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 I'm a realtor right

here in Greenville and you can find all

of my contact information in the show

notes if you need to reach out to me for

any and all of your local real estate

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guys my listeners but I do appreciate

you guys listening I do or if you're

watching on YouTube remember you can

find this Selling Greenville podcast

search for that on YouTube you can find

me on there this is a good episode to

watch because I'm going to be showing

you a lot of data today because today

we're going to be going over the greater

Greenville Association Realtor Market

stats for the month of March they just

released these a couple of days ago a

little bit later than they normally do

and and so because of that that's why

I'm doing this episode a little bit

later than I normally do but but I

wanted to go ahead and go over this data

because there is some interesting

stuff to discuss in here so if you're

watching on YouTube you will be able

to actually see the actual charts and

graphs that I'm looking at and if

you're listening I'll try to make it to

where you can still follow along like I

always do we're going to start right at

the top with the new listings data

oh and by the way I normally have my

phone on silent I have it on vibrate

this time strictly for the reason

that I'm expecting a phone call and it

may come through while I'm doing this

so this may be a situation

where I have to pause the show and

and then come back or something like

that we'll see how that goes hopefully I

just won't be interrupted I can just

go straight through these stats

without any Interruption but I wanted to

let you guys know that just in case

all right so new listings data new

listings data if we go all the way back

to to October that was when we kind

of turned the corner right from when the

market was really reacting so

strongly to the mortgage rate

mortgage rates going up we had new

listings reach a all-time record in 2022

it's never been anywhere close to that

ever since the summer of 202 and then

had a precipitous falloff for

the remainder of that year as rates just

really skyrocketed in comparison to

where they had

been now they you know we have seen

basically supply and demand kind of

stabilized until then this past year

2023 we saw a very strange pattern where

normally we have a a standard Peak

type of P pattern that we have where

new listings go up as you get to the

summer your summer months are the months

where the most new listings are coming

on the market that's because the most

number of people are moving that's not

just a bunch of sellers usually the

sellers are also buyers in in this

market U but what happened last year was

really weird where we had basically

the new listings data stabilized around

the same

time basically in March of last year

and they they hit almost 2,000 and then

they dropped down to to the 1700

range and then went back up to into the

1900 range and then stayed up there then

went back into the 1700 range and back

up to the 1900 range and it created this

weird like crownlike pattern in the data

that that I have not seen before and

so what is going to be interesting to

see is if something like that can

continues this year thus far I don't

see any indicators in the data that

that's going to happen but we are still

too early so here is where we're at

after October as I started to say of

of last year we finally saw things start

to stabilized people finally come to

grips with the fact okay these high

mortgage rates are kind of here to stay

and so after many many months of new

listings year on-ear being lower from

obviously from the prior year we we

started to see some positive prints in

October new new listings was up 9.5%

over the prior year in November

16.4% December 10.4% January

32.3% February 24.8% so we've had some

very high double-digit year-on-year

new listing Sprints and that really

now that we're comparing to the

months when things were a lot

higher in

2023 now the year-on-year data looks

a lot more stable so what happened in

March of this year was the new listings

were up only 1.5% year on year that's

the lowest number since September of

last year when it was negative

10.4% if you're really interested

it's

1,991 new listings this what we had in

March of 2024 and that compares very

favorably again to March 23 which was

1,961 very very similar on a very slight

increase and so what does that tell

me again that tells me that we've seen

stabilization of the market this is just

kind of where things are and

and it also tells me that essentially we

can expect the market to be pretty

similar right now to what it was last

year around this time and that is what

it is I mentioned last time we talked

about this about this data that I was

busy that busyness has remained for me

and for many

others and and so even though it's a

suppressed Market in many ways there's

still a lot of stuff happening

pending sales, this is

homes to go under contract in a given

month it's always inaccurate for the

most recent months so we've got to

look back two months all the way back to

February now when we discussed this

last month I said that I thought that

February would end up being in the low

1200s after it was revised well it ended

