Hello everyone and Welcome to another

episode of Selling Greenville your

favorite real estate podcast here in

Greenville, South Carolina, I am your host

as always Stan McCune that's my name I'm

a realtor right here in the Greenville

area and you can find all of my contact

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different than it normally does or if

you're watching you'll notice it looks a

lot different than it normally does and

that's because right now I am out of

town as I'm recording this at least when

you're listing this I might be back in

town but I'm currently out of town I'm

in a log cabin

in the mountains of Georgia

and so you can see that I'm currently

actually on outside in a screened-in

porch

that is a part of the Log Cabin that

I'm in so it's really nice but I

don't know what you guys will hear you

might hear animals or birds or the

like I've tried to turn down the volume

on my mic so it's not going to be

picking up as much of the background

stuff but that's going to obviously

cause things to sound a little different

so I appreciate if you guys can stick

with me here but today I want to talk

about recently Greenville County had
kind of a a big a big thing that

happened and that is that the County

government almost shut down I say

almost we were about a week away from

from the County government potentially

shutting down as a result of challenging

challenges with them passing the the

budget for the year

now here's what happens there is kind

of a split in the County Council right

now between the you might call them

the Old Guard the people that have

been in the in the council for a long

time

and the newer group that have been

elected in the past one to maybe even

three years

and that group tends to be the

the newer group tends to be quite

conservative most of Greenville County

Council is quite conservative and of

course when you're talking about County

governments can what conservative

typically means is usually fiscally

conservative right because the County

Council doesn't it does get into some

social things but the things that you're

hearing when you hear the term

conservative on National media it means

something different for a County

Council usually has to do more with

being fiscally conservative so

really the the group that has come in

the past few years has really platformed

on and really made a big deal about

being conservatives specifically

fiscally conservative

well

the County Council the majority

has been saying listen we don't have

enough money to fund the government

moving forward to do everything that we

want to do and so we need to in order

to fund it to raise property taxes

and so that's what was proposed they

had two readings of the budget that

all went fine and then the third reading

is when it gets voted on and and either

becomes the budget or doesn't

well

let's put this in context here so the

the increase that we're talking about

the way I understand it's a seven mil

increase and this would have resulted in

what we're talking about essentially for

every hundred thousand dollars in home

value for a owner occupant it would be

an increase of 28 dollars per year for

every 100 and same thing if it's not

owner occupied it's a commercial

property or a rental property

it would have been an increase of

let's see here forty two dollars for

every hundred thousand dollars of value

so a for instance a three hundred

thousand dollar valued rental

property would be paying an extra

was to come out to 126 dollars per year

in property taxes

or a 200,000 owner occupied property

would be paying an extra 56 dollars per

year in property taxes

now let's

interesting about all of this is this is

the first time that property taxes had

been considered to be raised in

Greenville County in just about 30 years

so basically three decades of not

raising taxes

and the county admitted something that

that was interesting

tat that kind of got swept under the

rug for a variety of reasons

but they said that that one of the

reasons that they haven't had to raise

property taxes is because of the growth

in the area right because when you got

more homes being built when you've got

more businesses coming in more tax

revenue is coming in as a result of that

well you know we've talked about the

nimbies the people the not in my

backyard people they don't like growth

but guess what it's the nimbies that

also don't like taxes so we've

talked about this in the past where

you've gotta you've got to think about

the whole picture when you're opposing

development

in your backyard you might actually be

increasing taxes on yourself

long story short these tax increases by

and large were not popular with the

public when they had that that third

reading hundreds of people showed up to

the County council chambers I

wasn't there but I know people that were

it was standing room only you couldn't

even get in there was a line that formed

like hours before the reading

and it was apparently a very very vocal

group and this is obviously becoming

more and more of a thing in County

Council not just in Greenville but but

all across the the US that people are

becoming a lot more involved which is

good the involvement is good the

hostility I think you know obviously

I'm not a big fan of that

but this was a group that was very

vocal and a little bit hostile and

what ended up happening is it failed

the third reading it ended up so it was

it ended up being a six to six vote and

it's got to be a a two-thirds super

majority that that that passes these

budgets

it was really seven to five

the long story short of that is that

Liz Seaman one of the council women

