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 of South Carolina

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future episodes I'm excited about

these well today's episode the final

episode to close out the year and in

addition to that I've already got the

first episode of 2024 planned out and

I'm really excited we we've got some

very interesting things to discuss

looking back at the past looking forward

at the future and these are some

things that I like to do as we

transition from one year into another

and today I want to look back at the

Bold predictions that I made last year

around this time in 2022 I was

looking forward to 2023 and and I did

for the first time ever a bold

predictions episode last year I'm going

to be doing another one of those this

year as well or or in maybe not this

year but to the beginning of next

year 2024 right but in at the end of

2022 into 2023 I made 10 bold

predictions for the year 2023 and I want

to hold myself accountable and I also

want to Pat myself on the back for the

things that I got right but I will be

honest about the things that I got wrong

I want to look back at those bold

predictions and see what I got right and

what I got wrong now of course when I

came up with the predictions that I did

they weren't just Dart throws I wasn't

just you know tossing stuff out there

that was just completely just nonsense

that I just made up all my

predictions were educated guesses based

on the data that I was looking at as

well as based on analysis from other

quote unquote experts whether they were

housing experts economic experts

whatever the case may be so now

looking back at what I got right or

wrong it's not just a fun exercise and

seeing how good I am at predicting the

future because I'm not very good at that

but it does tell us a lot of

interesting things and I'm not

necessarily going to get into this so

much in this show but I think if you

really think about it if you want to

think about it the Bold predictions

that I made and that other people made a

year ago and which aspects of those

things people got right or people got

wrong really tells you a lot about what

people were thinking a year ago and how

much things have changed of course now

we've got multiple Wars going on crazy

economic conditions constant chaos in

the news an upcoming presidential

election it's just really easy to

forget what things were like I a year

ago so I think that this is just a

helpful exercise keeps me accountable

but also just kind of reminds us of what

the world was like particularly the

world of real estate particularly if you

want to get really specific because I

always tell you guys this this is a

Greenville real estate podcast I don't

make predictions generally speaking

about the non-g Greenville Market just

as a whole because I am only an expert

in this market I don't pretend to know

what's happening in Austin or San Diego

or some of those other markets

but it's helpful to to go back and

think about okay what were the what were

people generally thinking was going to

happen a year ago what was I generally

thinking was going to happen a year ago

and to reverse engineer kind of what

went right and what went wrong so we're

just going to start I'm just going to

run through the 10 bold predictions what

I got right what I got wrong and just

give a few thoughts on each so number

one brutal just going to I'm just going

to start off and say that this might be

the worst one out of all of them

number one I said that mortgage rates

would hit low or mid fives at some point

in the year that was by far you look at

this list in my opinion the worst

prediction obviously we did not have

that happen we didn't even come close to

that happening it mortgage rates

spent the majority of the Year here

let's let's go back they

I'm looking at mortgage News Daily here

in

January they were in the low sixes and

again I didn't just make up this this

number this wasn't just something you

know I wasn't just trying to manifest

low mortgage rates or anything like

that there are a lot of analysts and

experts that were predicting that

that the FED would ease off the the

quantitative tightening that they

were doing but instead things got

tightened even more and even more and

even more and now I'm recording this

a week before I'm going to release this

I'm recording this on December the 14th

why am I doing that because I have time

I I have like a free hour today where

I can do this and so I'm taking

advantage of this but I don't know

exactly what's going to happen a week

from now because it's a very volatile

Market but as I'm recording this the

the mortgage rates the past 24 to 48

hours has really gone Bonkers we were

earlier this week we were well above 7%

in terms of the 30-year fixed rate

mortgage as I'm recording this right at

this moment on mortgage News Daily we

are at

6.62% we have dropped half a percentage

point in basically no time in basically

48 hours that is absolutely insane we

haven't seen a drop like this or really

any movement like this this dramatic in

this short of a period of time so I

just want to make sure that you guys

know that I am aware of that I don't

know what rates are going to be like

when I actually release this episode

I can only speak to what they are right

at this moment but regardless they never

came close to the mid fives I mean

that just never even happened let Lo

the low fives so I was simply wrong

the Fed was much more aggressive in

terms of what they did this year than I