up getting revised into the high 1200 so

1,280 which was only a slight dip from

January which was a a pretty high

January in comparison to most years but

that 1,280 is basically flat from

February 2023 when it was

1,282 new listings and if you're

watching on YouTube you can see that I

actually circled going back to 2016

all of the February data going back

then you can see how basically since

2016 the pending sales were essentially

Rising a little bit every year up

until 2021 in 2021 that was the peak

March pending sales number and then 2022

it started to drop down and then 2023 it

dropped down even more and now we're

essentially flat so we maybe kind of

found that bottom because this is

we're still slightly higher than

2019 but we're essentially right back

on par with where 2020 was and remember

February 2020 was before the pandemic

that was kind of the last normal month

so we have kind of gone back to what

essentially what demand was back then is

one way of interpreting this data Clos

sales Clos sales was down 3.7% year

on-ear 1, 378 closed sales in

comparison to

1,431 the year before no big

conclusions from that we had a massive

massive March last year that just kind

of came out of the blue you can see this

on the chart how it just skyrocketed in

March and then last year it went back

down in April and then we had a few good

months in the summer so it was kind of a

weird year last year based on

based on the the data that I'm seeing

here actually let let me go back to

pending sales for a second because this

informs closed sales so the March number

of pending sales is

definitely obviously low this number is

usually around 400 or so below what

it should be well March of 2023 had

1,521 pending sales which didn't

really impact April too much in terms of

the closed sales it impacted more May

and June

but we are definitely going to see

if I had to predict right now once this

data gets revised the pending sales for

March of this year are going to be

really quite a bit down from what they

were last year probably you know it

we'll probably see a print close to

1,400 in comparison to

1521 of March in 2023 so that'll be

interesting to track that being said

the that March of 2023 like I said

was really an anomaly it was like we had

all this pent up demand from from

basically the fourth quarter of that

year into the first two months of of

2023 and then things kind of started

to stabilize a little bit so our close

sales for the month of March was down

in terms of whether our close sales will

continue to be down I think that

probably April's Clos sales will

probably compare pretty favorably to

2023 we might even see a positive year

on-ear for April I'm guessing that May

and June will probably be down a little

bit as a result of our pending sales in

March being down the the pending sales

you know you you think about a real

estate transaction typically from the

time a home goes under contract until

the time it closes is about a month but

in terms of looking at this data because

you have to account for contracts

falling through and and some of this

you know some of the March data might be

from the end of March a lot of the

spills over the the the pending sales

for March will result in a lot of May

and even June closings so that's what

I'm thinking is happening there so we

had a down month for March I think we'll

probably have an up month for April

in terms of closed sales and then we

might see some down months in May and

June as we track this data days on

Market until sale this was one that last

time we we talked about this I actually

went back to listen to it because I I

couldn't remember exactly what I said I

said that I thought we might see days on

Market until sale go into the 60s but I

said I wasn't willing to predict that

because I had predicted that last year

and was wrong well I'm glad I didn't

predict that because days on Market

until sale dropped back down both month-

on-month and year on year down to 54 for

the month of March it was 58 days on

Market until sale in March 2023 so homes

are selling faster in

the month of March then they were both

March of last year and in February of

this year as well so that's very

interesting also if you're looking on

YouTube I annotated this chart to show

what has happened with days on Market

until sales so we we saw basically from

2017 until 2020 the month of March was

pretty stable it was hovering right

around 60 very consistently even in 2020

of course that was the co year it

it started to get up a little bit above

60 and then it really went way down and

and this again these are anomalies 2021

was real low 2022 was super low and then

it shot way up in 2023 and now it's

coming back down again in 2024 here's

the other thing I want to point out with

this data is that many many years March

is the highest days on Market until

sale month of the year now we've had

some very weird obviously data Trends

the past several years we had a pandemic

and then we had weird mortgage rate

impacts both then and now but if this

pattern holds and I think there's a very

good chance it does then the

highest days on Market until sale

number may end up being that 57 print

from February and so long story short

it's looking like this year homes are

going to sell faster than they did last

year which is if that seems

