[Music] Hello everyone and Welcome to another episode of Selling Greenville your favorite real estate podcast here in 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 my contact information in the show notes if you need to reach out to me for any of your real estate needs and just a reminder as always if you enjoy the show Please Subscribe please share with your friends I don't usually ask you guys to do that but go ahead and share with your friends a lot of you guys are good about doing that anyway but please do that and if you're using Apple podcast or Spotify please hit that little five star button please leave a short little review if you don't mind and that helps get the show out to as many people as possible and that encourages me to keep going with it all right today I want to talk about what is going on in the world of real estate and politics here in South Carolina specifically not so previously we've talked a little bit about what's going on in Greenville this time we're going to talk about more on the state level and the reason why I'm choosing to do that right now is for two reasons one is that I'm now the Greenville representative for for the Realtor Association on the South Carolina Association of Realtors legislative committee so we have people Realtors on that committee from associations all over the state I am now the Greenville representative on that committee and that committee exists the South Carolina committee exists to Simply help real estate related things happen in government and for real estate friendly politicians to get in and stay in government it's not affiliated with any specific party it's just affiliated with real estate so an example of one thing that was a major priority for them a few years ago was when the pandemic happened there was a big question of whether real estate was going to be an essential business or not and I think I brought this up recently in a in a different episode but it was a really big deal it was like an all Hands-On debt kind of thing making sure that real estate did not get deemed inessential or non-essential in the state of South Carolina and so that's where this South Carolina legislative committee kicked in did a whole bunch of work to try to and and successfully got the the government to see real estate as an as an essential business and so here we are now we have a variety of things going on that directly impact real estate for everyone and things that this committee is now being involved with m on top of that I just got back from last week I spent three days in Columbia South Carolina at a realtor conference called Capital conference and this was basically all things real estate and politics for the state of South Carolina now a lot of this was was review for me because I am on the legislative committee so it wasn't like I was hearing all of these things for the first time but it was still very interesting and still extremely insightful and I enjoyed my time there even though I was pretty tired when I came back had a lot of work to do of course you know when you're at a conference like that you don't just get to check out and not answer your phone or whatever I'm still serving all of my clients but there's always plenty of stuff that gets backed up when something like that happens that doesn't impact my clients and so Friday Saturday Sunday I was having to do a ton of work catching up from everything and here I am recording this on Monday on the heels of all of that but it was a good time I enjoyed my time there and before I even get into any of these specific things with what's going on at the state level when it comes to real estate I found very interesting multiple people that I spoke to at the Capitol conference that were from Greenville or from anywhere because there were people from all over the state at this event what I kept hearing was everyone was working a lot but not making a lot of money to start this year but they saw a lot coming in the pipeline this was a consistent thing that a lot of people said not a lot of closings to start the year but a lot of work and potential hopeful for future payout as it seemed like the spring season was going to be busy so this kind of strengthened my belief that we are going to see in the second quarter of this year really a big uptick in real estate in the upstate there's a lot of things pointing to that that I see anecdotal and statistical and now I've had a lot of other conversations with other Realtors who are seeing the exact same thing so this seems to be a trend this seems to be pointing in a certain direction of course the Federal Reserve this past week they announced that they are increasing rates they did signal some optimism that of course they they only raised the their Benchmark rate by 25 basis points but they signal some optimism and perhaps we are coming towards the end if not already at the end of these rate increases coming from the feds so what I think needs to happen and I I think I've said this before but I'm going to say it again because people keep asking me and I keep telling them listen to my listen to my podcast what I think is going to happen is that the the headlines on the media are going to start changing and start becoming more reflective of reality because people are are seeing these headlines seeing Oh home prices is going way down oh the market is flipping all these things and and they're they're misunderstanding what's happening it's not that prices are lower than they were a year ago and it's not that we expect prices to go down this year versus 2022 it's just that the prices aren't going to go up at the rate that they were before and so if they again I know I