[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 Greenville area you can find all of
my contact information as always in the
show notes if you need to reach out to
me for any of your real estate needs and
please just remind please subscribe to
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right today we are going to be talking
about what we do pretty much every month
and particularly when the market is as
volatile as it is right now and when
we're trying to figure out what exactly
is happening we're going to be
looking at the market stats published by
the greater Greenville Association of
Realtors to try to read the tea leaves
on what is happening in the local real
estate market right now and there's a
lot of interesting stuff in here so
we're just going to jump right in and
start at the very top with new listings
new listings went way way way down in
December of of
20122 I'm saying the lowest new
listings number that we had seen since
since December of 2018 a 4year low so
the market has really in December in
particular really corrected you might
say overcorrected for what was happening
with demand going down and we saw a
massive decrease in Supply a an
insane I mean for it to be the lowest in
four years that is an insane number
because demand hasn't gone down to 18
levels demand is still extremely high in
comparison to what it was four years ago
in the Greenville area specifically
again as a reminder a few a few things I
I need to make sure that I express here
when I talk about these Market stats
these are Greenville and my opinions are
Greenville only these do not apply to
other markets although there might be
some resemblance some similarities to
to other markets and as well I'm
limited by the data that the greater
Greenville Association of Realtors
provides this data does get redacted in
future months and so there's one
particular data set the pending sales
number which is usually way way off for
the most recent month we'll get to that
in a second anyway those are a few
things that I want to hedge but in the
Greenville area we saw a massive Plunge
in new listings in the month of December
but then we saw in January so so this
past month which which is the primary
month that we're looking at because
obviously we don't have February numbers
yet January hopped all the way back up
from what it was in December we had 945
new listings which is like again that's
like nothing that's like 30 listings per
day January hop back up to
1,380 listings that is a 7 5%
increase year-on-year why is that
important that's important because we
had had three three straight months and
four out of six months of year on-year
declines in in new listings so we had a
7.5% increase year- on-year in new
listings and an even bigger jump month-
on-month obviously from 945 to
1380 so it seems like I I don't want to
draw any like massive conclusions from
this but for sure listings that would
normally have been in December for
whatever reason people waited until the
New Year to to list their homes and I
don't know if that was an overcorrection
as a result of okay the Market's slowing
down plus we've got the holidays we're
just going to wait until the new year
and see what happens I don't know if
that was because mortgage rates
started to taper off and people were
feeling a little bit more optimistic and
so they started listing more houses in
January I don't know I'm curious
to see what happens with this number
because as you probably know since
We've last kind of talked about these
numbers now people are expecting
mortgage rates to go a little bit higher
than what we originally thought this
year because all of these jobs
reports and different things that are
coming out would lead us to to think
that the FED is going to keep pushing up
their funds rate their interest rates
and that then in part is going to drive
up mortgage rates in fact this past week
we already saw it happen where mortgage
rates went up basically half a half a
point which is a massive increase in one
week as PE as mortgage markets
immediately responded to the jobs
report numers so all of that to say it
does appear that a lot of these new
listing numbers are tied to these
other things people aren't wanting to
list their home if they don't think they
can afford a home to buy which makes a
lot of sense so we'll have to keep
keep track of this but that January
number that was that was a higher number
that was our our first year on-year
increase in new listings since
September of 2022 again to reiterate
some December listings appear to have
been baked into that but we'll we'll
have to continue to to keep track of
that and see what happens all right
pending sales pending sales this is
the one that I just said is is going to
be inaccurate highly inaccurate for the
month of January but we can still piece
together some some things from this all
right so first off we're going to go
back to the month of December because
that should now be accurate so
originally and this is why I'm just
going to show you guys because you're
probably like why does he always make
this hedge about pending sales here's
what pending sales for the month of
December said in last year's GG Market
stats sorry in last month's ggr
Market stats I'm trying to to multitask
here and it's not working so when
they when they published a January
Market stats which covers the month of
December they said the pending sales for
the month of December was
