[Music] Hello everyone and Welcome to another episode of Selling Greenville your favorite real estate podcast here in lovely Greenville South Carolina I'm your host as always Stan McCune realtor right here in the upstate of 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 please go ahead and avail self of my contact information because I'd love to meet new people I'd love to make new clients all of those things so please let me know and as well if you like the show at all please hit the little subscribe button if you're using the Apple podcast app whether on your computer or whether on your phone or some iPad some other device please scroll down from the show page from the show section of your app and go ahead and hit the five star button and leave a short little review I'd really appreciate that this is show 150 which kind of blows my mind that I've done 150 episodes of the show it's it's been crazy it's it's been a fun time I'm I'm glad and for the opportunity I've had to keep doing this and it's just every time we hit a milestone like this I'm just grateful again for this opportunity and as well for you guys I'm I'm really grateful for you guys my listeners you encourage me to keep this going you give me ideas for for episodes and listen I just appreciate all of that and for those of you that have been clients I appreciate you guys even more and hopefully some of you that haven't yet but have the opportunity to become my clients in the future I appreciate you guys and everyone in between anyone that's listening to this so today um I want to talk about this is just a little bit random but it's just something that um I've been mulling over in my head is as you guys that listened to the show quite a bit know I moved recently from Greer from a production built neighborhood known as Chartwell Estates um to a basically not a subdivision um actually to an older home that had already been renovated um I got myself a little bit of acreage um I got out of an HOA all of that some things that that my family and I decided was what we needed for the stage of life that we're in right now and in moving I I really experienced a lot of different things but specifically when I was at Chartwell Estates I was in that neighborhood for three years um great neighborhood and and I really enjoyed my time there um in those three years I really found something fascinating about the dynamic between Chartwell Estates and another neighborhood across the street from it known as shelburn Farms um now the reason why I find this a dynamic between these two neighborhoods interesting is because they were both built roughly around the same time they are both production built neighborhoods both at similar price points with similar Builders not the same Builders but similar Builders similar type of construction and kind of targeting the same types of of potential home buyers when they were built at the end of the day very similar finishes similar looks all all of that kind of stuff um but well and before I get into that I should just clarify one thing so obviously I know these neighborhoods well I I lived in one of them I lived in Chartwell Estates sorry my my phone just went off just started talking about something I don't know what that was um I lived in Chartwell Estates obviously for for several years um I was on the HOA board at Chartwell for a time um and and actually this kind of an interesting factoid I have been one of the realtors in the two most expensive sales that have ever happened in Chartwell Estates most recently I listed and sold my home just a few months ago which was the most expensive home ever sold in either Chartwell Estates or shelburn farms and quite frankly it's not even close it was by a wide margin um now when I lived in Chartwell I would often go across the street and take walks in shelburn farms um and and some of my best friends my and my wife and my kids best friends they live over there and we've spent a ton of time over there actually um church that I used to go to our small group used to meet at their house um so we would go to shelburn Farms even before we lived in Chartwell States like every week and so and so our kids have been over there at their pool in their playground all that kind of stuff and so we've gotten to know even that neighborhood through a a variety of means not as closely as chart World Estates obviously um but but closely enough now on a surface level these neighborhoods look nearly the same homes ranging from 10 to 20ish years old um in the exact same area of Greer like I said these neighborhoods are right across the street from each other on Gib shols Road um same school district um they had like I said similar Builders for a good portion of homes in in both neighborhoods they both have a pool they both have common areas they both have sidewalks they both have an HOA that's about the same price um but that is where the similarities end um charwell Estates like most neighborhoods had multiple phases of development you you'll see sometimes when you drive by a subdivision it's going up it'll say say you know phase three blah blah blah and and then it'll invariably say pric is starting in the low 20000s but that sign is like 5 years old and actually prices are now in the mid 300s for the cheapest home so I I get questions about that sometimes isn't that false advertising it's like no well I think technically it's just an old sign they can get away with it um but um anyway it's not uncommon for neighborhoods to have multiple phases of development all that means is that they opening up one you know one area of the neighborhood developing that once they sell enough of that part of the neighborhood then they open up another part of the neighborhood we'll develop that sell that then they'll and then it just keeps going and then they just keep opening up various parts of the neighborhood and those are all just different phases what's unique about Chartwell Estates is that among these different phases there were at least four different