use this exact example just recently but I'm going to say it again because I keep getting this question from people if you go from rates being sorry from appreciation one year being 20% year on year and then that goes down to 5% year on year that's a massive decrease and so headlines are focusing on that decrease but that decrease is still a decrease in the rate of appreciation it's not saying that prices are going down they're just appreciating at a slower rate um so I just need I I just feel like that it Bears repeating because those questions keep getting thrown out but all that to say what I think is going to happen is as things start looking better as the media realizes that the housing market isn't crashing that they they can't honestly put those headlines forward because people are going to see right through them I think that the media narrative is going to change and then I think that that will impact people's perception of the market as well and then that will impact their actions and I think that all of that will probably come at a time when it's the busy season for the market anyway and so um that's kind of what I'm anticipating here for the spring and summer um but as far as what's happening on the state level there are um a lot of interesting things I think for starters we're going to have a slow start to this year um because there's a lot of new people new state legislators particularly in the house um but I think also in the Senate as well um well no I I should clarify it's mostly in the house the Senate did not have as much as much turnover I misspoke there for a second the turnover was mostly in the house there's a lot of freshman congressmen here in the state and so that is is going to it's just going to take them some time to catch up on some things but there are some very very important things that are going to be discussed this year um I'm not going to go through all of these things but I think it's worth mentioning a few of these and I think you guys will find some of these things interesting um probably the most interesting one for me there there's a well there's a few of them um but the one that really stands out to me is um Lee hwit who is a realtor um he filed a bill in the house regarding short-term rental legislation and what he's he's basically he's not thinking that this bill is going to be passed okay um it has to go through the Senate nobody thinks it will go through the Senate but it has actually a lot of support in the house and and this bill is essentially um has the idea that if local municipalities which I understand to be cities counties and the like if they do any sort of ban on short-term rentals meaning B not allowing people to use their houses for Airbnb purposes for rentals of less than 30 days that then that property would no longer be subject to the 6% investment tax rate then that property would be taxed as an owner occupied property that is not going to pass the Senate okay it's just it's not going to happen but that being said it is interesting that there is all this interest in the house on on getting short-term rentals accepted at the state level um and so in the end what what this is doing what representative hwit is trying to do is he's trying to build this Coalition in the house so that they can then go to the and start a conversation start negotia start negotiating start trying to figure out how can we reach consensus on this because it's it's very difficult you've got all of these different places that have all these different rules about short-term rentals and honestly from my standpoint as a realtor it's challenging right I have people come to me and they're like hey I want to buy an investment property potentially used as an Airbnb and it's like okay avoid City Limits um well which city well for sure Greenville right well I saw that there that there are airbnbs in Greenville in within the city yes they're not operating legally and they could end up getting busted well why don't they get busted well because the City of Greenville is not currently actively at least to my knowledge seeking these offenders out they're kind of waiting on until people get reported um you know well what about other cities well yeah some of the other cities have their own rules about short-term rentals as well well what about HOAs um now I don't think that that this legislation would impact HOAs I think HOAs would still have the autonomy to reject short-term rentals but I think you get the point is that it's confusing when I'm trying to guide clients in trying to make a a short-term a potential investment short-term rental purchase um it's not easy to do because of all these different rules and you'll sometimes you'll cross over into C limits that have rules that you don't even know about and you don't even know that you crossed over City Limits like Greer City Limits look that one up sometime and and see how absolutely bizarre Greer City Limits is um so I'm very interested in that I'm hoping that they're able to maybe even work something out um this year with the with the Senate um right now the language of the actual bill by the way this is House Bill 3253 if you want to look it up um the language isn't important they're just trying to get people to the table so that'll be something interesting to watch another one that I thought was interesting that I think you guys will find interesting is roll back taxes on agricultural property so if you have property that is used agricultural for agricultural farming uses you get major major property tax breaks but if you then go and sell it to someone who's going to change that use from agricultural to something else or I believe if you