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 realtor right here

in Greenville you can find all of my

contact information in the show notes

for any of your real estate needs you

can reach out to me I'm a realtor that

is my job this podcast does not make me

any money unless people use me as their

realtor so I'd appreciate if you could

support me in that way and if you could

support the show by liking leaving a

rating if you can on on whatever app

you're using leave a review if you can

do that if you're watching on YouTube

comment any of those things all of those

things help out the show so I would just

appreciate if you benefit from this show

in any way that you please just do

those things I would really appreciate

it

all right we've had a few weeks where

we haven't really talked as much about

data and I know a lot of you guys are

data junkies so I want to get right

back into the data and specifically I

want to address something that really

since I've started this show has kind of

come up a lot lately but really in

more recent really the the the past year

has been a lot more of a common talking

point and a lot of my listeners are

unsurprisingly from out of state A lot

of people that are researching

Greenville are interested in the upstate

of South Carolina they're looking to

move to Greenville County Pickens County

Oconee Anderson County Spartanburg

County any of these counties these are

all part of the upstate and Realtors we

work all of these different counties I

call the show selling Greenville because

I live in Greenville specifically

and Greenville is obviously the

biggest metro area that is in this area

but we work all of of those different

counties and that is what our MLS the

Greenville MLS really covers all of

those counties as well

but what has happened frequently as I've

as I've accrued more and more of these

out of state listeners perhaps Watchers

now that I have this YouTube channel

as more people from out of state are

listening in they are coming to me with

questions about you know hey I'm not

seeing a whole lot that compares to what

I have here in Miami or what I have here

in Chicago or what I have here in

Houston or in Tucson or in San Fran or

whatever the case may be and so what I'm

thinking about doing is buying some land

and then building I don't have land

where I currently am I would like to

move to the Carolinas the Carolinas are

supposed to be cheaper and I and that

will allow me to buy land and then build

a custom home that compares to what I

have currently in the big city that I'm

coming from and then that'll be a a

marriage made in heaven right I can have

the the great house that I have in the

city I'm coming from but I'll move to

the Carolinas and have more land

property taxes will be lower it'll just

be and and it'll everything will just

Cost Less and it'll be it'll be great

and what invariably happens is people

start to get into we start to

actually dig into the options when it

comes to buying land and building new

construction and invariably it is

actually a lot more expensive than

people realize that it's going to be

they just you know I just think we

people think that the Carolinas are just

so much cheaper than the rest of the

country that is just going to cost a lot

less to build in this area and I hate to

be a Debbie Downer and I hate to be the

one to bring bad news but here's the

reality of the situation it costs way

way more to both buy land and to build

now than it did in

I mean whatever the early 2000s the 90s

the past 20 30 years we've seen all of

these costs go way way up and it's it's

been dramatic and it's just it's at

every level right labor costs more like

I said the land costs more the taxes are

more expensive zoning the the

permitting costs more I mean literally

at every single level it's more

expensive and so if you're moving from

you know like Irvine Texas for

instance I'm just throwing that out

there this by the way this podcast this

isn't for any individual if you're

listening to this and you're like oh I

think Stan recorded this for me I am not

recording this for you I want to make

that clear I'm recording this for the

dozens of people that I've had these

conversations with that have caused me

to think you know what maybe there's

something in the data that I should that

I should talk to people about here

but let's say that you're in a 30

year old home in Irvine Texas and you

know it's I don't know four thousand

square feet and you could sell it for

for eight hundred thousand dollars I'm

just spitballing I have no idea I don't

know anything about Irvine

but you could not build something like

that in Greenville in 2023 you couldn't

build a 4 000 square foot home on

land of any size a postage stamp lot you

couldn't build a 4 000 square foot home

for eight hundred thousand dollars and

so these are the types of conversations

I'm having with people trying to make

sure that people understand

you know hey this is the way the

market is it's also important to realize

that you know you can always find a

builder that will quote you a certain

price when I say you can't do something

I'm not saying literally that you can't

do something in every instance in some

instances I'm saying you don't want to

do something could you find a builder to

build you a 4 000 square foot home for

eight hundred thousand dollars

and include include the land with it

you probably could you probably could