548 and that also impacts the months
of
inventory month supply of inventory
which they had at
2.7
for now the February Market stats
when they revised the December numbers
it knocked up those pending sales back
up to to 767 so that's a that's a big
difference from what did I just say
500 something 548 that's a that's a
massive difference you know I
don't know what the percent difference
is but it's big it's big right so that's
why we can't really look at the current
the the most recent months pending sales
because this is it's this way every
single month I've been tracking these
Market stats for years and every single
month the pending sales numbers are
lower than they should be but we can
look at the trends leading up to the
month of January and the trends leading
up to the month of January is that
pending sales are appearing like they're
going to be roughly 25 to 30% down
basically the entire year if things
continue the way they are they're going
to be down 25 to 30% October of 2022 was
down 25% year on year November was down
29% year-on-year December was down 28 8%
year
onye and I expect something very similar
for for January once we next month
Stats come out and then we can see the
revised number for January I'm expecting
it to be kind of in that 30% range so
pending sales are down and obviously
that then impacts closed sales and
that's exactly what we've seen December
Clos sales were down 24.3% year on year
in January it was down
31.2% year onye if you're Cur curious
about those numbers it was 767
closed sales in January of of 2023 in
this past month versus the previous
year it was
1,
115 sales for the month of January
2022 so that's a that's a big drop
off and and that's also a very low
number that is the lowest number that
we've seen since Jan January of 2019
so here we go again where we have a
4-year low in closed sales and and again
that's a
31.2% decrease year on-year so the
market the real estate market is
Contracting right now that's just the
reality of the situation the least
number of closed sales in four years
and I talked about this what was it
last week I think how I was talking to
other Realtors
and we were discussing about just how
slow the beginning of the year was and
that's what's reflected here 767 closed
sales you know how many Realtors are in
Greenville there's like 4,000 realtors
in Greenville and some of those 767
sales would have had a dual agent so
it's pretty safe to assume that less
than
750 Realtors this past month made any
money and that's insane that is insane
to think about for for for the
Greenville
Market all right days on Market until
sale I've been saying this number is
going to keep going up up up because so
many sellers didn't adjust to the
shifting Market they listed their homes
too expensive they were you know
assuming that their homes would keep
going up in value at the at the rate
that they had been they didn't know what
they were doing they got greedy whatever
the case may be and we've been seeing
this number going up roughly 60% year
on-year for each
month basically for the past four months
and January was no different the
number climbed all the way up to 49 days
on Market until sale that's a 58.1%
increase from 31 which is what it was in
January of
2022 now just a reminder days on
Market until Sal it's the average number
of days between when a property is
listed and when an offer is accepted in
a given month I think this number is
going to continue to go up and I've been
saying this over and over and over again
because all of these people that didn't
adjust for the for the market as the
market was adjusting when they listed
their homes for too expensive now their
homes are lingering on the market
they're getting stale eventually they
will go under contract and eventually a
lot of these you know homes that are
being built by home builders that are
listed in MLS eventually they will go
under contract as well but if they've
been on the market for 90 or 100 days
that's going to Drive the number up so
as the as the absorption rate for some
of these homes that have been on the
market for a long time goes up and as
these homes start to sell again we're
just going to keep seeing this number go
up so we'll keep tracking it I expect it
to to plunge well into the 50s the
next time we're looking at these
Market stats and and it it may
it may keep just going way up from there
until we absorb absorb a lot of these
home a lot of these listings that have
just kind of been lingering on the
market because they've been overpriced
now here's an interesting one median
sales price this is one of the most
important numbers that we look at this
is really a good judge of what the
market is
doing and as I've discussed a gazillion
times but I'm going to mention it
again this isn't necessarily a onetoone
correlation with appreciation because
part of what goes into a median sales
price when it comes to when you're
looking at the entire Market obviously
if a bunch of really cheap homes or a
bunch of really expensive homes come on
the market or don't come on the market
that seriously impacts this number but
this is the closest number that we have
to kind of tracking whether the market
is is appreciating or is potentially in
a depreciative market and so we've seen
now going back to September of 2022
we had seen four straight months of
declines in this number January bucked
that Trend January the number jumped
