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 in the show notes

if you need to reach out to me for any

of your real estate needs and just a

reminder as always please like rate

review subscribe comment all those great

things on whatever platform you're

listening or watching to the show on

we've gotten a lot of comments a lot of

likes a lot of sub subscriptions lately

thanks to a certain giveaway that I did

later in the show we will be announcing

the winner of the giveaway so please

stay tuned to hear the

winner and I'm I'm excited for that

um but otherwise this is kind of an

unplanned show okay I have no notes in

front of me um I'm still on vacation

time I spent the new year which by the

way Happy New Year this is our our

our first episode of well no it's

our second episode of 2024 but it's my

first recording after 2024 so happy New

Year to you guys I hope it's been a

great 2024 so far I rang in the New

Year in pad Del Carman in Mexico it

was lovely it's like 80° the beach

was

incredible the resort the resort was

incredible a great way to ring in the

New Year highly recommend it I didn't

even tell my clients that I was going

because it was like everyone was just

kind of slow this year around the

holidays and normally I have

clients where you know it would be

necessary for me to tell them if I'm

doing a trip like that but in this case

I knew I was going to have great cell

phone reception I knew I was going to

have you know great Wi-Fi and all of

that and all of my clients had told

me that they were more or less taking a

break for the holidays and so if

I got a phone call and I was on the

beach I took it if I didn't get a phone

call that then I didn't get a phone call

if I had emails I addressed them

so I was constantly keeping up with

everything like I always do on my

vacation it was just instead of

inside of my tight little office with

the window back here if you're watching

on on YouTube instead my office was

either my Resort room or the beach or

or a pool and so there are worse

ways to ring in the New Year than that I

I reckon but I had a very

good time

and then I came back on Thursday

we got back really late honestly on

Thursday and I hit the ground running on

Friday and I listed a couple of houses

I had a bunch of other things that

that I needed to do and listen I didn't

know what to expect going into 2024 you

know I made my bold predictions but

at the end of the day it's really hard

to predict last January insanely slow

I've told you guys this agents that

that have been in this business for 20

or 30 years were telling me it's it was

the slowest start of a year that they

had ever experienced and then gradually

our phone started you know

ringing and getting text messages more

and more as we got towards the end of

January then into February and then by

March it was we were in in full swing

and even though it was still a slower

year than normal it wasn't like if

the year had continued on the way it

was in January it would have been

horrendous for a lot of people in in

the business thankfully that that

didn't end up happening well this year

is off to a completely different start

let me tell you I could feel it when I

was in Mexico I could I could feel a

little bit of building you know a little

bit of okay there there might be some

stuff happening this weekend I don't

know and and and maybe maybe

following man let me tell you it this

weekend and then already the start of

this week I'm recording this on Monday

the 8th at night I never record at night

I'm so busy today that I wasn't able

to record until tonight and then I'm

so busy tomorrow I don't have a single

opportunity to record tomorrow and I

always release this podcast on Wednesday

so this is literally the only time I can

do it so it's just been straight

through the weekend that things were

crazy and and it was just and and and

here's the thing not just for me right

cuz because real estate can sometimes

there could be some quirky things there

sometimes I've been slow when everyone

else was busy or I was busy when

everyone else was slow but no I have

talked to a ton of agents that have all

said the exact same thing the start of

this year which started essentially this

past weekend was Barn stormers went

absolutely crazy and so I've been trying

to think like what caused that right

and is this an indicator for the rest

of the year because if it is we might

be needing to reset some

expectations here but what happened

you know I think I think a few things

happened I think people didn't want

to move during the holidays right

everything is against moving during the

holidays particularly this year right

High rates low

inventory not a whole lot out there

and people were just like you know

what once November came around I think a

lot of people that were potential

potential buyers were just like we're

just going to wait until we're in a

situation where we're

completely clear of the holidays and the

holidays were really slow it was

actually really nice for a change

there there just wasn't people just

really seemed to enjoy the holidays this

year and no complaints for me it

was nice to have a couple of slower

weeks for a

change but

let me tell you once the holidays

were passed it's like people woke up and

they realized okay here we go we're

we're ready to rock and roll we're ready

to buy some houses and and sell some

houses and so you know I don't

know how much of that was like two

months of demand kind of piling up

during the months of November and