would that be a nice house would that be

your standard Greenville 800 000 square

foot house no that would be a budget

construction that would just be really

large and it would probably be on a

small lot

and now you're saying where's your

data behind that well

I'm glad that you're here because that

is what this podcast is going to be

about so I looked what I did in

preparation for the show by the way I'm

juggling a lot of data and I'm not gonna

if you're watching on YouTube or

thinking about watching on YouTube I'm

just gonna apologize in advance I don't

have this data in a way that I can

really share it it's just an in a bunch

of tabs in a spreadsheet and honestly

it's a lot for me to keep up with as I'm

going through this and I might even have

to go back and correct something

you know as we're doing the show I

might forget something

but I'm not going to show any of this

data I'm not going to share my screen or

anything of that nature for for this

specific show

but what I did was I looked the past

six months Greenville MLS what new

construction has sold just to get a lay

of the land what are we seeing in the

new construction Market in Greenville I

don't want to just be basing things off

of what I feel what Vibes I'm having

right now I want to actually see what

the data says and so I started high

level and then I started to Reef find my

search results and we're gonna go on

this little journey together the same

Journey that I went on as I went through

this and I had no agenda I really wanted

to just see what the data said so that I

can talk to you guys intelligently about

what the new construction Market is like

so what I did was I took all of the

new construction sales from the past

six months and then I broke it down by

median and average median being the

middle number in a set of numbers and

then the average just being the average

or the mean and I looked at the average

and median acreage price and price per

square foot

in order to try to figure out okay what

exactly is going on here and then I

started to break it out some other ways

that you'll see here shortly so let's

just start high level all of the new

construction sales in Greenville MLS

which includes Greenville County it

includes I've already mentioned a bunch

of these Spartanburg County Pickens

County

basically the greater Greenville area

is going to be in this data set

what we came up with was this a median

of 0.19 Acres so a very small lot is

your median new construction in the

greater Greenville area so what this

tells me is that this is pulling a ton

of production Built Homes okay so keep

that in mind when you're picturing what

type of home I'm talking about I'm

talking about a home on a small lot

generally speaking in a neighborhood

that has a bunch of homes that probably

look exactly like it the median sold

price was 329 000 and the median sold

price per square foot was

160.89 okay so those are all production

built neighborhood types of of numbers

and some of these are in rural areas

that are going to be cheaper than for

instance City of Greenville areas or

Lakefront areas or Mountain View areas

whatever you know whatever things are in

high demand right now

the average of these numbers are are

pretty much always going to be higher in

averages because they're going to be

weighted more by the more expensive

property so the average for the

entire data set was 0.34 Acres a sold

price of 368 753 and a sold price per

square foot of 166 dollars and 48 cents

okay so that gives you the Baseline what

is generally speaking

on a very broad level new construction

in the upstate of South Carolina selling

for those are numbers that you can get

on average generally speaking in the

160s a square foot range for a pretty

small lot and these are also going to be

pretty small houses too right but

generally speaking you're talking about

160 a square foot and you're talking

about a 329 000 price point what we're

looking at is generally a you know

roughly 2 000 square foot house

something like that

so then I took that data and I said all

right well let's look at Greenville

County specifically and again this show

is selling Greenville some of you might

be interested in different counties but

at the end of the day we're going to

have the biggest sample size in

Greenville County and so I I limited the

data specifically by Greenville County

where do we go from here all right the

median acreage for Greenville County for

new construction was 0.18 Acres so a

slightly smaller still a very very small

lot 0.18 Acres average sold price

of 367

540 so 367 and a half and and a sold

price per square foot substantially

higher 176 dollars and 24 cents that was

those are all the medians these are all

still production built numbers okay so

if what you're visualizing you should be

visualizing a house that looks like all

of the other houses next to it and all

of these houses are very close to each

other same thing as what we just talked

about except it's a lot more expensive

now that you're in Greenville County

proper you go to the average again the

averages are all higher 0.28 Acres 410

000 average sold price

181.50 average sold price per square

foot

so these numbers are starting to tick a

bit up so obviously these numbers are

all skewed by the fact that these are

production built houses it's really hard

to take production built houses out of

the data set but what you can do is you