counterintuitive it is kind of

counterintuitive right I I have said and

i' I'm I've gone on the record saying

and and I'm not ashamed for saying it

that the market is weird right now but

you know there's a lot of homes that are

again that are having to experience

price drops we just talked about that a

lot of homes that are being that are

being withdrawn so not everything you

know is you can't extrapolate a ton from

this data but long story short it's it's

not homes that are on the market

generally speaking are not taking as

long to sell as they did last year at

this time now this is the first negative

year on year print that we have had in a

very long time I mean you can if you're

again if you're watching on YouTube you

can look back on the data you know we

had our first 0% increase last year or

sorry last month February when it stayed

at 57 days and now we're seeing it come

back down so if this gain steam this

could be an indication that demand is

actually starting to build and I will

say that so far in April as we're

almost at the end of April here

there's definitely demand out there

now that people are picky but there's a

lot of people out there looking and

people willing to jump on something if

it makes sense for them and so

we'll have to keep track on that but I

mean it's looking like if if standard

Trends hold we'll be back potentially

back down into the 40s for days on

Market which is very very low right we

don't typically we don't typically

see in the 40s in fact going this whole

data that we're looking at we never saw

it Go below 40 until the year

2020 and so to see that happen again

this year would would be quite a

surprise but again this is the strange

Dynamic that we have in the market right

now where even though demand is so

suppressed in comparison to what it

could be it is still propping up

there's still enough demand in the

Greenville Market to prop up a lot of

these numbers now imagine if mortgage

rates started to go to go down how much

demand would go Bonkers because I I'll

say it's worth saying in case you

haven't been paying attention mortgage

rates are really high right now let's

talk about that for a second the 10year

yield right now is at

4611 that is very very high in

comparison to what it had been you know

not that long ago I mean it was

4.19 just let's see here just back

at the end of March it was let's if

we go back even further beginning of

February it was 3.86 and that 10-year

yield number is the closest correlation

that we have to the 30-year fixed

mortgage that is out there so what is

the 30-year fixed rate mortgage at

according to mortgage News Daily which

tends to skew high but it's it's a

good tracker to to look at it's at 7.43

now my clients generally speaking if

they have good credit they're getting

pre-approved for rates much much lower

than

that but that is the mortgage news daily

rate currently

7.43% so that's a really really high

number right that I mean that is near

record highs since you know since the

basically 2012 essentially and so

that is something to keep in

mind is that if if that were to if that

were to go consistently below 7% and I

I'm aware that I predicted that it would

be below 7% for the entire year I was

wrong okay I was wrong about that one

but now we're seeing like based on what

demand is right now it feels soft but

imagine what it would have been there is

a ton of pent up Demand right now that

is just waiting for the dam to be

Unleashed and mortgage rates are

the only thing keeping that Dam open

right now and so keep that in mind

this is this is going to be a weird year

some people now are saying that we

might not see the FED drop rates at all

the entire year and so that's very

interesting that's not what the FED is

saying but people are starting to

realize that that's a possibility now

interestingly when is this little

dust-up with Israel and Iran I'm I'm not

trying to trivialize it by calling it a

dust-up but I don't really know what

else to call it it's not really a war

you know strikes between the countries

when that happened it actually

brought the 10-year yield down a

little bit because people started buying

treasuries and bonds and whatnot in

anticipation of a potential War so one

thing to to think about as well is that

if we have more Global conflicts that

actually could indirectly bring mortgage

rates down very very weird world that we

live and everything is backwards and

upside down and and all of that but

I'm I'm not a social commentator I am a

real estate agent who analyzes this

data and I'm just telling you what I see

all right let's talk about the median

sales price it hopped back up into the

300s remember last month we saw a print

at

$2999 our first sub 3,000 print in a

while but that was still a year-on-year

increase well March if pop back up to

311,000 which is a 3.7% increase from

the 2999 print from March of 2023

so we are back into the 300s now if

history is indicative we will never ever

see a print below 300,000 again okay

we'll see if that holds but if

history is indicative of what normally

happens so and and what do what do I

mean by that normally March is not the

it normally marches near the low

point of the year and so you look at

history usually the end of the year ends

up substantially higher than March there

are a few anomalies