she was for the budget increase but

when she realized it wasn't gonna it

wasn't gonna pass she voted not in favor

of it because then that allowed her to

be able to propose that they redo the

third reading kind of the long story

short there so that's exactly what

happened she she proposed that they redo

the third reading

and and let me just say

it failed six to six

I think that that going in that there

were people that were planning to to

vote for it that when they saw the

hostility from the crowd they opted not

to now the leader of the group of of

people voting against the budget was

actually my County council person Steve

Shaw

and apparently there there's was

quite a bit of discussion between

him and some of the other Council people

about the budget

and a bit of perhaps

mudslinging that happened as a result of

that I I've only read some quotes like I

said I wasn't there I'm sure it was very

interesting if any of my listeners

were there

but what ended up happening is

they re redid that third reading a few

days later and Joey Russo another

freshman councilman he moved over into

into the yes vote and then of course

then Liz who had voted no just to have

that ability to to bring the reading

back to the table

she then voted yes and that brought

it to an eight to four vote so then it

finally did end up passing

so a very interesting turn of

events now at the second third

reading there was all also my

understanding a ton of people there and

a very vocal group and when Joey Russo

ended up leaving there were people

shouting at him and deputies having to

escort him out there were people that

had to be kicked out of of council

chambers so it was a very very

hostile Dynamic people do not want their

taxes raised and it's understandable

right when you when you've had to pay

more than you wanted to the past three

years to buy a house and and now

mortgage rates are high you don't want

to hear okay now my property taxes are

going up in addition to all of these

other things people that are on fixed

incomes it really hurts them as well the

older poorer population

it's really damaging to them

and you guys know

I generally speaking I'm not in

favor of tax increases it's just

generally speaking if they can be

avoided

and you know this is a very

interesting debate because there are

kind of two I mean obviously there's a

lot that goes into a budget but there

were two really big things that were

debated in this budget and one was money

that was allocated towards affordable

housing and the other one was money

allocated towards greenlink our public

transportation system

well the vast majority of people in

Greenville County have never used

greenlink it's not exactly known as the

greatest you know public

transportation system in the world

and then as far as affordable housing

goes

I'm obviously you guys know I'm for

affordable housing so obviously I'm not

going to oppose oppose that right

because we need people that are getting

gentrified out of out of areas we need

to provide housing for them ideally in

those areas where they were at so they

can so they don't end up getting pushed

out of areas that you know they might

have spent their entire lives at

but it's it's a it's a difficult

it's difficult to to really know what

the right thing to do was without you

know me looking at all of the books all

I know is that

taxes will be going up not a ton

again

if you're an owner occupant 28

dollars for every 100 000 that your

property is is is assessed for and so

you can go on the you can you can go

look at your tax bill and or there's a

few different ways you can do it via

Greenville County's website they have a

tax estimator you can go on there and

actually look at what your assessed

value is and then what it'll do

is it'll it'll give you a few different

columns it'll say your assessed value

and then what your tax rate is which

will be either four percent or six

percent so then it'll multiply the total

assessed value times that four or six

percent and then I'll give you another

value and then that value is multiplied

by the millage rate so it's the millage

rate that's going up

and so if you're you're you know

if the house that you live in is is

currently a assessed at three hundred

thousand dollars then your taxes are

going to go up by per year 28 times

three which is what I believe eighty

one dollars I believe is what no that

that wouldn't be right 28 that would be

80 you know what

I one thing that people need to

realize when you're recording a podcast

and all the pressures on you your your

brain freezes so 84 if you have a 300

000 assessed house that you're living in

that you're an owner occupant for

84 per year more is what you'll be

spending I don't think this is going to

have a huge impact on most homeowners

with the exception of those on fixed

incomes it will though impact commercial

properties I mean there are some

commercial properties think about large

apartment buildings that or or large

retail that are assessed in the several

millions of dollars and so what we can

expect this to

immediately do is to once it goes into

effect it will for sure impact rent for

a lot of people

and so you know

how much will it affect it it's on paper

shouldn't be more than 10 to 20 dollars

per month but

it's not quite that simple because

here's what happens right when people

that have owned property for a long time

that have owned rental properties for

for a while

when they see their taxes go up that now

they start to be interested in selling

they might not know all the background

of why it went up or whatever they just

saw oh my property taxes went up I don't

