Hello everyone and Welcome to another
episode of Selling Greenville your
favorite real estate podcast here in
lovely Greenville South Carolina I am
your host as always Stan McCune realtor
right here in Greenville South Carolina
and you can find all of my contact
information in the show notes if you
need to reach out to me for any of your
real estate needs or just to talk about
real estate
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that today we're going to have a little
fun talking about what people that are
moving here from out of state frequently
say the things that I most commonly hear
from nons South Carolinians that are
moving to the Greenville area what they
frequently say in surprise or or just
what their commentary is about the area
I don't think that this will be a super
long episode but I think that this is
very interesting I've learned a lot from
all of my clients that have moved here
from out of state and it's very
telling and it's made me appreciate the
Greenville area even more hearing what
people
say so we're just going to kick in I
have 10 things that non South
Carolinians say when they move to
Greenville or when they explor
Greenville one of the first and most
common things that I hear from people
moving here from out of state are where
are all the basement Homes Greenville
generally speaking is very flat and
which is interesting because we do have
mountains all around the Greenville area
but Greenville itself until you get
to the northern regions of Greenville
County is quite flat and and builders
around here when they come in they
usually just level an area just
completely graded out flat and don't
mess with basement homes well that's
very different than a lot of other parts
of the country particularly when you get
up north and so when I have people
moving here from the north I frequently
hear where are all the basement homes
it's just astonishing to them that
people just don't have basements around
here and the basement that we do have
are typically walk out basements that's
also I've learned an an anomaly in
comparison to other parts of the
country well unfortunately Greenville
doesn't have a lot of basement homes and
for some people that's a problem they
want basement homes and it's hard for
them to find them I'm now living in my
second basement home and I love them
I've complained about appraisers in the
area they tend to hate them although
I have now had two straight transactions
with basement homes where the appraisals
have been okay so actually three
three straight transactions with
basement homes where the appraisal has
been okay so I'm riding that that
wave right now and and hopefully that
will continue another thing I hear very
frequently these are from more of my
Southern clients coming up here from
a southern area is wow there's no gnats
where are the gnats now listen there are
gats but I guess I I don't know I
don't spend I I you know I go down to
Alabama my wife is from occasionally but
I don't spend a ton of time in the Deep
South but apparently just gnats being
everywhere is a thing well that is
not a thing so much in green now we do
have plenty of mosquitoes particularly
if you're in a wet area but those
could be treed too we don't have a a big
problem with gnats and for that I'm
grateful that was like one of the
Egyptian plagues you know in in in
the book of Exodus in the Bible and I
prefer to avoid Egyptian plagues at at
all costs and so I'm glad that we
don't have a ton of Nets in this area
that being said what we do have that I
will hear frequently from people and I
get this complaint from my Airbnb guests
the roaches are huge now when people are
saying that what they're referring to is
what we call locally palmetto bugs which
are not the German cockroaches that are
prone to infest areas but just they they
are they're awful they they're massive
they're gross and they just look like
mutant roaches and I remember visiting
down here you know when I used to live
in New Jersey and visiting down here
in in South Carolina in the summer and
seeing those things and they terrified
me and there's like certain weather
conditions it's I think it's like when
the humidity reaches a certain point
that those palmeta bugs actually fly and
that is that is truly terrifying I hate
those things I hate when they fly it's
very rare usually they just walk but
but man when they when they fly it's
gross it's terrifying and so that's
not one of my favorite things about
South Carolina but I can live with it
because there are so many other good
things the another and this shouldn't
be super surprising but another very
common thing that I hear from people
obviously when they come to Greenville
is wow the restaurant scene in
Greenville is awesome and yes it is we
don't don't just have Cracker Barrel we
don't just have TGI Fridays we
have so many Fantastic restaurants my
wife and I were partial to the table
301 Restaurant Group in Downtown
Greenville but downtown Greer also
has some great places downtown
Simpsonville has some great places
downtown Travelers Rest has some
great places and and even away from
downtown woodf Road and five Forks
there are some really fantastic
restaurants around there where we
where I used to live in Greer there is a
restaurant called Latin flavors that
started as a food truck that's a great
restaurant there's just so many great
restaurants so many different styles of
Cuisine the my only complaint and
this is another thing that I hear from
from people moving here from the like
the New York New Jersey area in
particular but from some other areas as
well the only restaurant scene that
isn't good in Greenville is the Italian
food scene we don't have any truly just
knock your socks off Italian like if
you're used to really good Italian
that you would get up in the Northeast
unfortunately you're not going to get