2018 was a year that was an anomaly

you could find some others if if you

really scroll through this data but

generally speaking if historical Norms

end up being true gone are the days

of a median

in the greater Greenville area of less

than 300,000 so right now the median is

311,000 if you want to look at the

average the average is

369,000 which is a also an increase a

6.5% year-on-year increase from the

347,000 of March

2023 percent of list price received

another indicator that demand is

still staying stable and perhaps even

ramping up right now we had a 3%

increase in March and so that took us

up to a 3% increase year-on-year and

so that took us up to

98.6% so now sellers are you know

really experiencing the benefit of this

time of year where they're able to get a

higher percentage for of for their

home for what it's listed than other

times of the year and again if history

is indicative it will at this level

maybe even go up a little bit for the

next couple of months and so

generally speaking again this doesn't

account for concessions price reductions

things like that but generally

speaking sellers are getting over

98% of what they have a home listed for

once it sells not accounting for seller

concessions not accounting for whether

they have dropped the price during that

time I'm going to skip the housing

affordability index I discussed last

time I don't know what's going on with

that I'm not going to pretend like I do

now here's inventory of homes for sale

which is a another metric that I

think is kind of would lead you to to

believe that demand is weakening but I

don't think we can say demand is

weakening I think that what we can say

is that more people are listing their

homes we're seeing people listing homes

we're seeing examples of people listing

homes that they are when they're not

having to buy a home okay so so

investors people like that that

have real estate that they want to sell

right now for whatever reason and

that they don't immediately have another

home to purchase so inventory this is

a number that's always wrong for

the most recent month so I'm not going

to really look at the March numbers

those are meaningless but what we will

look at is that February was another

took a big big jump actually from

February 20 3 a 21.6% jump that's the

largest jump since May of last year

so a huge jump so the inventory of homes

for sale at the end of February is

3598 up from

2,959 February

2023 and we have been just kind of

bouncing around really close really

really close to what it was pre-pandemic

we're still a little bit below that

but based on the preliminary March

number of 4,215 which is definitely

going to get Rev rise down this one's

also usually about 4 to 500 higher

than it should be we are going to

still continue to see this rise and so

we could very well see once this March

number gets revised it could be in that

37 to

3,800 range which would put us

honestly right right in there with

normal pre-pandemic numbers and so

it's interesting because some of this

data is looking a little bit more normal

and some of it is looking very much not

normal so the inventory of homes for

sale you know I think what we can say

is that there are basically two things

two types of homes right now there's

homes that are listed and then just

sitting and they're adding to this

inventory and then there's a lot of the

homes that aren't just sitting are going

under contract very very quickly and

that's why the days on Market is is

coming down a bit and is kind of

historically low some of these other

metrics that's why prices are still

going up on a meta-level but

that's what I think is happening that

explains some of this seemingly

contradictory data month supply for the

month of February went up from

2.3 in 2023 to 2.8 in February 2024 once

this number for March gets revised it'll

probably be you know ticking up there it

might go up to 2.9 n or might go up to

three again th those numbers are all

still pretty low numbers at the end of

the day typically you know

historically we would expect to see this

basically between three and a half and

five usually around like 4 months of

inventory something like that but we

are not there yet we are not there yet

this is still a number very indicative

of a seller's market and of course I'm

not paying much attention to the March

number because that the March number

divides pending sales by or divides

inventory by pending sales and I've

already said both of those numbers are

frequently wrong and get heavily

revised so I think March is going to

come in at 2.9 or 3 months of inventory

probably once this is all said and done

that's still going to be a massive

increase from March 23 was only 2.3

months similar to what February was

so we're seeing a little bit of

softening for buyers but not enough

softening to see meaningful

meaningful changes in prices meaningful

changes or at least in the positive for

buyer’s price is still going up we're not

seeing meaningful help for buyers in

terms of days on Market all of these

things but if this really started to

soften and if we if we started to if if

we reached a point where months on

inventory was starting to get closer to

four that would really start to soften

some of these other numbers for buyers

but I just don't know that that's

going to happen because