can remove homes that are in

subdivisions so I can set the

subdivision to none and that is

precisely what I did and what that

roughly gets me kinda sort of custom

built homes these are homes that were

not built in subdivision now

I will caveat that there are some

subdivisions that have custom-built

homes this is not a perfect exercise you

know for instance the cliffs right

you can build custom-built homes in the

cliffs they have very strict

architectural standards

but at the end of the day those are

gonna be Custom Homes even though it is

a neighborhood

and so some of those are not going to

be in the sample that's okay it's still

going to give us a high level idea of

what's going on in the custom home

world so we removed all homes we're

still in Greenville County but we're no

longer in subdivisions here are the

medians now now our lot size is a lot

bigger we're at 0.45 almost a half acre

with an average oh sorry with a median I

want to get these where these

analytical mathematical terms right the

median sold price of 462 500 and the

median sold price per square foot now

way way higher than what we've been

talking about

224.50 okay remember I was saying you

don't typically want to build if if you

have someone quoting you a 4 000 square

foot home for 800 000 including the

land run one don't walk that is you

you're nowhere near the median of 224

and that and this does include the land

by the way these are homes that were

built on Lots

generally speaking at least that's

the way it should be the way it's

entered into the Greenville MLS so

224.50 that's your median your average

is again a tick higher 0.69 Acres so

nearly three quarters of an acre sold

price 493 600 and average sold

a dollar per square foot

of 229 dollars a square foot okay so

these numbers are substantially higher

than the numbers we just looked at that

included subdivisions and and by the way

I so I didn't run these numbers that

that only showed the ones in

subdivisions

but remember that those numbers that

I showed you within the subdivisions

were were also including the non-sub

division homes so before when I said 176

dollars a square foot for all the homes

in Greenville County that included all

of these that have a median of 224

dollars so even those numbers that we

looked at before that included all new

construction in Greenville County were

were really skewed by these more

expensive Custom Homes so there's a big

big price disparity between if you're

building within a subdivision generally

speaking a custom-built home versus

these production Built Homes that are

going to be within subdivisions You're

Building outside you're building your

own custom home a pretty good rule of

thumb 225 dollars will get you an

average a normal a standard non-sub

division custom built home that's going

to be in the roughly four to five

hundred thousand dollar range okay

all right so now we have that done so

what I did then was I also looked at

land that was sold in in the in

the upstate as a whole and then in

Greenville as a whole so let's look at

the cost of land because again this is

another question that comes up so the

average sold price for land that was

listed was sorry the median was 75 000

with the median acreage of 1.47 Acres so

that comes out to an average price per

acre of fifty one thousand dollars for

all of Greenville MLS not just

Greenville County specifically

the average substantially higher

the average was $153 in change

153,000 in change for 7.68 Acres an average

of 20,000 Acres so this is what we see

this is what's going on here why is

there a difference between 51 and per

acre for the median and twenty thousand

per average the more Lanes you buy the

the less it costs per acre and there's a

lot of reasons for that

one of the main reasons is you're

typically buying in a more rural area

and so the cost for the land is going to

be less if you're buying 10 acres you're

not buying 10 acres within the city

limits of Greenville if you could do

that the cost would be astronomical it

would be well north of 51 51 000 an

acre

but if you are buying within a

more densely populated area the price

per acre goes up and that's where that

fifty one thousand dollar per acre

number comes more into play so just to

give you some context there but then I

took this data and I analyzed it within

again Greenville County

and here's what we came up with for

medians within Greenville County median

sold price of and actually let me go

back and look and see if I messed this up

oh no I actually I thought maybe I had

that that mess up that I alluded to

might happen before but I actually

didn't

all right so Greenville County land

sales past six months the the median

sold price was 99 000 for 1.2 Acres so

that comes out to about 83,000

and change per acre in Greenville

County if you want to look at average

the average sold price was 155 000 for

four acres that is approximately half

forty one thousand per acre which

is which is actually not that far off

from the median per acre that we

looked at that was just everything in

Greenville MLS remember that was 51 000.

now we're looking at

if you're if you're looking at

averages that includes more acreage now

that number doubles right because before

we were when we were looking at the

average acreage for just Greenville MLS

as a whole it was 20 000 per acre now

that number is 41 000 on average with a

median of 83.