December and then that Dam opened up

this past weekend I don't know how much

of it Beyond just people not wanting

to move during the holidays maybe they

were seeing these mortgage rates come

down and they were like hmm okay rates

coming down a little bit okay well let's

see what they look like after the

holidays well guess what we get to after

the holidays the 30-year fixed rate

mortgage as I'm recording this day is

6.74 per. not

necessarily super low again compared to

what they were a couple of years ago but

compared to what they've been in recent

months that is very very low and here's

an interesting thing the 10year fixed

rate sorry the not 10year fixed rate the

10-year treasury has actually come up

a little bit since the last time I

recorded it recorded the show it hit

a low I think when I recorded my last

episode maybe it hit a low of

3.785 just on December 27th now it's

up to 4.27 but guess what this hasn't

impacted morage rates in the way it

traditionally would have there was a

time where the spread between the

10-year Treasury and the 30-year fixed

rate mortgage was over 300 basis points

if that were the case right now we'd be

in the

7% instead we're at

6.74% and so the spread has actually

gotten tighter now it's not as tight as

it was a few years ago it was like

150 basis points if it were that then

what we'd be talking about is 30-year

fixed rate mortgage rates in the mid

fives like 5.6 something like that so

we still it still could tighten quite a

bit like we could easily get into the

fives with the 10-year treasury exactly

where it is right now and by the way the

only reason why it's as high as it is

right now is it you know why

rebounded from that 3.78 was the FED saw

it going down and the Fed was like we

need to do damage control we need to

start making some hawkish statements and

so that's what they did the FED made

some hawkish State statements because

they've said that they want bonds and

treasuries to kind of do some of the

work for them on inflation they don't

want bonds and treasuries to be to

all get bought up and for that percent

to go

down and so they want what what

they want to see is they want to see

that number to be a higher number and

and for them not to have to lower rates

a gazillion times this year anyway

that's a very simplistic way of thinking

about it but long story short

there's perhaps a little bit more

confidence in the markets right now that

that the FED is doing a good job with

inflation I think that that's getting

reflected in the spread narrowing

between the 10-year Treasury and the

30-year fixed rate mortgage and

ultimately I think it's a great sign

that means

stability in mortgage rates we've

seen a lot of instability right the

past several months I mean here I I'll

screen share with you guys that are

looking on YouTube for a

second here we've got the

mortgage News Daily

whoops stop that screen share for a

second let me try this

again all right here we go here we have

the mortgage News Daily website here

and you can see in the

percents I mean there's just been insane

fluctuation basically the entire

year the entire year of 2023 it went up

it went down and then it's come back up

a little bit more and so and then if

you go back several years well you can

see it was pretty stable right for for a

long time we've had periods of stability

and the market likes that people like

stability right because if they have

stability if they are confident that

rates aren't going to go up too much or

go down too much then they're more

likely to be willing to move

they're more likely to be willing to

purchase a home because if you think

rates are going to go way down then

you're likely to wait until those rates

do if you think rates are going to go

way up then you're then you're more

likely to make a panic purchase

decision and try to buy a house

quickly before before rates go up so

I was just talking to a mortgage broker

at my at my church recently he was

just saying man if we could just get

some of that rate stability that would

make a huge difference and he's 100%

accurate we don't even need rates to go

down for for demand to pick up we just

need rates to become predictable and if

rates become predictable then people

will buy now if rates do go down if we

if we see rates I don't think a lot

will happen rates go down to like 6.5

6.4 but if we start to see rates come

close to

6.2 6.3 6.1 whatever the low sixes I

think that that could have a huge impact

on demand we're already seeing this

impact on demand that appears to be

directly I think it's directly related

to these rates being the lowest that

they've been in quite some time so this

is this is all very interesting to see

and I'm glad that I heard from a bunch

of other realtors that they are seeing

the same Dynamic and guess what it is

I've got a week First full work week of

the year full of meetings like it is

just absolutely insane and here's an

interesting little tidbit as

well one thing that was very strange

this past year was I had a lot of

listings and traditionally when you have

listings by the way if you're watching

on YouTube I apologize for my hair I

I just took a I just took a shower and

and I did not put any product in my

hair I looked like I just came off the

beach I didn't I'm I am at home now

but anyway that that's what's

happening with my hair if you're

watching but but the this past year a

very interesting thing happened

typically when you have listings as a

realtor you get buyer clients from those

listings and the