thought that they were going to be I

thought that they would you know

raise rates a little bit and then kind

of wait and see and then probably drop

rates that did not happen obviously

and probably for good reason now I

might have tapered off I I may have

paused sooner than the FED did but

generally speaking the inflation fight

it it probably was necessary to do

what they did I'm not a big fan of the

FED I think that they kind of

contributed to this problem that we have

in a lot of ways they may have even

been the number one contributor to

the inflation problem you could you

could make that argent obviously we

have a lot of things that happened

during the pandemic that certainly

that fueled a lot of the high

inflation can't blame the FED for the

pandemic but regardless the FED

raise rates we were just a few weeks ago

about to Crest 8% we briefly hit 8% then

it dropped down into the high sevens and

now we're in the mid sixes so this is

just an insane volatility we've seen

mortgage rates drop by basically one and

a half points in the past let's see here

that was October 19th the past two

months we've seen mortgage rates go up

and then down almost a point and a half

so that's crazy I was wrong I'll admit

it I'm going to make another bold

prediction about mortgage rates once

I come out with my 2024 bold predictions

episode so you'll have to wait and see

but clearly that was more difficult

to predict than I thought it was going

to be number

two my number two bold prediction was

that the US would experience a mild

recession resulting in closings being

down 10 to 15% year-on-year I'm going to

give myself half credit for this the US

did not experience a mild recession I

guess maybe you could some people with

some of their data might argue that it

did I personally agree with the FED that

that the economic data is not

signaling that we're in a recession

we've not seen the unemployment numbers

or the job loss numbers or the wage

numbers that that in my opinion you

would expect to see in a a recession I

think the economy is still doing pretty

good overall so I was wrong on that

point but regarding closings being down

10 to 15% year-on-year that has tracked

really really well I believe the last I

checked closings were down 11% year

on-year I don't yet have the data from

the greater Greenville Association of

Realtors with regard to what happened

the month of November and we

certainly won't have December's numbers

for over a month most likely

so I can't say definitively that I was

right on the second part of this

prediction but at the moment it's

looking pretty good I think that for the

purposes of this show I can say I got it

half right there was no broader economic

recession but the housing recession that

we've been in now for over a year

continued with the result of roughly an

11% decrease in closings which is right

in line with my 10 to 15% prediction

that I made I predicted that median

home prices would stabilize but would

not go down now I didn't specify if they

would go down in one month or another

year on year or anything like that but

generally speaking again I was right on

this point we talked about this

recently actually let me pull up I'm I'm

not going to screen share this with

you guys but I'm just going to go ahead

and pull up for my own benefit the

the greater Greenville Association of

realtor Market stats that was produced

last time yeah I'm going back and and

yes the as I said before the Clos sales

were down

11.2% year on-year as of that number

so we're good to go on that with regard

to the median sales price at the

moment for for the past 12 months now

this bleeds a little bit into 2022 we

had a03 we had a 3.3% increase the past

12 months but we only had one month

where we had a year- on-year decline

so it's pretty safe to say that for the

year depending on how you you can look

at this a few different ways but long

story short my prediction that the

median home prices would stabilize but

not go down that's exactly what happened

most months of the year we saw numbers

that were oh let me take a look at this

we saw January the median sales

median price was up 6.8% year on-ear

February up 2% year-on-year March Mar

1.7% year on year April 1.6% May that

was our one negative month negative. 6%

year on year and then it went back into

the positives June 2.7% july8 August 0.9

September 1.6 and then as we've already

discussed the month of October had a

whopping

7.7% increase year on-year in terms

of the median sales price so prices did

not go down they did stabilize and

that October print I think was Pro we

might find that that was a little bit of

an anomaly that 7.7% increase year

on-ear but regardless we're not

seeing the gains that we were seeing

in 2020 and 2021 and the first half of

2022 things slowed down but they but

prices did not go down slowing down is

not the same as going down as I've said

many many times on this podcast bold

prediction number four from last year I

said that the average home price at some

point would see a year on-year

decrease okay so I said at some point

that we would see a year- on-year

decrease this was a different

prediction than the one I made for the

median home price remember the median is

the middle number in a set of numbers

we look at the median more than the

average when it comes to looking at sale

home sale prices because averages are

skewed by you know when you get a a

month where there's like5 $3 million

homes that sell in a market like