and so here's what you should expect

if you want to be in Greenville County

in a more densely populated area you're

going to be paying 80 to 100 000 per

acre if you're wanting to be if you're

wanting more acreage outside of

Greenville

main part of Greenville you're going to

get four five six acres maybe in the

Greenville County side of Greer maybe in

Northern Greenville County near Slater

Marietta maybe down towards Fountain Inn

some of those more rural areas you can

expect a price between 40 and 50

000 per acre

all right so

now let's talk about what this actually

translates translates to I had someone

tell me recently oh you're clearly from

from Greenville County the or from

the south the way you talk no I'm from

New Jersey originally but I am

married to a woman from Alabama and

actually as I'm recording this today is

our anniversary we've been married for

14 years

so Pat myself on the back for that

but and I guess maybe I should

knock on wood as well

but anyway I have some Southern

influences in my accent apparently and

that's not not to be super

surprising here but here's what I did

okay I took the well let's back up

for a second let's say that you are

you're moving to Greenville from out of

state and you're in that situation where

you're like or maybe you're you know

moving from within Greenville who knows

I know people that are that live in

Greenville that are like you know what I

want to go out and buy some land and

build a custom home it's a very common

thing a very trendy thing right now

so let's say you you're like you know

I want a 2500 square foot home on five

acres of land that's kind of a thing

that I hear Loosely speak on speaking

maybe a little bit larger home than 2500

square feet but Loosely speaking I hear

people throw those types of things

around all the time

here's what I did I took the the

amount of well actually hold on this

might be the mistake that I made give me

a second here

okay we'll have to come back to that I I

think I think I still did this right

what I did was I took the the

number of Acres five acres times the

average acreage in Greenville County 41

000 and then I combined that with

adding

2500 square feet times the custom home

price per square foot of

200 24 000. sorry 224 give me a second

$224.50

per square foot so that was

what we were talking about before is in

the custom no subdivision neighborhoods

that's what we are that's what we're

experiencing and then I basically just

added those numbers up so taking the

average

acreage price times five acres the

average price per acre times five acres

in Greenville County and then taking the

average price per square foot times 2500

what do you come up with you come up

with 768

761 now that number is probably a little

bit artificially inflated and this was

something I thought that I had that I

had corrected but apparently I I haven't

corrected maybe I corrected it somewhere

else in here

I ran this this data a few days ago

so it's not entirely it's not like

really really friend of mine

but that number is a little bit high

right because that 200 24 dollars

part let me pull that back up here in

front of me

the

224.50 for the price per square

foot

does technically include .45 Acres so

actually you know what I'm just going to

correct this on the Fly let's just say

4.5 Acres

which is really gonna be five acres

right we have to adjust this for

essentially half an acre in order to to

make this accurate because that two

2450 for the price per square foot for

those Custom Homes was assuming

basically half an acre so if we do that

we come up with a price of 748

000. so basically 750 000 that's what

you can Loosely speaking expect for a

five acre house a a 2500 square foot

house on five acres new construction

basically everything at average okay

all right

how does that

compare then with if we're just looking

at non

new construction let's just look at

homes that have actually sold roughly in

that same kind of same kind of house

same kind of acreage what do we have

when we look at Greenville County six

months

the past six months Greenville County

Properties that have sold on five acres

or more I pulled all of those as well I

did not pull this by out of subdivision

so these include homes that are in

subdivisions it ended up with 50 results

so 50 homes the past six months in

Greenville County that included a

house with at least five acres here are

some of the numbers that that came up

with the median acreage was 7.84 so

quite a bit higher than five the median

sold price was 707 thousand

the median sold price per square feet

was 280 000 with a median total square

footage of

2517. so these are slightly larger

houses with about 50 percent

more land and it's about roughly

40 000 ish less than the new

construction okay on if you we want to

look at the averages the average was

10.6 Acres with an average sold price

of 850 000 price per square foot three

hundred six thousand with a a total

square footage of 2941 those are the

averages for these homes that I was

looking at Within

within Greenville

so let's compare thou Apples to

Apples right so we looked at a home just

kind of a let's just call it a spec home

right a a make-believe spec home that

was 2500 square feet on five acres in

Greenville County came up with that

would cost roughly 750 000 but let's

compare to this median home that has

7.84 Acres that has

2517 square feet what price would that

come up with if we built that home from

scratch remember it costs 707 500 to

purchase this home this is already a

home that was already built what would

it cost to actually build this home if

you

do run these numbers all again right you

you base your acreage price on forty one

thousand five hundred dollars per acre

you base your build cost on

224.5

per square foot

and you account for the fact that this

is where I had backed out that point

four or five acres earlier what you come

up with is a total price of 871

766. so that's a difference of

basically what about a hundred sixty

thousand Loosely speaking is is what

we're talking about is the difference

between if you bought

the same house on the same same size

house on the same amount of acreage

versus if you built it within Greenville

County it's going to be about 160 to 170

000 hours more to build that house

versus to buy the house that has already

built now what do I think about that

number I think that number makes a ton

of sense because if you're buying homes

in that seven to eight hundred thousand

dollar range that's on 7.8 Acres that's

2500 or so square feet that home's gonna