reasons for that are that there's a

surprisingly large number of

buyers out there that don't have

Realtors representing them or in some

cases they actually don't want Realtors

to represent them they they just want to

go direct to the listing agent they feel

like that I don't know that maybe it's a

more direct way to purchase a

property to me I think it's foolish I

would never recommend someone do that

if you're a buyer you should have a

buyer agent representing you and and

I am more than happy when someone

when a buyer agent calls me on one of my

listings I'm not looking to try to

be a dual agent for my listings

but if someone calls me and they don't

have representation I'm happy to show

them the home and I've had a lot of dual

agent kind of situations in the past

where I was essentially representing

both sides of the transaction and it

works out right there I'm a professional

I know how to handle

that well the the past year or so

there really hasn't been nearly as much

of that as in the past I used to get

tons of phone calls from people off the

street looking at my signs looking at

this looking at that you know finding

my information on Zillow and calling me

about a a listing that I have that's

been much much less the past year

year and a half than in the past and my

theory is that the reason for that is

that demand went down so low that it

went all the way down to the point where

the only demand that we had was from

people in the marketplace that already

had a buyer agent right they were

desperate and they needed a buyer agent

in order to help them find a house right

because we as real estate agents even

though you guys have Zillow and

realor.com and whatnot we have access to

way more information than you

do that those of you out there that

are non- realtors and so even though

there's a lot of information out there

we can still provide information value

not to mention all the other values

we've talked about this in the past

that that Buyer Agents provide and so

I think that demand shrunk all the way

down to the bones and the bones were

people that already had Buyer Agents

that they were working with and all of

these others that didn't have Buyer

Agents they just stopped they just

stopped looking they just weren't

interested well the fact that I have

a few listings right now and I'm

starting to get a lot of phone calls on

these listings spec and and some of

these are listings like I've got a land

listing right now that I've had for

for for several weeks land listings take

a while to sell I hadn't gotten a

whole lot of phone calls all of a sudden

this week getting a bunch of phone calls

on that land people are clearly

waking up and what I think is

happening is we're starting to see the

first ripples of demand increasing the

people now that have been on the

sidelines that don't have an agent are

now like okay we're ready rates are are

at a reasonable Point they they've

come down to a a point where I can feasy

make a purchase and not feel completely

sick to my stomach we've waited long

enough to make this

move housing isn't getting cheaper I

think that's another thing that people

you know during 2023 there was a lot of

people people would just tell me prices

are going to go down this year aren't

they and I was just like if they do

that's not in the data like there's no

indicator in the data that prices are

going to go down specifically in the

Greenville market now there are some

markets like like San Francisco and

Austin and and Boise where where there

has been a price correction but

but not in Greenville okay I was

seeing recently in s San Francisco there

are Mo the majority of San Francisco

their inventory is up 50% over

pre-pandemic levels right 50% higher

than it was before the pandemic that is

insane we're still below pre-pandemic

levels here in Greenville so real

estate is a very local very local thing

but I think we're seeing here with

these people that are that are calling

me and and if you're listening and

you're one of those people that that

called me great I'm I'm more than happy

to to help you out if you don't have a

buyer

agent but but I think we're

starting to see the early ripples of the

fact that that more demand is coming

into the market and again if if this

first week is any indication I mean I

got crushed on the weekend and here I am

on Monday I I got crushed today I'm I'm

getting Crush tomorrow we're g to get

two to three inches of rain tomorrow and

I've got a Full Slate of meetings I'm

going to be driving around in my truck

in a monsoon it's G to be crazy it's

going to be awesome as you can see

I'm excited for this right it's exciting

when when you know that that that

your business has the potential to

see a lot more activity because the

market is improving this is what this

is what we're here for I mean even

before I was a realtor when I was just

an employee in in international business

I it was exciting when we hit the busy

season it was there was adrenaline to it

it's no different in real estate

except that it means it translates

directly to a lot more money for me

and and so that's great I love it so I

I'm eager to see if this continues

because

again such a different vibe than what we

had last January but also a very

different vibe than really any other

January that I can remember I've never

started the year quite like this so I'm

not sure that we can completely rule out

the the possibility that maybe this is a

little bit of a quirk that maybe we'll

just have a seasonally High January and