yourself change it from agricultural to a different use you're then subject to pay back taxes based on the new use now recently that was changed from a from five years of back taxes which is insane five years of back taxes um it was changed from 5 years to 3 years um but House Bill 3071 is trying to get that change down to one year um I I think that that's extremely reasonable honestly I don't think that there should be any back taxes there there's another bill um that's out there that's trying to get that the the roll back taxes um reduced to $1 um but long story short they're they're trying to reduce the impact of farm selling their Land once they can no longer make money from agricultural uses um that bill it's it's not going anywhere immediately but we've done it once before we've gotten it reduced from 5 to three years now we just need to go from three to one year we just need to get enough people that are cons that see the need for that it's just it's just not fair if you own agricultural property and you need to sell it you shouldn't be penalized for the the fact that that you're trying to sell it so that's something that that is being worked on um another one that I thought was interesting um this isn't a bill this is more just something that the South Carolina Association of Realtors is working on is wholesaling for those of you who don't know wholesaling is basically um some people might call it bird dogging um it's B basically what real estate what being a real estate agent used to be like a hundred years ago back when Real Estate started on Wall Street and before there was all these rules surrounding it but the long story short wholesaling is when someone finds a motivated seller someone that wants to sell their property for below market value usually it requires a lot of work often times it has a tenant that's paying well below what Market rent is and then that wholesaler gets it under contract for say $100,000 and then goes out and markets it to potential buyers for 120,000 and then if he gets a buyer for that price or perhaps more then that buyer ends up purchasing it for that full amount the seller gets the $100,000 and the wholesaler gets the difference between the two so this is an interesting so I I stand in an interesting place here because a lot of wholesalers in the Greenville area are my friends I've actually gone out of my way to to make friends with them and I've had a lot of closings over the years with them properties I bought properties my clients have bought and so I do not and and before I became a realtor I actually did some wholesale deals myself I I created a website I got some leads there and it it wasn't something that it was something decided I did not want to do I instead chose to go the realtor route but at the end of the day I don't look at wholesaling and think oh this is a terrible thing the problem is that there's a lot of wholesalers out there that are dishonest take advantage of people steal deals from the good wholesalers do all sorts of things and so the South Carolina Association Realtors is looking at this because it's like okay from a realtor perspective they they see wholesalers as basically undermining everything that Realtors have taken so long to build you know we've got this code of ethics we've got all these rules we have to follow and for wholesalers they they really don't have any rules to follow the Only Rule is don't get sued you know don't do something that might get you sued and so there's a task force that's looking into this I'm not to be honest super optimistic IC that they're going to be able to to get something legally accomplished that will really Curt tail wholesaling I think that they could if they really wanted to if they if they were willing to do to make a few changes that were necessary but at for the time being I'm not sure that that's something that that's going to happen and and I'm just going to leave it at that another item that is on the South Carolina Association of Realtors agenda for trying to change in our local politics in our on in our state politics is trying to get rid of discriminatory HOA regulations and that might you might not realize that this is a thing because obviously HOAs that have been popping up the past 20 or 30 years they don't discriminate right they follow they're not legally allowed to discriminate they follow fair housing laws they have to they can't say you know hey only people of this color or this nationality can live in this neighborhood they are allowed to have neighborhoods that are age restricted but that's only to help the elderly population right that's not to exclude people that's simply to help people you know in these 55 and older communities but there are discriminatory regulations that are out there on older properties properties that aren't in a classic HOA Community where you have to pay HOA dues but there are still what we call deed restrictions on those properties so here's what this concept is if I own a property I can pay for an attorney to file deed restrictions I you could probably do it with the register of deeds without paying anything I've never gone through that process but you can add deed restrictions to your property you can basically say hey I don't want people to ever have Livestock on this property and the reason why people will do this is let's say that you're you're you've got like 20 acres and you want to keep you know a couple acres with your house on it but you want to sell off all the other acreage but you don't want to be near chickens because they stink right You can then put those deed restrictions on that property and then when you sell that property those restrictions