builders that built in the neighborhood um and to my knowledge I I don't think that was the case at all at shelburn farms I believe all of shelburn farms was built by Ryan Holmes um I'm not aware that there was a second developer at any point in shelburn farms but in Chartwell Estates there was a variety of Builders um the the two biggest ones were sepa and SK Builders I I believe also that um that crown or and perhaps even lenar was in there and then there was also and I don't know who built these but there are some almost like stately looking houses right when you come into the community that have been converted into different things including the clubhouse the clubhouse was actually originally going to be a single family home there was a builder that had an idea for for making it a really expensive neighborhood but then that Builder the way I understand it ran out of money and they only Built three homes and and then had to abandon so long story short you've got one neighborhood Chartwell Estates that looks very different when you actually pay attention than this other neighborhood shelburn Farms that was all built by the same Builder Chartwell Estates has just and again if you look at it on a superficial level you won't notice it but if you look closely you drive around you'll see oh these homes on this side of the neighborhood look different than on this side of the neighborhood um you'll see as well that in shelburn farms it's almost exclusively twostory homes that is the vast majority of the homes in that neighborhood whereas Chartwell Estates has a a huge variety there are two-story homes not not actually a ton of them but there are some two-story homes there are basement homes in Chartwell Estates um and there's a lot of ranches just single story homes um I like I said I don't know if there are any ranches in shelburn farms there probably are um but the vast majority are going to be twostory in that neighborhood um charwell Estates has a town home section so there's a whole row um actually a few rows of just Town Homes shelburn Farms does not have that um in Chartwell Estates and again this is because of all these different developers that came through here and did a lot of different things and there wasn't a clear unified plan for how to develop this neighborhood um the sidewalks in Chartwell estate are a bit choppy and kind of nonsensical like you don't it doesn't make a whole lot of sense like when a Sidewalk Ends or when it begins um there are you know various like easements that cut up the sidewalks just not great sidewalks in that neighborhood as a whole whereas shelburn Farms having that one developer the sidewalks are fantastic I mean it's a great neighborhood to walk in I already referenced that I would go across the street and Gib Sholes road is not a Pleasant Street to walk across um but I would do that just so that I could get to to those really nice s walks there in in shelburn farms um both neighborhoods have a community Pond but the Chartwell Estates community Pond is pretty difficult to access without trespassing and this was a big Bugaboo for some of the people there that they would have people kind of cutting through their yard in order to access the community Pond um on the flip side shelburn Farm also has a pond but it's extremely accessible viewable from a large portion of the neighborhood and it's just right there in in the middle common area like there is no trespassing involved you don't have to cut through anyone's yards um or even come close to anyone's yard in order to to get to that pond um similarly the common areas of chart Ro Estates are nearly non-existent um they developed that neighborhood as much as they possibly could and the main section that wasn't developable they still took all the trees down and and then he even sold it to someone who doesn't keep up with the Landscaping which is very frustrating um I when I was on the HOA board there was a discussion about about purchasing that land back and the person was willing to sell it back to the community for the price that he bought it for and um the HOA president refused and said and and he basically had a bunch of Yes Men on on the board and so whatever he said was just done um and he basically said no he he has not he can't develop it it's not worth anything to him he wants us to buy it it's going to be Pennies on the dollar from what he bought it for um so in instead what we have is just an overgrown what could be a common area but instead it's actually private property so you can't go on it um so it's neither developable it's also not usable as a common area whereas shelburn Farms on the other hand um when Ryan Holmes went in there the middle portion of the neighborhood they left all the trees up um and and they you know put a retention pond in in there and it kind of forms the central point of the community and it's just gives it a more attractive look um and there are Trails back in there I've never done any of the trails but there are some Trails into the woods um and it's just something just an a nice little added bonus for the neighborhood um shelburn Farm also in contrast to Chartwell has has nice little touches like dog poop bag dispensers near the sidewalks metal benches by the pond Etc things that chart will States doesn't have okay so I've just listed off a lot of key differences between these two neighborhoods and you're probably thinking well shelburn Farm sounds a lot nicer than Chartwell right yes from a neighborhood standpoint that is a logical conclusion to come to but between the two neighborhoods by far the nicer homes are in Chartwell Estates because Chartwell had the Final Phase completed by SK Builders which in my opinion is one of the better among the costeffective production Builders SK is one of the better ones um and I I'm I'm not going to say anything negative about Ryan Holmes on here but I would prefer SK Builders generally speaking they do better touches on their homes 30-year roofs typically as opposed to 20-year roofs granite