again where is the inventory going to

come from there's there's no clear

indication of exactly where that's

going to go where that's going to come

from and again rates are probably pretty

close to their highest I I'd be granted

I don't have a great track track record

with predicting where these rates are

going to go still figuring that out

but I would be pretty surprised if

the mortgage news daily rate like ever

if we saw it here in the future

exceed let's say 7.6 I'd be surprised if

it exceeds 7.6 I think if the if

some of the inflation data I think we've

got some inflation data coming out this

week if some of that doesn't seem

particularly good I think we could see

this rate hop back up you know into the

75s I'd be surprised if it hopped back

up into the 7 six so that will be

something that we'll have to track but

that would be really the main thing that

would cause the market to really soften

up more as rates just started to just

creep back up again and started to get

closer to 8% right now I think

they're pretty close to their Peak

but we'll have to see it's not something

it's really hard to predict they're I

have seen so many different models out

there trying to predict what's going to

happen with rates and the market and

whatnot and almost all of them have been

wrong almost every single one of them I

even saw one recently just a few weeks

ago that said that they are still still

pricing in six rate Cuts this year from

the fed well I mean we're almost at the

point now where if they cut rates by and

and this was a basically 150-basis

point rate cut so that would be you

know

25 you could do it a few different ways

they could have a month where they cut

by 50 or 75 or whatever but normally

most people don't think that the FED is

going to cut when they start

cutting more than 25 basis points at

a time and so so I I mean to do that to

get to 150 they would have to cut six

different times so that they would at

the very least have to start cutting in

July and then would have to cut every

single month by 25 basis points until

the end of the year I just don't see

that happening right now unless this

inflation data completely shatters

everyone's predictions everyone thinks

the inflation data is going to come in

hot and I do too I mean until I see

something in the data that makes me

think it's not going to come in hot I'm

assume it's going to keep coming in hot

and that's going to keep rates elevated

now what's interesting is a lot of

inflation data in other countries

including like Canada some other places

that that kind of mirror the US

is a lot softer than the US the labor

market in the US is just strong and

consumption is shockingly strong so I

don't know what exactly to make of that

you wouldn't think that our data would

be so much different than Canada's data

now you know you know some people

are you know they want to say that you

know the books are being cooked cuz

it's an election year and they're

going to wait until closer to the

election to cut rates I don't think the

FED cares at all about the fact that

it's an election well the FED chairman

he wants to he wants to stay chairman

he doesn't want you know a new president

to come in or or or for you know

Biden to get upset and relieve him of

his duties he doesn't care he he could

listen the most fed shairs

they don't they don't stay for the

entire length of their term because they

can make more money in the private

markets they have to exclude

themselves from so many things in the

market because they could do so much

insider trading they they're

taking a pay cut actually to serve on

the FED every one of those fed

Governors and presidents H have to do

that that's why very few of them serve

for longer than four to six years even

though they could serve for I believe

the term is 12 years so I don't buy that

at all I don't think that the action

your has any sway on the fed from what I

have seen now maybe if they're really

really staunch supporters of one

party or another perhaps but to If

From my perspective looking in I don't

think that and reminder that the

current fed chairman was appointed by

Donald Trump and President Biden

retained him so I would not think that

he would have a preference for one

president versus the other but but

that's just me rambling at this point

I didn't come in here with any

particular notes outside of outside

of that you know all of those data

that we that we just went through but

I hope that was helpful for you guys

I hope you appreciated that we have a

lot more coming up here I'm actually

going to DC for a political conference

here in in a few weeks that'll be fun

hopefully I have some information

to share with you guys from that been

doing a lot of interviews with

politicians for those of you that

that don't know I'm heavily involved in

local political scene some interesting

stuff that's come out of that I'm

sure I'll have some things to share with

you guys about that at some point but

that's all for today's episode thank you

guys for listening as always, please

like rate review subscribe comment

download episodes all of those good

things just take a moment to do that all

of my contact information is in the show

notes if you need to re if you need a

realtor for any of your real estate

needs here in the Greenville area we

will talk again next time