apply and and and are enforcable unless those restrictions at some point are overruled by state or federal law well that's what we had with some of these discriminatory restrictions that would not allow black people in certain neighborhoods when laws were passed that said no that's not allowed those discriminatory regulations basically became non-enforceable but they're still on the books and here's the challenge is that it's not it's not cheap or easy to get rid of them and you say well why is it not cheap or easy well it because of the fact that again let's say that you didn't want there to be chickens near your house and when sold off land you put those deed restrictions in there you don't want it to be just easy for someone to go in there and change that without you giving your consent and so there are protections and Provisions in place to protect those deed restrictions but here we have a very unusual situation where when where those deed restrictions are still in place because they're difficult and expensive to get rid of but they aren't able to be enforced because they're now illegal but it's still hurtful to some people because it will come up and we'll see this when the closing attorney they do their title work they might find these deed restrictions and then they send them to the buyer the buyer reads them and it's like you know what's up with this you know that they didn't allow certain people in this neighborhood you know 70 years ago that's insane but that's the the type of thing that we see sometimes in real estate in specifically in the South so they're trying to we're trying to come up with a way so that it doesn't have to be a burdensome and lengthy and expensive legal process to get rid of regulations HOA regs covenants and restrictions that are already illegal on the state or federal level so hopefully we'll be able to see some movement on that because everyone wants that right there's no reason for us to have illegal covenants and restrictions on the books we can just we should be able to find a way to to wipe those clear but we need to do it in a way that doesn't potentially undermine the legal regulations the legal deed restrictions that people have that we could potentially put in danger by making it too easy to get restrictions so we have to to find the balance between those two things and it's taken a lot longer than we thought it would because it's it's trickier to do to find that balance between getting rid of these illegal restrictions and but also not opening the door to making it easy to get rid of a lot of legal restrictions as well so that's something that is being looked at that's being worked on as well u we have a lot more there's a lot more on this that I could talk about there's a big push for Realtors to have better education and for Brokers to be closer to their agents we could find a situation in the near future where maybe Brokers aren't allowed to broker more than one office that would be very interesting there's also a constant push towards Realtors having better training and some of this is and and what I'm a a big fan of because we all know that there's a lot of Realtors out there that don't know what they're doing they're actually talking about implementing core educational classes that are required that actually teach Realtors how to do real estate like wow that would be incredible cuz right now pretty much the only type of core education that we have as Realtors is just talking about legal stuff and talking about ethical things that type of stuff that you don't ever get into oh here's a practical class on how to actually sell real estate currently the system is structured so that Brokers and and brokerages are responsible for doing that but guess what some of these brokerages they don't do anything they don't have meetings hardly at all I mean yeah they're legally required to have meetings but you're not legally required to attend them you're not legally required to go to any education that your if you're a realtor that your brokerage provides so I think that the Realtor Association is starting to realize you know hey we need to we we've got quite a bit of money we're sitting on quite a bit of money which by the way the the llr is threatening to take some of the South Carolina Association of realtor's money if we don't start spending it which is kind of insane but some of that money is is hopefully going to go to good educational uses and so I'm optimistic about that so those are just a few things happening on the state level that are interesting I'm I'm going to keep you guys you guys know I'm involved I'm pretty involved in the local political scene that's something that I enjoy I feel like it's a lot more interesting and a lot more potential for impact than on the national federal level so I will keep you guys apprised of things that are happening that pertain to real estate as I become aware of them but I hope that this was helpful and informative for you and I think that the future is bright we need to we need to keep pushing these things forward hopefully our our state politics which is kind of divided right right now just like it is on a national level hopefully we'll be able to find some common ground on some things in order to get things ped but but we'll see it's going to be an interesting next few years with these new people that are that are in the state house and and we'll just have to follow it one month one year at a time thank you guys for listening all my contact information is in the show notes if you need to reach out to me for any of your real estate needs Please Subscribe rate and review the show and we will talk again next time [Music]