countertops as opposed to laminate countertops Hardwoods um and nicer carpet as opposed to you know laminate type of floor surfaces nice crown mold Ming as opposed to no molding um just all of these things they just do they just make a a good home um and Ryan Holmes is really just a budget type of developer that that is their Niche um SK is is Just A step above that um so here's where I find this all interesting and this is where I'm going with all of this we have one Community shelburn farms in and in the same area as Chartwell Estates with a nicer common area and Community amenities generally larger homes CU a lot of those SK homes are ranches and they're and they're smaller um and then you have a community across the street that was built around the same time at least development started the first phase was around the same time with homes that were built nicer in general um and those nicer homes tended to be more in the final phases so they are also newer than the homes in shelburn farms um and so what ends up being more important to people is it the home or is it the neighborhood and from my time being in Chartwell I felt like something changed in terms of people's perceptions of these two neighborhoods and and part of this isn't just a gut feeling from like hearing people talk at the pool some of this is just as I'm monitoring I look at every home that comes on the market in Greenville MLS every day and some of this is as I see homes coming for sale it's like it it felt like something changed where like chart wall Estates was consistently more expensive than shelburn farms for a a good stretch there and then something flipped and so I decided you know what this is an interesting possibility let's go back and let's track over the past decade or so what exactly has happened so I went back to 2010 to look at what these neighborhoods sold for on average technically not average but looking at medians um obviously I took out the town homes because that's kind of a confounding type of of data piece um so I only looked at single family detached homes and I looked in 2010 at both neighborhoods and lo and behold the numbers are almost identical let me pull these numbers up here 2010 shelburn Farms median list price was $4,900 so basically $155,000 list price and the median sold price was 150,000 um on the flip side chart well Estates the median list price was 147,00 75 and the median sold price was 147,00 so we're talking about the sold price the the median sold price between these two communities was different by basically $2,500 almost identical a 1.67% difference the price per square foot also almost identical and this is an important measure because like I said um generally speaking Chartwell is going to have smaller homes in shelburn now there's one big exception and that's actually the largest homes out of all of them between the two are in Chartwell Estates those basement homes but um generally speaking on average the homes in shelburn are larger than homes in Chartwell so we need to look at the price per square foot um the price per square foot in shelburn was $771 and in Chartwell it was $782 again that's negligible that's basically the same um and let me pause for one second and just say this I I've mentioned this before but a bear is repeating when we look at the price per square foot homes that are smaller in neighborhoods the smaller homes tend to have a larger price per square foot and there's a very simple reason for that and that's that ultimately a home or a neighborhood will command a certain value regardless of the size of the home if it has three bedrooms and it has two bathrooms it's just not going to sell below a certain price point it doesn't matter if it's 1100 square ft or, 1300 Square ft it's it's there's going to be a bottom and usually that bottom is not as great of a difference there's not as great of a difference between where that bottom is versus you know where the price would be if the home were slightly larger so what we see is typically in in a neighborhood the the smallest homes have a higher price per square foot number than the larger homes that's a very commonplace thing that we see so we need to keep that in mind so to account for that what I then also did was I said well let's just look at the homes that are between 1400 and 2,00 square F feet or sorry I I did 1400 to 2200 square F feet because I wanted to take out those like, to to 1,300 square foot homes because um shelburn Farms just doesn't have very many homes that size so I wanted to to see what the difference was there shelburn farms in 2010 those homes it was the same price again basically all shelburn Farms homes are going to be between 1,400 and 2200 ft it was $150,000 was the median for Chartwell it was $145,000 $200 so Chartwell a little bit cheaper than shelburn farms in 2010 now um I would be remiss if I didn't mention that Chartwell estate still had not finished Construction in 20 10 there were still homes being built it still hadn't finished I don't even know if it had entered the Final Phase yet I'd have to do a lot of research to figure that out it's not easy to to figure that out um either they hadn't started the Final Phase yet or they were in the Final Phase and it hadn't been completed yet and so we still have actually a couple more years of new construction happening in Chartwell Estates before that neighborhood is completely phased out and so um that's a really important consideration when we're looking at that that that's going to have a direct impact on these numbers so let's Jump Ahead 5 years when all construction is complete between both neighborhoods um shelburn Farm now at this point starts to pull away a little bit the median list price was 100 basically 180,000 for shelburn Farms as opposed to Chartwell was 170,000 that's a a 5 a half% difference the median sold price in shelburn was1 177,000 in Chartwell it was 675 also a five a little more than a 5% difference um the price per square foot again chart wall with the smaller homes has