back up to a 7% increase Year on-year
from 280,000 in January of 2022 it went
up to
2995 40 January of
2023 now I think a lot of this is
impacted by that we had some more
expensive homes sell in January than we
normally do and so I think that that is
an impact on this but at the same
time I think what this is telling us and
I've been telling you guys this
pretty much every month for the past
several months I've been waiting to see
does this median sales price go dip
below 285 or does it come within range
of 285 that's kind of the number that
would make me think that we're actually
seeing home prices going down and and
you know when we looked at at
December numbers it had gotten down to
296 and so it was like okay maybe
there's a possibility that we will see
that prices have have started to go down
below their seasonal Norms but now
it's jumped back up to 299 540 that
tells me and and with the 7% year
on-year increase at least for the moment
it's it's not looking like we're seeing
any sort of of actual prices go down
again this is not a perfect way of
looking at it but there isn't a perfect
way to look at it this is this is the
best way the best simple way for us to
to assess this now as I've said before
this median sales price it does not
account for seller concession so we
can't I I would have to do a lot more
digging in order to figure out okay
what about closing costs cuz sellers are
having to pay a lot more closing costs
than they paid in the past for buyers
that has it's finally come back right
it's been it's been 2 and a half
years basically since sellers have had
to pay any buyers closing costs that
used to kind of be the norm unless it
was a a bidding war multiple offer kind
of situation we are seeing more of that
happening where where sellers are
having to to contribute some towards
buyer closing costs now it's interesting
that really you have to look at what
Builders are doing to kind of better
understand to to best understand what's
happening in the market Builders are
offering all sorts of of incentives to
buyers right now offering all sorts of
closing costs offering Realtors you
know 5% commissions plus bonuses all
sorts of of different things offering
upgrades retail sellers are still I'm
still seeing that they are lagging
behind that they're not understanding
the Dynamics of the current market
and that's being reflected in them you
know overpricing their homes and saying
nope I'm not going to I'm not going to
lower my price well I'm fine with
sellers not you know with sticking to
their guns and I'm encouraging my
clients that are selling to stick to
their guns but I'm also not encouraging
them to overprice their home so that's a
really important I've seen I'm I'm still
seeing a lot of homes being overpriced
um and and sellers just not being
realistic about what they can get um and
then we're still seeing I I've I'm
surprised how much I've run into this
sellers not um in situations and and I
have to be careful with how I say this
because it is it's not directly what the
seller is doing it's an agreement
between the seller and the listing agent
on how this is handled but in essence
that a a buyer's agent is being offered
less than 3% what what we see most
commonly is 2 and a
half% and that is something seller
sellers are going to have to and and
again in cooperation with their with
their listing agents are going to have
to determine whether that's the best
strategy me personally I don't think
that that's the best strategy I think
that sellers should be offering
buyers agents
3% and the simple reason for that is
Buyer Agents often any good buyer agent
and that's who you want to be working
with if you're selling you want to work
with the best buyers agents out there
trust me you don't want to work with the
bad ones any good ones that are out
there are
requiring a minimum 3% commission that's
just the way it is the good ones are
going to get they're not going to reduce
their paycheck just to get something
just to get people under contract or or
whatever the case may be and so if
you're offering only 2 and a half% then
you're expecting the buyer then to have
to come up with that extra half percent
to pay for their agent well what if the
buyer can't do that or what if the buyer
just doesn't want to out of principle
which I've seen that before as well they
feel like that this should be the
seller's responsibility traditionally
that's been what the seller has
done I think it's more
attractive and and and I've seen this as
well you've
got certain agents that are out there
that when when they're looking at a
bunch of homes that come on the market
they see some that are offering 3% and
some that aren't what do you think even
if their client has agreed to to pay the
3% even if the seller isn't paying for
the entirety of it it's still that's a
conversation that you have to have with
your clients that's another thing you
have to factor into the numbers it
disincentivizes everyone to look at
those properties and now you can see
on Zillow and realtor.com and whatnot it
they're required now to publish the
buyer agent commission that's being
offered and by the way in the state
of South Carolina
previously so the entire time that I've
been a realtor there's been multiple
options for Buyer Agents where
basically you could agree to potentially
have you know basically I'm going to
get paid whatever the seller offers me
as as an option that is going away