that here we also don't yet have a
Chicago deep dish pizza type of scene
around here I'm hoping that changes soon
because I feel like there's
definitely a market for that I I
believe that there is a restaurant that
sells it but I've not heard great things
about it I don't know I make form your
own opinion but generally speaking
the restaurant scene in Greenville is
awesome another thing that I hear
from people and we need to I I need to
hedge this by saying we don't get a lot
of snow around here and most of the snow
that we get is minimal it usually is
gone by the afternoon it snows at night
we wake up and it's like oh everything's
white and then by the afternoon
everything's just muddy that being
said every now and then we do get a big
snow by our by this area standards or a
lot of ice that reeks
havoc and the the question that I get
that I'll hear in those instances are
where are the snow plows well we don't
have any we don't typically need them so
we have to get plows from like other
states it it's it's not ideal but
again there are some years where in most
of Greenville County the weather
conditions don't ever require a plow to
ever come out that being said I do
highly highly recommend that you get
some some salt for melting snow or
ice it's not just any type of salt
you have to get a special kind of salt
to do this I i' witnessed one time
people using table salt on ice it
doesn't work not all of salt melts ice
in that way so anyway that's that's I
got a big kick out of that when I saw
people trying to melt ice using table
salt clearly have not spent any time
around ice before like major ice
issues like we have in the Northeast
but where are all the snow plows nowhere
there are there are basically no snow
plows around here so be prepared for
that if you're new to the area and
you're trying to prepare for the
winter another frequent thing and and
this should come as no surprise but
again it's a good reminder to me when
people are walking through downtown
Greenville or other places and they're
just like there is just so much art
great art on the street great art shops
great artists in general of course we
have the artist fear Festival that
happens every year the art scene in
Greenville similar to the restaurant
scene is really fantastic we have a ton
of tremendous art and a ton of
tremendous artists and that's something
that just it is it surpris people right
because typically you might have a small
little little Art District in a big
city and so you go to that area if
you want to see art but in Greenville
it's just like interspersed there's just
art everywhere and there's artists
everywhere and there's art galleries
everywhere so you don't have to go to
one spot to find it you just see it
everywhere and I think that that's one
thing that's particularly unique
about Greenville another thing that I
hear very frequently is man the rent is
expensive and this comes as no surprise
as as I have told you guys before there
is a reason why rent in Greenville is
more expensive than it should be and
it's something you can complain to the
county about if you want to and that is
that landlords have to pay triple the
property tax that regular homeowners do
our property tax for a rental property
is triple what it is for a owner
occupied property so very very bad very
bed you if if you're in a situation
where you're trying to rent some
in some
circumstances the landlord or land lady
that owns a rental property they're
having to pay three three months of your
rent that you're paying to them is go is
just going towards the property taxes
which is insane it should never be like
that but unfortunately that's the
situation we find ourselves in so
because property taxes are so high for
rental properties
that ends up getting passed along as
higher rent and so the rent in
Greenville is quite expensive in
contrast to what you would expect
because Greenville is considered a
relatively affordable area to buy in
but it's not a particularly affordable
area to rent in and that's something
that I hear very
frequently very frequently sorry my
my voice tailed off there another
thing and I already alluded to this a
little bit but another thing I hear
frequently is just shock that people
have over how cute the other downtowns
besides Downtown Greenville are
obviously traveler's rest you know has
the Swamp Rabbit Trail that goes through
it a lot of people love traveler's rest
and it has its own little outdoorsy
kind of feel to it more and more I'm
hearing people talk about how much they
love downtown Greer downtown Greer is
super cute has a great park with it has
a great little Main Street and also
Trade Street which is basically another
Main Street and and downtown
Simpsonville is really cool kind of has
that Train Town kind of vibe to it
which if that if you don't know what
that means you just have to go to
downtown Simpsonville and see it it
is traffic in Simpsonville is not the
best in in downtown but it it is cool
there's it's very walkable there's great
places to go we we went for my
birthday to a cool little arcade place
right there in downtown Simpsonville so
there's just a lot of cool stuff to do
in all these little downtowns and
they're cute they've made them very
walkable and and again as I've
already alluded to great restaurants in
all of these places so Greenville is not
just downtown Greenville obviously
Downtown Greenville is the Jewel of the
upstate but all of these other cute
downtowns really surprise people when
they go to them they're just like wow
this is awesome and I always recommend
to people moving here from out of town
that they explore some of those other
downtown areas another thing that I
hear frequently from people moving here
from outside the area and this is a
negative about the upstate but it but
let's just be honest the drivers are