a slightly higher price per square foot of of $95.95 shelburn was $929 um so Chartwell has the edge there by 6.25% but then when you look at homes between where we have the biggest Gap homes that are between 1,400 and 2200 square ft shelburn Farms on average sold those for 175,00 and Chartwell for 160,000 um and so I draw a few few conclusions for that first off we have some moderate moderate price gains happening remember that we're still in between 2010 and 2015 still pulling out of the Great Recession prices from 2010 through 2012 basically didn't go up and and so if it sound if it sounds kind of crazy that the average price in shelburn farms in 5 years went from 150,000 to 177,000 um that that's not very much well it it's not very much in comparison to what we've seen more recently but when you think about the dynamic that we were still we still had all of this economic stagnation particularly in the housing market um that's that helps to explain what was going on there but now we're starting to see the the median sold price went from being shelburn being only 1.67% different to now it's 5.34% greater than Chartwell Estates and so advantage to Neighborhood versus home quality so far 2015 all right let's Jump Ahead another 5 years and I'm trying not to get to data heavy here so just bear with me this is going somewhere but if we jump ahead another 5 years to 2020 something very interesting happens and that is that the trend reverses now the median list price in shelburn farms has now jumped up to to 210,000 but in Chartwell it's 235,000 now Chartwell is a has completely reversed the script remember it was behind F basically 5 a half% in 2015 and 2020 it's now TW basically 12% higher list price than shelburn farms and the sold price is 8.22% higher than shelburn Farms which sold for um actually above what it was listed for it sold for 213,000 as the median and the Chartwell median was 23,500 the price per square foot again now Chartwell extends to a 12% difference from 100 chart wall was 118,000 sorry $118.2 per square foot shelburn Farms was $556 per square foot um and then if we look at the again that between 1,400 to 2200t range homes just to to try to keep things as equal as possible between these two neighborhoods there's even a bigger Gap um Chartwell estate sold those homes on average for 227,00 and shelburn Farms was at 196,50 so that's a 15.63% difference um so in 2020 Chartwell was dominating all of these numbers versus shelburn Farms after shelburn Farms had had been moderately winning in these categories for for all of these years so what was happening all right I've got some theories here um in 2020 we now have shelburn Farms approaching as a community about 20 years old now for production Built Homes with Builder grade types of finishes this is a bad time once they reach the age of 20 years old it's a bad time for several reasons um I've already alluded to many of these homes when they're built they have by like a Ryan Holmes type of Builder they have 20e roofs so guess what 20 years later if they have not replaced those roofs now those roofs are at the end of their lifespans well what about other big things AC units water heaters and kitchen appliances those all are well past their normal lifespan at the 20-year Mark guess what a lot of people are trying to hang on for dear life trying not to have to replace that AC unit trying not to have to replace that water heater maybe they have you know replaced some of the elements in the water heater but it's rusted out it's it's not doing well and and and and so you know these homes come on the market and people see ooh all these things all these big ticket items really are needing to be replaced are or are close to needing to be replaced um Additionally you consider the the interior elements of a builder grade home a lot of things are going to be laminate you're going to have laminate flooring you're going to have laminate countertops in the kitchen maybe even in the bathrooms um you know a lot of situations where flooring and and countertops and whatnot are just going to have a tremendous amount of wear and tear you're going to have cheap windows that after 20 years cheap Windows just really start to fail um honestly it starts happening sooner than that um so all of these Builder grade things that would have been utilized in this neighborhood they're they're just going to start falling apart and you know that happens well before the the that 20-year marker but just once these homes are starting to be sold around that time period um all of these things add up and it and it hurts the resale value of these homes if they have not been updated and even if they have been updated you consider that all the homes in the neighborhood that haven't that have sold are now hurting the homes that have been updated so there's just there's a lot of factors when it comes to all of this now um remember in 20120 Chartwell still has some homes that are less than 10 years old because the way I understand it Chartwell can finished finally finished building in 2012 so in 2020 there are still some homes that are less than 10 years old and and many of the homes in this community are going to have 30-year roofs granite countertops nicer flooring all of these things and so in spite of the nicer neighborhood Dynamics over at shelburn shelburn farms the we had this other Dynamic going on in 2020 where that neighborhood had kind of reached you know the the middle-aged the the I don't know what you want to call it the crisis point of production Built Homes that happens when they're around that 20-year Mark that they tend to that it didn't go down in value obviously we still saw a value increase but in com in contrast to another neighborhood in this case Chartwell Estates that had homes that were newer um it it hurt shelburn farms in comparison however since covid Community amenities have been really really important to a lot of people and as I said earlier this is where shelburn Farms really outperforms chart Ro Estates and