Greenville that doesn't have a lot of 3

million4 million5 million homes you get

a few of those and that completely skews

the average but it does not skew the

median so I like to look at the median

in terms of like actually determining

what the market is doing the average

home price is still interesting but I

don't look at it from a year- on-year

standpoint quite as much and I don't

look at it from a I don't look to be

super helpful but I did predict that at

some point there would be a year-on-year

decrease and there was there was one I'm

going to Pat myself on the back for this

one there was one month where we saw a

year-on-year decrease and that counts

because I wasn't predicting for the year

that we would see a year-on-year

decrease as I was predicting the

median home price would not have a

decrease for the year but for the

average I said there would be a decrease

a print that showed a decrease and that

was the month of March there was a

negative

1.3% print for the average sales price

for the month of March so I barely

got that one but I got it build

prediction number five I said National

foreclosure rates would remain at

alltime lows again I nailed this one

this is honestly a very easy one to

predict I I can't take a lot of credit

for this but I will say here's the

interesting thing right pretty much

every analyst out there would have

predicted this but if you go on Twitter

if you go on Facebook if you go on

Reddit social media people keep saying

foreclosure rates are going to Skyrocket

we're going to see suddenly 20 30%

increases in inventory because of all

these foreclosures so even though it to

me it's very obvious that foreclosure

rates would have remained at alltime

lows for 2023 there were so many people

predicting that wouldn't happen there's

a a very well-known Twitter account

called unusual whales that tracks

economic data I think that's what it's

called unusual whales I don't follow

them because I don't like what they say

about housing they're always publishing

this data that's just not accurate and

I'm always looking for accurate data one

thing that they like to say is is all

these foreclosures are going to happen

there's going to be all these

foreclosures it hasn't happened and

you know I'll wait until my 2024 Bal

predictions episode to discuss what I

think is going to happen happen in the

future but needless to say this was

an easy one it was never going to happen

in 2023 at some point we will see4

closure rates normalize but they are

still very very low near all-time

lows bold prediction number six I

said that Greenville will see its first

increase in housing affordability since

2011 and my Logic for that was that I

saw a combination of things happening

interest rates coming down

oops that didn't happen I saw and

now it's happened recently like I

said just the past 48 hours but prior to

that we hadn't really seen a whole lot

of that I I thought appreciation

would slow that has happened we have

seen much slower appreciation and I

thought pay raises would jump well we

have seen that happen so my logic was

correct you know two two out of three

aspects of my logic was correct

but the the mortgage rates did not

come down enough in order to

influence this and if we're judging this

just based on the housing affordability

index that the greater Greenville

Association Realtors publishes every

month we are nowhere near seeing a an

affordability increase for the year of

2023 as of October our housing

affordability index was 79 out of 100 or

or or I should say 79 with 100 being

kind of where we would like to be as

opposed to January when it was 96 so

there would have to be something

incredible to happen in for the

remainder of this year for us to see

housing affordability jump up above that

January number is just not going to

happen so I have to take the L on

this one I also have to take the L on

Bold prediction number seven I said that

Greenville realtor turnover would exceed

50% now I wasn't sure how to measure

this and I'm still not sure how to

measure this I've reached out to some

people there's not a super great way to

measure this but what I do know is that

we have

roughly

the membership rates in the

greater graville Association Realtors

has gone down somewhere around like 5%

something like that nowhere near 50% now

how many of that was how much more

turnover was there that's just telling

me how many how how many fewer

Realtors there are versus what there

were last year that doesn't tell me how

much turnover there is I just don't

think that we're anywhere near 50%

turnover right we probably saw something

like 25% when you know if you really

factor in everything I know a lot of

people that have gotten into real estate

this year that have kind of off offset

some of the realtors that have left even

25% might be a bit high he to say

nowhere near 50% I was wrong that's not

something that I normally track and so

I will take the L on that one I made

a guess on something that I am not an

expert at that was more of a Vibes thing

for me I thought we'd see a bunch of

Realtors leave and we haven't seen as

many as I really thought we would so

that's interesting where I think

maybe we have seen that kind of turnover

might be in the mortgage lending

business particularly people lenders

that were like refinance Specialists

like where has their business gone

completely out the window there no

nobody is refinancing right now nobody's

doing equity lines of credit people that

specialized in those types of of of