maybe things will regress a little

bit to the mean in February and then you

know just kind of a a strong seasonally

normal rest of the year I don't know

but I'm not here to tell you guys what I

don't know I'm here to tell you guys

what I know and what I know is that

2024 has gotten off to a wild start now

we need to discuss a certain giveaway

that we had we had a giveaway that a lot

of you guys participated in thank you

very much to the to all the people

that participated that commented on

YouTube subscribed subscribed on Spotify

or iTunes or whatever platform you were

subscribing on thank you guys this

was a lot of fun I I really enjoyed

being I well I've enjoyed doing this

podcast obviously for now over 200

episodes but it was really pleasing to

me to be able to to put out there

that I was doing a giveaway and so many

people responded so thank you guys

what I did to make it fair I used

software called I don't even know how to

pronounce it it's called simpliers I

guess you'll see it in a second I'm I'm

going to show us I'm G to share my

screen of the

winner but basically the way this

worked was and I recorded it for the

naysayers that you know when I actually

did the random selection just to protect

myself right because I'm sure there's

someone out there that's like oh this is

rigged no it is not rigged simply if

you go on their website very it's very

simple you basically enter in the

URL for the YouTube video that you want

to select a random comment from and you

can do multiple of them so I did all my

videos that have

comments and then I had it I pressed a

button and it basically just just

started cycling through the comments

really really fast while there's a

countdown and then once the countdown

got to zero whatever comment was on the

screen at that time was the winner and

so here we go let's do a Griswald style

if you guys watch Griswald

Christmas Vacation do a Griswald style

drum roll you know all that kind of

stuff that was awful that was an awful

awful I I'm hoping that you guys are

doing a better job where you are than I

just did when it comes to that drum roll

and here we go screen share the

winner of the $200 Amazon gift card

is Eric Nash Eric

congratulations Eric is a longtime

listener of the

show very I would have been pleased

if any of you guys had won it but I

am definitely pleased that Eric won it

he frequently tells me that he likes

the show and frequently has thoughts

about it and and so I'm pleased that

simpliers selected Eric as The

Winner and Eric the onus is on you

right I I gave a fair warning before

that this would be announced during the

show I'm not going to reach out to you

outside of the show I I will pocket the

$200 if you don't reach out to me so I'm

expecting for you to reach out to me

because you listened or watched the show

and and you know that you won so

so that's that's on you to get in

touch with me but listen thank you

guys so much for for doing this I

really liked the results of this

giveaway you guys were very enthusiastic

so that likely means that there will be

more of these in the future so I would

highly recommend that you guys listen to

the show or watch the show in the future

to make sure that you don't miss future

giveaways this is the second giveaway

I've done in my career the first one was

terrible this one I'm finally happy

about but that that's pretty good

right one out of two so now that I I

I feel like I have a pretty good system

in place

somewhat this should be this

should allow me to do more of this type

of thing in the future so thank you guys

for participating and and that's all

I have honestly for today's show this

was an unscripted show I didn't have

a single note in front of me I just

wanted to tell you guys that the start

of this year is crazy we don't know what

it means buckle up I've got my roller

coaster harness on that's how buckled

up I am right now because I am prepared

for anything at this point it could be

crazy it could just be you know

smoking the wind maybe maybe like I said

J January is

just just an abnormal month this year I

have no idea but I'm really excited

and hope you guys are excited and hope

you guys will use me as your realtor if

you need one my contact information is

in the show notes if you need to reach

out to me for any of your real estate

questions or if you just want to talk

about this show feel free to reach out

to me that way and please even though

there's not a giveaway in this episode I

would appreciate if you guys like rate

review subscribe comment all of

those great things in order to get the

show out to as many people as possible

you might never use me as your realtor

but if you just do that and if you

appreciate this content that is one of

the best ways that you guys can support

the show so thank you guys so much again

2024 I hope you guys had a great New

Year and I hope the entire year is great

for you guys I've got a lot of

interesting content coming up

I've got several conventions and

things that I'm going to this month I

think it's going to provide a lot of

interesting content for you guys by the

way I don't know if I've repeated myself

a few times in the show I actually

had to record this show twice because

the first time I failed to record the

video for it so this is my second time

recording it and I feel like I'm

repeating everything I said the first

time so I apologize if I if I

repeated myself at all but thank you

guys for watching and listening happy

once more

2024 we will talk again next time