this year they're going to remove that
the South Carolina Association of
Realtors is removing that from the form
and it's going to be a set number and so
every buyer's agent is going to have a
set number maybe some will go in there
and put 2 and a half% I don't know
again when they make these big changes
there is a little bit of an adjustment
period but I think that the vast
majority that and and already the
vast majority of good agents are already
doing 3% probably the bad agents or the
new agents also will will default to 3%
as well so people need to be getting in
Minds as they're selling their homes
they need to expect that that in this
market you just you have to offer the 3%
to the buyer agent that's my that's
my personal opinion you are free to
disagree with me but I just laid out
the data you can respond with with your
own data and your own arguments if you
want again my contact information is in
the show notes um I found this moving on
from the median sales price I found this
interesting as well because this this
supports a little bit of what I said
about the the median sales price
being bolstered by more expensive homes
the average sales price went up 11.6%
now I don't spend a lot of time on the
average sales price because the
median is kind of more indicative of
what's happening but it was up 11.6%
year-on-year it went from 317,000 to
3538 76 so 353,000
and I'm going to explain more
about these more expensive listings
selling here in a moment percent
of list price received the percentage
found when dividing a property's sales
price by its most recent list price so
not accounting for Price reductions then
taking the average for all properties
sold in a given month not accounting for
seller or concessions all right
hopefully you got all of that if you
didn't that's fine all you need to know
is that that number went down to 97 7%
so the average house that was listed
and sold received
97.7% of what it was listed for so a
$100,000 house on average sold for
$97,700
but that's not accounting for seller
concessions and as I've already
mentioned sellers are having to pay more
concessions to buyers than than they've
had for a long time so really that
number is is we we should be
considering this substantially lower
than what we're comparing it to last
year when it was 100.1% and no seller
concessions were being paid at all now
97.7% historically that's pretty
close to what it was pre pandemic I mean
we saw pre pandemic it was more like
in the 98s but again that that's within
that Norm now I would not be
surprised if we saw this number come
potentially substantially down I
could see it easily falling into the the
96s which if it did that that would be
like going way back but again we've got
sellers with
unrealistic expectations right now not
understanding the Dynamics of the market
and when you have that and
they're listing homes for for more than
they're worth what's going to happen is
they're going to to to get this number
they're they're going to get a lot
less for their home than what they're
expecting to the only variable of course
is that this does not account for for
homes having reduced their price so
perhaps price reductions and then sales
happening after price reductions will
keep this number from going down into
the 96 Range but we'll have to keep
track it would not surprise me if it did
inventory numbers the inventory of
homes for sale jump back up to 3517
that is a
133.7k by far year onye that we've ever
seen it's it's a month- on-month jump
not super surprised by that but
inventory is is up but it's still not
at pre-pandemic levels that that's an
important thing to to keep in mind so
it's up but it's still low if that makes
any sense hopefully that makes sense
and I was just looking just out of
curiosity at what the what's currently
active in Greenville MLS if I look at
residential um oh and I just got logged
out give me a second here so if I just
look at the
residential class on Greenville MLS and
I look at everything that's active it
comes out
to 20
2,719 now I don't think I I don't think
that this is the same thing as what gjr
is looking at I think that they must be
looking at everything is active and
everything is also under a contingency
contract because for whatever reason
I don't know why contingency contracts
are still listed as semi-active if that
makes any sense like they're still cons
that's considered an active category
even though it's under contract if I
do that that then the number if I
include those then the number jumps up
to
378 so that's pretty close and a tick
higher than what these January numbers
were but to me I feel like the real
number is more of 2719 I feel like
that's more accurate because that that's
the homes that aren't actually under
contract now we know that a lot of
inventory right now is being bolstered
by new home construction and so if I
look at the age of these homes the
approx oate age and I take out
everything that has already been built
so I'm only going to include to be built
under construction or new slash never
lived in all right when when I included
everything the number was 2719 when I
only include new construction that
number is 1431 so over half of the
active inventory is new construction
so again new home builders still it's
still tough time for them right now
if you're listing your home for sale as
a retail reseller type of type of
home sale situation there you're
there's not as much direct competition