parts of of mortgage lending are you

know either out of the business or

having to do something else generally

speaking some kind of a side job

Realtors on the other hand even though

we've lost a lot of business there's not

been enough for 50% turn over so I

was wrong on that bold prediction

number eight total inventory stay below

prepandemic levels month's Supply May

temporarily go above pre-pandemic levels

well guess what I was right total

inventory definitely stayed below

pre-pandemic levels and I said month

supply May temporarily go above

pre-pandemic levels but even that didn't

happen even month supply stayed below so

inventory as a whole is still very much

below prepandemic level

that's not super shocking again if

you listen to the show a lot you should

know that I've been saying for a long

time that that's what was going to

happen there's a lot of markers in the

data that would indicate that but again

if you go on social media you'll see all

these doomers out there saying that

inventory is going to Skyrocket prices

are going to go down foreclosures are

going to go through the roof all these

things and that's just not in the

data it was very easy to predict that

inventory would remain very very low

because there are a lot of things

happening in the housing market

suppressing that inventory right now

whether it's the high interest rates

causing people to be locked in you'll

hear people talk about the lock in

effect that's what's happening people

can't move because they're locked into

their kushy 3% rate among other

things there's a whole lot of other

reasons for that and this is

something that's not going to change

anytime soon we may see inventory get

back up to pretty close to prepandemic

levels I mean it's been trending in that

direction but it's still going to

remain pretty low until mortgage rates

come down a lot more than they already

have B prediction number nine I said

days on Market until sale will reach the

highest point since

2016 and for that to happen we would

have needed because I got this one wrong

as well we would have needed to see dael

Market coming around 70 and that was

looking good at the beginning of the

year let me pull up that data real quick

at the beginning of the

year days on Market made a big jump from

January where it was 49 days on Market

until sale it jumped all the way up to

57 in February and so it was like when I

saw that I was like o I'm going to nail

this prediction we're going to be in

days on Market in the 70s in no time but

what happened was it crested in March it

hit 58 in March and then it went down to

54 then to 44 then 39 38 and now it's

been hovering in the low 40s so we are

nowhere near this happening and I've

discussed why recently a few times

days on Market is we have to think of it

differently now than what we thought

about it back before covid back before

covid we

generally experienced longer days on

Market just in general that was just a

part of what

happened things just took longer to sell

but now if things are on the market for

two months right now to sellers that

feels like an absolute eternity sellers

are not willing to wait that long and

and they get trigger trigger happy

they don't they want to start reducing

prices they want to you know it and

remember if they're selling right in

this economy to use that cliche if

they're selling in this economy and

basically moving into a place where

they're going to have to accept a 6 and

a half now to 7% mortgage rate they

have to have a pretty compelling reason

to move and a lot of these sellers are

pretty motivated like they do have a

compelling reason to move they can't

just wait two three four months and so

if they don't sell right away they're

they're getting aggressive with price

reductions and things of that nature or

as I've seen in a few instances

they're they're not selling and they're

not reducing their prices and they're

just going to languish on the market and

guess what those homes languishing on

the market they don't show up in this

data until they actually sell so there

are some homes that have been sitting on

the market for 6 months a year I've

seen some over a year those are not

being those will not be reflected in

this data until they actually sell so

right now the days on Market is much

lower than I predicted it would be so

that is one that now I understand

better that the Dynamics are just

different than they were pre-

pandemic we can't expect things at least

the way the current landscape is we

can't expect to see things go back to

pre-pandemic Norms honestly I don't know

that we'll see that happen for a very

very long time so that'll be

something to track for sure number 10

cheap fixer uppers will appear again as

people reset their expectations I'm

going to say I was right on this one and

I don't have any great data I I could

have probably come up with data for this

but I know because I look at every

home that comes on the market every

single day in Greenville MLS I know that

we're seeing a lot more cheap fixer

uppers than we had in the previous

years it basically looks like it did in

2019 we've we've gone back to normal

what it is is people just can't afford

fixer uppers and the yeah the prices are

still you know pretty reasonable you

know relatively

speaking but and the margins aren't

there for investors either right if

you're an investor your cost of capital

is very high right now your the

market even though it's a sellers Market

it's still a very slow sellers market so

