[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 always I always ask you guys the the 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 F star rating on whatever app that 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 [Music]