with other sellers you're competing more
with with new home construction so
that's just something to keep in mind as
well month supply of inventory for
December I already mentioned it was
2.5 that's actually a that was a
decrease from November when it was
2.7 so very very interesting number
there you know we're we're kind of
expecting month supply of inventory to
go up but it went down from November to
December now January it's saying 2.8 but
that is inaccurate as I've already said
this number this month supply of
inventory is pegged to pending sales and
pending sales is always wrong for the
most recent month so I expect this
number to be probably either right there
again at 2.5 or perhaps at like 2.6 next
month we we'll see for sure and then
we'll be able to to answer it but the
year before it was only at one month of
inventory but we knew that that wasn't
that wasn't sustainable but in the mid
tws still very very low that's still
historically an extremely low number
and so again if if mortgage rates start
to to really pick up like if we see
mortgage rates potentially hit seven 7%
something like that on average seven
or higher then I think we could start to
see these inventory numbers really go
a lot higher than they've been now I
found this to be interesting because
when I saw the medium price point and
the average price point m the increases
that we had there I wanted to go and
look okay what is driving this where are
we because the I don't normally get into
this granular of detail when I'm
doing this podcast but but GG Market
stats actually does have a buy price
range number m and breakdown in these
stats and so I wanted to see okay what
are the price ranges that are seeing
increases or decreases year onye and
the biggest increases year onye were for
homes there was a 23% increase in in
Clos those sales year on year for homes
between $350 and
$500,000 so that's above the above
the median a and the biggest increase
a
34.7% increase for homes year-on-year
that were sold between 500,000 and
750,000 that's way above our median and
then a
25% increase on homes that were sold for
1 million and above so we saw and and
there was a slight decrease for homes
between 750 and a million there was a
4.3% decrease but but that was really
minuscule like at the end of the day
that only amounted to 18 homes total
less than the year before so there were
I I mean we're talking about let's see
here about 700 1,000 we're talking
about pretty close to a, more homes that
were sold between
350 350,000 and above than what we
had the year before so that's a massive
increase and there was also an increase
in homes sold between 250 and 350,000
just not as big it was a
7.7% increase year-on-year and then
everything below 250,000 decreased by 30
something per. and that's simply because
there's just not a lot of homes on the
market that are below 250,000 anymore
that's just the reality of the situation
so seeing those big increases
particularly in the 500 to $750,000
category and then the million and above
I think that I don't know if that
was an anomaly this is something I'll
definitely be tracking more often but
regardless we're seeing we saw in
January a lot more expensive home sold
than what we saw in January of of
2022 and and that certainly bolstered
some of these numbers and and and
we'll just continue to see what happens
as we go along but they right now I
think the story is less Supply less
demand fewer closings just all around
that is just what we're seeing in this
market and I've already told you I tell
my Sellers hey you need to be patient I
tell my buyers hey you need to be
patient as well there's less to go
around there just is and even if
inventory levels get to where they were
in
2019 2018 whatever even with the
mortgage rates being higher there is
still more demand than there was back
then that is just the reality of the
situation we have more demand in the
Greenville area and and now than than
we did pre pandemic more people are
wanting to move here more people are
coming of age again the millennial
demograph TR is really strong right now
in terms of home buying a lot of them
are like you know what we don't care if
mortgage rates are higher we just need
to break the cycle of rent or we don't
care that mortgage rates are higher we
have kids now and we need a bigger place
and we're just going to have to bite the
bullet take the the higher mortgage rate
and then refinance when we get the
opportunity to refinance in a year or
two so all of those things are driving
Demand right now and and those things
aren't changing Millennials aren't going
away
the desirability of Greenville is not
going away all of these things are going
to keep keep driving that demand and
it's it's going to be a baseline of
demand that we have for this area
regardless of what happens when it comes
to to these mortgage rates and all of
that so thank you guys for listening
that's all for this episode I appreciate
every one of you if you don't mind
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subscribe if you've not subscribed but
you enjoyed this content and if you
need to reach out to me for any of your
real estate needs if you need a buyer's
agent if you need a listing agent
someone to to bounce ideas off of I'm
happy to do that as well please let me
know my contact information is in the
show notes and we will talk again next
week
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