price points and at some point we are
going to see things taper off but but
right now it's it's still
Barnstormers out there we are still at
you know for my buyer clients they're
still struggling to keep up now we
are seeing and I mentioned this recently
we are seeing more price drops we are
seeing Builders offering realtor
incentives things like that and and
again that's not so much an an indicator
of
the fact that the market is cooling
that's just an indicator that Builders
overplayed their hand and I would say
that a lot of sellers are think are
seeing all these numbers and thinking oh
I can sell my house for you know no
house has ever sold in this neighborhood
for more than 400,000 well I'm going to
list mine for 500 because I just hear
that the market is so hot well
unfortunately that's not how markets
work and so I think a lot of people are
are being blindsided by that whereas
maybe a year ago they there might have
been at least some interest in the
overpriced home it wouldn't have sold
for that price but there would have been
some interest in it people are now
seeing that there's enough homes coming
on the market right now that those homes
that are overpriced are just being
ignored and so now we're seeing those
price drops happening I will also say
that the number of bids in these bidding
war situations and I mentioned this
before but it's not as many bids as
before and I think that's
because we're having fewer buyers out
there maybe some of the buyers are
actually closing and getting their homes
maybe some of them are having to drop
out whatever the case may be whereas it
might have been 1520 offers before now
it's more like five to sixoffers but
but th those prices are still going up
so what we're seeing is those five to
six that are competing they're hotly
competing because they're tired of
getting out bid they've been out bid for
weeks potentially months they're tired
of it they're being aggressive they're
just going all in they're just saying
hey we're going to do this we're going
to go 40K above what it's listed for we
need to lock this thing up before
mortgage rates keep going up so it's a
very interesting Dynamic throw into
this the all that's going on with our we
just changed over to the due
diligence contract that I recorded a
podcast on a few weeks ago that's
already causing a lot of chaos I have
not yet
experience that chaos so hopefully I
willsoon so that I canrelay to
you guys what that experience is like
but that is what we're seeing
market-wide per the greater Greenville
Association of Realtors and the market
stats that they publish each month
and I hope that that's helpful for you
guys if you have any questions let me
know my contact information is in the
show notes as always you can reach me at
any time if I can't answer or if I can't
reply I just won't until I can and
usually that's fairly quickly I keep my
emails at inbox zero and so if I get
an email if it doesn't go in my spam I
do see it and I do address it
additionally again my only request for
you guys please subscribe to the show
please leave a short review and hit that
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you're using and that would go a long
way all right thank you guys for
listening I hope you have a great rest
of the week and we will talk next time
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