you don't want to get stuck with a

property in your portfolio that you

can't sell if you're trying to flip

something the numbers for rentals aren't

you know as good as they have been in

other markets as well prices haven't

come down enough you know on these

cheaper properties for that to be a big

impact so there's just all of these

things going on impacting fixer

uppers but they are appearing we are

seeing them there are way more cheap

fixer uppers now like I could just

pull it right now I could pull up

Greenville MLS and show you how many

cheap fixer uppers there are right now

that are on the market there's a ton

of them and in 2021 there were none of

them there it was basically zero let me

let me do it for those of you on YouTube

it was Zero and the and what was

crazy back then when things were so

intense is that PE people that were

looking to purchase a home a lot of them

were forced into you know as soon as

they fix their upper came on the market

that was like a reasonable price point

if it was a cosmetic fixer upper you

know had awful kitchen shag carpet you

know ugly wood paneling all of these

things people that weren't investors

that were potential owner occupants were

having to purchase these types of

properties just because there was

nothing else that they could

afford well all of that has changed now

people have a lot more options cuz

inventory even though it's still fairly

low it's way higher than it was a couple

of years ago

and so you get a property that needs

work comes on the market it the price

has to be really really attractive for

people to jump on it and owner occupants

aren't they are not jumping on these

properties your best bet is for an

investor to do that but it has to be a

really really reasonably priced property

for an investor to even consider it

and so that's that's where we're at

right now we're having a lot of these

fixer uppers people are overpricing them

but they're still the cheapest thing

on the market right but they're not

cheap enough to make sense for for

most home buyers that are out there in

this High mortgage rate and uncertain

economic

time so I I got that one right so

let's see here I got number one

mortgage rates will hit lower mid fives

at some point in the year that was wrong

okay so I got that one wrong us will

experience a mild session oh oh

interesting so I'm I'm on

Zoom for my video and I held my

thumbs up and it gave me a little thumbs

up bubble I have I did not know that

was a thing so that's cool all right so

number one I got wrong number two us

will experienc a mild recession

resulting in in closings being down 10

15% half right half wrong median home

prices will stabilize but will not go go

down that one I got completely right

okay average home prices will at some

point see a year-on-year decrease yes I

got that one right foreclosure rates

will stay at alltime lows I got that one

right Greenville will see its first

increase in housing affordability since

2011 I got that one

wrong Greenville realtor let's see

here Greenville realtor turnover will

exceed 50% I got that one incorrect

total inventory will stay below

pre-pandemic levels I got that one right

days on Market will reach the highest

Point since 2016 I got that one wrong

and cheap fixer uppers will appear once

again I got that one right so half

and half maybe if you if you give me

half credit for being right for the

closings being down 10 to 15% you could

say I got five and a half out of the 10

bold predictions right if you want to be

generous with me if you if you're not a

very generous person because you're the

Grinch or Scrooge or whatever you

whatever type of of mean character

you are then you can just say I got half

of these right half of these wrong and

we can just kind of settle at that

point so I hope you guys enjoyed that

bold predictions for 2024 will be coming

out early January so I look forward to

that episode I've already got a

tentative 10 bold predictions written

out I might tweak these as I mold

this over in the next few weeks but

we'll see because I will be recording

this well be before the beginning of

the new year I'll probably be recording

that episode next week so we will see

next week being the week right before

Christmas so we'll see you know if

anything happens between now and then

that makes me tweak any of my bold

predictions we'll see I take it very

seriously I put a lot of thought into

this there's a lot of analysis that goes

behind this I'm not just like I said

throwing darts at a dart board I am

actually trying to provide useful data

for you guys because I appreciate you

guys my listeners next week week by

the way is episode

200 200 for the Selling Greenville

podcast and I'm going to have something

special I'm still working out the

details there will be something special

for episode 200 so do not miss it you

will not want to miss it I promise you

so thank you guys my listeners for

listening all the time I really

appreciate you guys if you're

listening and you've not subscribed or

liked or commented or anything like that

please make sure you do that

my contact information is in the show

notes if you need a Greenville realtor

and until then let's go to all of my

favorite teams oh by the way I should

mention real quick I am a New York

Giants fan if you're a football fan I

just want to say go Tommy cutlets that's

a little a little Easter egg for you

football fans and anyway I'm

getting way off the rails here thank you

guys for listening we will talk again

next time