know that I want this property anymore

you know people don't realize that the

vast majority of rental properties are

owned by Mom and Pop landlords they're

not the majority are not owned by large

institutional owners major companies

you know BlackRock and the like they

don't have the majority market share on

rental properties despite popular public

opinion

and so what happens a lot of these

mom and pop landlords landladies they

they really aren't making that much

money

at the end of the day because when

you factor in all the different expenses

it costs to have and maintain a rental

property it does add up

and so some of them when they see that

their taxes have now you know gone up by

one or two hundred dollars a year that

could then cause them to decide to sell

which then in turn or or perhaps

it'll mean that they have less money to

put towards improving the property

which will then kind of what I've

seen oftentimes is in that Cascades into

the more deferred maintenance which

then when you're playing catch-up on

maintenance issues usually it just

spirals out of control and so what all

of these things can result in is

people selling these rental properties

for more money and now the people

that purchase purchasing these rental

properties are expecting them to rent

out for more so this

probably in the end it will end up

having a net impact on rental rates a

lot more than strictly the the

property tax dollars but this is one

thing that is kind of ignored in a lot

of instances by the County Council and

by others in this discussion is what

about renters what is going on with them

what about even landlords or landladies

but it's there's not much consideration

when we're talking about housing

affordability for people that are

actually having to pay for rent and so

unfortunately we find ourselves in a bit

of a Rob Peter to pay Paul kind of

situation where yes we are increasing

taxes to help with housing affordability

but then that's also going to make

renting less affordable so it's

going to you know I don't I doubt that

they did any kind of studies to actually

ascertain the the net impact on

housing affordability for the region

but the net impact

unfortunately it probably won't be

positive from a housing affordability

standpoint but here's the thing

all of these things are so

interconnected and so complex that it's

just easier for the county to sit there

and say you know we're helping housing

affordability by doing this and it's

like well maybe not have you actually

put in the time and the research to

actually figure out that that these

proposals are in fact on a across the

board are going to help out housing

affordability I'm I'm not sure I'm I'm

not convinced that that's the case

they also they produced some materials

leading up to the third reading or

maybe after the third reading

the initial one that failed

where they made the case for why

taxes need to be need to be hiked and

the case to me wasn't very strong

they referenced inflation well

that's a cop-out thing to say you know

everyone's saying inflation right now

guess what Coke and Pepsi are staying

inflation right now but if you look at

what's going on in in the Coke and

Pepsi meetings when they released their

minutes you know shareholder data and

whatnot

they're they've actually just been

raising prices if you notice how how

Coke and Pepsi products have gone way up

in price the past couple of years that's

not due to inflation what they've

been saying is basically privately

they've been saying you know what our

earnings haven't been as high as we want

them to be for the company we need to

raise prices

and it's not because their earnings went

down it's just because they wanted more

earnings some people call that greed

inflation or or excuse flation whatever

you want to call it but when it comes to

housing and when it comes to property

taxes we already have a mechanic for for

accounting for this and that is the the

assessed value for a property

is inflation adjusted right the county

is allowed to there are a bunch of rules

whereby the county can reassess the

properties taxes and the the tax

value and then when that tax value goes

up obviously the property taxes that the

the homeowner is paying goes up and so

it's it's kind of ridiculous to me to

hear the inflation argument when they

literally already have a mechanic in

there for accounting for that that

they're pretending like they don't have

now I will say Enos Fant he did

discuss I believe it was him County

councilman

he did discuss that that perhaps that

mechanic is broken

and maybe that is the case maybe

maybe that you know the county needs

to be more aggressive I'm certainly not

in favor of that of them being more

aggressive with their assessments

but

this is the debate that's going on right

now and and here's you know on a very

high level an interesting thing about

the Greenville Market a big attractor

for the Greenville Market is

affordability that is a major driver of

traffic to this area and for me as a

realtor you know it's interesting for me

to talk to people in some other areas

like I was talking to someone recently

in Charleston they were talking about

how you know the market has just been

you know crazy for them and in

Greenville we have seen a major slowdown

since these interest rates have gone way

up and so I had to really take inventory

of that okay why would Charleston be

crazier than Greenville and and you know

it really occurred to me people aren't

moving to Charleston for for

affordability

you know I know people that have that

live in Charleston that have homes in

Charleston and you know it's it's a