so a fascinating thing happens when we look at 2022 sales and so that's what I did I I looked at what happened the past year not only did shelburn Farms recover but it outperformed Chartwell Estates more than it had at any other time with the only exception being price per square foot um but even there it pulled the price per square foot substantially closer so here's what happened in 2022 the median list price in shelburn farms jumped all the way to $328,000 $328,000 it was 210,000 in on average or median in 2020 it jumped all the way to 328,000 in 2022 charwell Estates on the other hand was at 269,000 massive difference almost an 18 % difference with shelburn Farms ahead the median sold price at shelburn 323,000 500 just a tick below what the list price was Chartwell actually sold for more than list price at 272,000 but that's still a a 15.78% difference in favor of shelburn farms the price per square foot like I said Chartwell was ahead but it was only ahead 7.21% remember it was ahead 12% in 2020 so even that Gap narrowed um with the numbers being 162 48 per square foot for shelburn farms and Chartwell was $174.99 so um so even that Gap chart wall is always going to beat unless something weird happens I think will always beat shelburn Farms on price per square foot simply because of having those smaller ranch homes um but even that Gap got closed and then if you want to look at that between 1,400 to 2200 ft range in order to to keep things as fair and equal as possible shelburn Farms still ahead by 13% It was on average $36,000 for the median sale not on average for the median sale and Chartwell was 275,000 so um really a a very interesting turn of events that we had that happened in just a 2-year period of time and at the end of the day here is my conclusion illusion in our current housing climate homes and communities with good amenities and laid out in a cohesive way in other words in the neighborhood the homes are laid out in a cohesive way they have good amenities it's a good neighborhood to run in it's a good neighborhood to walk in it's a good neighborhood to have a dog in to have kids all of those types of things they punch way above their weight in comparison to homes and communities that don't have those things um and what that means among other things is that having a good HOA board is more important now than ever having a good HOA board that knows how to guide a community and to use Community funds is super duper important um but also a big conclusion that I have is be beyond all of that is we do need to be more aware when we're building in production built neighborhoods of of that 20e marker that is a really important marker um if you're if you don't intend to update your home over the years um you probably need to consider selling before you get close to that 20-year marker for a production built home now if it's different I think if you do intend to upgrade your home but then you have to remember and this is the big deal in production built neighborhoods where all the homes are the same that you don't over improve your home because just like I said that there is a floor whereby in these neighborhoods homes W will not sell below that floor even if they're small there's always a ceiling whereby homes won't sell above that ceiling and at the very least appraisers will keep that ceiling in check they will make sure that homes do not exceed a certain price point um and and it doesn't matter whether you put in the nicest granite in the world it doesn't matter whether you put in the most expensive hard hardwood floors in the world people are going to still treat your home like a production built home at the end of the day even with those types of updates that you've done and so when we're looking at neighborhoods there are different things to keep in mind in terms of where values will go over the years but I think one thing we need to give more consideration to is what the neighborhood as a whole is doing is is it is the neighborhood as a whole going in the right direction and I'm not just talking about from a deferred maintenance standpoint are there a lot of people that have deferred maintenance that have junky cars you know out on the street all of these types of things but is the community laid out well is it logical do they have nice common areas is there do they keep up with their pool area do they is it friendly for Animals is it friendly for kids all of these types of things that directly impacts home values in a very real way and and what we've seen is a dramatic reversal even in spite of shelburn farms seeing not having As Nice at homes as chart wall Estates does generally speaking their home values have gone up dramatically in recent years and my personal opinion is that that is directly related to the neighborhood and so I use those two as an example because I know those two very well and they're very close to each other and they were built about the same time so it's a good sample to pull from but I think that this applies to a lot of other neighborhoods in the upstate and perhaps even outside of the upstate as you guys know I always caveat I'm only a real estate expert in the upstate of South Carolina I have no idea what's going on in Chicago or San Diego or Las Vegas besides some stats that I you know look at online but I can only speak to what it's like here in the Greenville area now if you would like to move to or within the Greenville area you can feel free to reach out to me my contact information is in the show notes if you need to reach out to me for any reason if you enjoyed episode 150 of selling Greenville then please subscribe to make sure that you don't miss episode 151 I will be releasing episodes every single week as long as I can and so we'll have another one hopefully next week and I would appreciate if you guys could hit the Subscribe button scroll down in your app and and hit the five star button leave a short little review if you don't mind and I hope you guys stay safe we will talk again next week [Music]