need some work and that is just the

reality of the situation it might need a

hundred sixty thousand dollars worth of

updating

I actually talked about this on a

podcast I don't know probably a couple

of years ago where I talked about the

dirty secrets of luxury housing in

Greenville County the dirt the main

dirty secret is that most of these what

we call luxury houses need quite a bit

of updating

and so the question is do you want to

buy the house and then update it or do

you want to just go ahead and and pony

up the extra 160 170 up front to just go

ahead and have it custom from the get-go

most people that have that kind of money

that are looking to spend that kind of

money would just want to go with the

custom house

you do have to remember though that a

quality of construction even with a good

builder at 224 dollars a square foot

isn't going to be as good as the quality

of construction for the home that was

built 20 or 30 years ago is just the

reality of the situation now there are

some things that'll be nicer in a newer

home it's going to be more Outlets more

opportunity for smart home systems

obviously you're it's custom so you can

do whatever you want to it in theory

but in terms of quality of a

construction there's going to be some

things you know rather than brick

siding throughout you might have to go

with Hardy Ward siding for instance

things of that nature

but in terms of and and I don't even

remember where exactly I was I was

going with all that kind of like it's

in the middle of the day now and and

I'm recording this on Tuesday my Monday

was crazy as usual my Tuesday has

been pretty full

so just bear with me here but I'm

looking at this and I'm like you know

what

160 000 to 170 000 difference that that

makes a whole lot of sense oh where I

was where I was going with that so you

you have a few challenges with building

that you have to be aware of I just

listed off you know that the quality

might not be quite quite the same you

also have to remember

finding the right contractor is a

challenge and also finding the right

land is a challenge right a lot of the

Prime land already has housing on it

and so that's where sometimes it's

easier if you're looking for a house

with land

sometimes it's just easier to buy the

house that's already built just if you

need to gut it or if you need to to

update it however

you're gonna find yourself in many

cases that that's the better option

now

I'm not trying to discourage anyone

from from going the route of of

buying land and then trying to do a

custom build on it that's not the point

I'm just trying to be realistic about

the challenges in doing that it is

expensive

and again we're just looking at averages

and medians here we're not even looking

at the the top end of the market

but it's it's pricey and it can be a

challenge to find the right spot to

build on that is honestly the number one

challenge because here's the thing the

prime con the the prime land that's

out there is oftentimes these big Big

Lots that are you know 70 80 acres

or more that are going to be

basically that are being sold to

developers and the developers can do

whatever they want with it

but usually the most Prime real estate

is not just going to be 2 5 10 acres

generally speaking the prime real estate

is in a huge

a a huge pot of land that you have to

buy the whole plot and then you can

subdivide off a part for yourself if you

really want to do that and so those are

some of the challenges

that people run into so I just want to

be realistic I want people you know all

of my out of state listeners that are

looking at coming to this area I want

you to have some actual data some

concrete numbers to be thinking about be

thinking about if you're if you're

looking at Greenville County be thinking

about forty one thousand dollars an acre

be thinking about 225 dollars a square

foot if you're if you're looking outside

of Greenville County those numbers are

going to come down a bit if you're

willing to build on a production-built

neighborhood and not have very much land

just have US postage stamp size lot

those numbers are going to come way way

down and so that's some of what I think

is helpful that this confirmed what I

already knew none of this came as a big

surprise to me like I said I didn't go

in this trying to confirm anything in my

mind but it but it did it confirmed

exactly what I thought it was going to

say to a t all of these numbers were

like yep that makes sense yep that makes

sense okay

and so hopefully that makes sense to

you guys I'm happy to answer any

questions that any of you might have I

know that was a lot of data but hey you

guys have had a few weeks off from the

heavy data episode so I think that

you're in the mental space to be able to

handle that so just let me know if

you have any questions I'm happy to

answer those if you want me to it

doesn't take me long to run these

numbers if you want me to run numbers

even for like a specific County or a

specific area draw radio send me a map

and be like hey can you do that kind of

analysis for this area absolutely let me

let me do that even if you're not a

client obviously there's a certain level

at which if you're just asking me to do

a bunch of of homework for you I would

want you to be a client at that point

but just a one-off just to see if I can

if I can help you on something like that

I'm happy to if you're listening to the

show even if you never become a

client you're indirectly a supporter of

me and my business and I appreciate you

guys and I'm happy to try to set you

guys up for Success even if we never do

business together

that's it for today's episode you can

find all my contact information in the

show notes please if you want to reach

me I suggest texting first

I get so many spam calls I'm going to

most likely ignore your call if you call

me out of the blue

so please text me ahead of time

feel free to email me as well if I don't

respond it may have gone into my spam I

respond to all of my emails with a Max

24 hours usually much quicker than that

usually within six hours

I'm I operate on an inbox zero

level when it comes to my email so I'm

trying to respond and get rid of emails

as quickly as possible but feel free to

reach out to me with my contact

information in the show notes if you

like the show if you love the show if

you want more of this content I've got

another data oriented episode coming up

next week I think you guys will like to

so please like subscribe rate review

comment all those things and we will

talk again next time