Beach town it's a town that you know

it's a college town as well so there are

a lot of things like that

it's a party area

all of those types of things and for

Greenville the vast majority of times I

hear people moving to Greenville from

out of state or from somewhere else is

because of housing affordability and

just general cost of of Life

affordability

and so this is why people don't like

to hear property taxes going up because

the one of the main reasons why

people like this area is the

affordability aspect of it now

the County Council can't impact the

you know the the market for Real

Estate right as the market has gone up

and there's been a lot of angst about

that about

about prices going up

and housing becoming less and

less affordable the county can't

obviously fix prices and and they're

they're doing these token grants for

affordable housing but the county is now

is Raising property taxes and

stonewalling a lot of

development a lot of construction on the

basis of trying to do what the

nimbies are telling them to do

and so they are indirectly and and you

could argue just directly impacting

housing affordability in a very negative

way by doing that we'd be very

comfortable in Greenville if we had a

consistent you know 1, 2 to 3%

you know price appreciation in the

real estate market that would be totally

everyone would be happy with that right

if home prices and home values went

up you know one to three percent two to

four percent something like that per

year nobody was complaining about

housing affordability when that was the

rate that it was happening at but it's

it's now that things have started to

pick up as more and more people are

moving here more and more people are

able to remote work

and so they're leaving the bigger

cities coming to Greenville that's

causing prices to go up among other

things obviously you have to account for

multiple Generations we talked about

this before but

we have three very active

Generations that of home buyers right

now Millennials My Generation Gen X

and baby boomers are all very active

right now and that's a very unusual

Dynamic you don't usually have three

generations that are all very active in

the real estate market

m and so we have a bit of a

generational thing going on here

and and all of that is causing some

of these prices to increase but we we

need to build more and so the

County Council right now is is in my

opinion doing everything that they can

to cause the the cost of housing

to go up and very little to cause the

cost of housing to go down except in

some of these very Niche cases with

with affordable housing or Workforce

housing as they're they're calling it

more frequently now which is for people

in a lower income bracket and I'm glad

you know we need that to be able to

help those people but to to do these

token grants and whatnot

to help out you know a small

portion of the population but then

ignore everyone else that that's not

going to help us out in the long run

we've talked about that in other

podcast episodes I'm not gonna get into

all of those details but those are my my

opinions on all of this

I'd had a few people reach out that

wanted my personal opinion on on the

property tax situation

and so there you go there you have it

turkey situation admittedly I will

say this well I will mention this one

thing the County

government shutting down would have been

like catastrophic that would have been a

big deal if if the second time the third

reading didn't get passed if sorry if

the second time the third reading

happened if the budget did not get

passed during that reading and then

nothing was figured out between then and

the deadline which was just like a week

later and the County government ended up

shutting down that the impact that that

would have had would have been truly

truly devastating and so we definitely

can't have that I'm willing to pay a

little bit more on my property taxes if

that means no government shutdown

on the county level

but

we also need some people that are that

are really looking at this from a

holistic standpoint and and are able to

not just use talking points like

inflation like affordable housing

public transportation you know these

very broad ideas but actually to get

into the nitty-gritty of okay what is

the actual impact of this let's not just

look at these Actuarial tables that tell

us here's how many people are coming in

and here's how many people are doing

this and and and here's how you know we

have to account for all of this but like

getting Beyond just that and starting to

analyze but what is if we do this then

what does that mean for this what does

that mean for that and actually looking

at the widespread impact not just the

impact on the very specific thing that

they're talking about

I have a ton of respect for our

people in County Council I know that

they put in a lot more than they get out

when it comes to to that public service

and so I appreciate what they're doing

and I hope that they learn from this

experience that people don't want

property tax increases that they want

these County Council people to think

more creatively and more outside the box

and perhaps we'll get that in future

years we have we can one can help but I

haven't met I have a feeling that

there will be Ripple effects to the

County Council as a result of this vote

because people were very unhappy with

by and large with the result

so that will be something to track as

we have council elections in the

future but that's all I have to say

about this topic I appreciate you guys

listening

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next time