bad yes the drivers in Greenville are
really bad really oblivious
I I don't really want to go on a rant at
this moment but I'm probably just going
to go on a rant anyway I'm Amazed at how
few drivers understand the concept of
right away now I understand that having
come from New Jersey people violate
RightWay Decor whatever you want to call
it all the time people will cut out in
front of you they'll turn when they're
not supposed to turn all that kind of
stuff but that's because the drivers in
New Jersey are are Reckless and they're
aggressive and they are you know
sometimes you have to violate some of
the rules up there just in order to be
able to make a turn or to be able to get
somewhere in Greenville it's
different you've got this mishmash of
people that come from these rural
areas where there's basically no traffic
and and you're mixing them in a pot with
these people with people that have come
from Chicago from New York City from
Miami all these different places where
it's a lot more aggressive driving and
so you're putting all of these people in
the same location it creates a really
bad environment with just bad driving
all around and I was thinking about this
one one thing that is unique about
Greenville is that people will come to
Downtown Greenville just to hang out
people that don't live near downtown
Greenville will frequently go to
downtown Greenville just to walk around
to go to Falls Park all of that that's
unusual when you really think about it
do you H how often do people that live
in the suburbs of Atlanta go to downtown
Atlanta just to walk around right it's
like pretty much never like I know
people that live in the suburbs of
Atlanta that basically never ever going
into downtown Atlanta the only reason
why you potentially would would be to go
to some kind of an event a sporting
event or a concert or something like
that generally speaking maybe there's a
restaurant that you want to go to but
people will will travel from North
Greenville County or from you know
pedmont or wherever to go to downtown
Greenville just to enjoy Main Street
just to enjoy Falls Park and and so you
get people that don't know well where
I'm going with that you is is some of
these drivers don't know downtown
Greenville or don't know Greenville in
general and so that adds to the dynamic
you know the people that are in downtown
Atlanta or downtown Chicago or downtown
New York whatever most of those
people know those downtowns they they
commute there every day they know it
like the back of their hand and so
even though they might be aggressive at
driving they're good at driving because
at least in that environment because
they know it so well in Greenville
it's a little bit different so yes the
drivers are not great they tend to not
understand right away you'll see someone
waiting for you know someone to turn
when it's really their turn it's just it
it's it's a mess so be alert and be
prepared when you're out there driving
and particularly Al to Circle all to
bring this all back particularly when
there is any semblance of snow or ice or
water on the ground here's another funny
thing and and I'm going to make this
quick but it cracks me up if you're
if you're not from the area and you've
not started Living in this area yet when
you visit if you visit during like bad
weather you'll see this people will turn
on their flashers when there's like
heavy rain and they're driving like I
do
understand that it doesn't help me to
see your vehicle any better like just
turn off the flashers like I I don't
want to see that anyway the drivers
are bad all right and that was number
nine we're we're already here at the end
number 10 the thing that I hear and
these aren't in any order I just kind of
did them in whatever order but the
thing the number 10 thing that I hear
very frequently from people coming here
from out of state the lakes are amazing
and we do we have a ton of lakes in the
are area and they're all amazing some of
the Lakes have beaches some of the Lakes
allow you know jet skiing and things
like that some of the Lakes allow allow
fishing some kaying they there are a
there's a lake for whatever Lake
activity that you want to do they have
them we we have them in this area now it
might not be in Greenville County you
know some you might have to go to
Anderson County you might have to go to
Spartanburg County but regardless
there are Great Lakes all over the
upstate and those are things that that
people really like we don't have you
know an ocean to go to that is closer
than four hours away but we've got Great
Lakes of course we've got great
mountains too if you get into the
northern part of Greenville or
Spartanburg County and then up into
North Carolina so those are things that
people love that that people are really
Amazed by when they come here and
it's it's easy to take all of these
things for granted but it helps me as a
realtor when I hear these things from
people moving here from out of state
and from out of town to remember you
know what the upstate of South Carolina
Greenville Spartanburg all of this area
it's a really unique area and it's a
really awesome area and I'm really
grateful for it and so I hope you are
too and I hope this helps you if you're
considering moving here there are some
of the things that people talk about
that people are surprised by that people
are are learning learning when
they move to the area and hopefully that
benefits you in some way that is it for
today's episode I appreciate you all
listening as always if you have a moment
please leave a festar rating and a
review subscribe download the episodes
and if you need to reach out to me for
any reason my contact information is
there in the show notes thank you guys
for listening have a great week and we
will talk again next time
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