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

lovely Greenville, South Carolina 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

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notes so we had number a hurricane coming to

Greenville this really doesn't happen

it was a probably I mean we have storms

coming to Greenville obviously it's not

it's not that we never have hurricanes

that turn into TR tropical storms and

end up hitting us it's pretty rare that

they start in the gulf and come up with

any sort of velocity and hit us but

yeah Wake Me Up When September Ends number

very much is is my feeling right now I'm

recording this on September 30th I am

ready to turn the p on the month of

September as many people

are and number and so let me just assume for

a second that you don't know I think

most of my listeners will know but just

in case you don't number hurricane Helen did

end up coming into number after it you know

rre havoc on on Florida and Georgia it

ended up coming into South Carolina and

North Carolina as I silence my phone by

the way I'm I'm getting to this but

I'm recording a different location I'll

explain that in a second came into

South Carolina and North Carolina and it

was really a one in 100 plus year

weather event I mean what we had the

amount of number of rain the amount of wind

it was just unbelievable Greenville

had wind gusts up to 68 miles per hour

rain was around 12 in in a very short

period of time probably like 48 is hours

and so catastrophic flooding Western

North Carolina had it even worse than us

and number so really I feel like it's

it's opopo for me to number discuss this

because quite frankly the national media

isn't covering it and I know a lot of

my listeners are listeners from out of

town out of state you guys might be

interested in hearing what is happening

well the reason why I'm I'm not number

recording with my normal background is

I'm actually recording this from my

actual office because my actual office

has power and internet which my current

home office and Studio does not have I

have been number almost a week now well not

not quite a week half a week without

power it's felt like an eternity you go

from Once you once you hit day two of of

no power it feels like it's just never

going to end and I don't want to play

you know the pity party game with myself

because a lot of people had it way worse

than we did which I'll get into in a

second number but long story short my office

has power my office however is very number

echoey and Loud and so there might be

some background noise I apologize for

that this is the best I can do to keep

producing number good content for you guys

even When Storms wreck the

infrastructure of the area that I'm

trying to record from

so long story short here here's kind

of what happened for those that are

outside the area

number hurricane Helen you know we knew that

it was coming up from the Gulf we knew

it was going to impact South Carolina

North Carolina but what we didn't know

was that the models all predicted that

it was going to Veer the the worst of

the storm was going to Veer west of us

and in fact the worst of the storm went

right over us and went right over

Asheville North Carolina and and a lot

of small mountain towns in North

Carolina and it just caused an

unbelievable amount of flooding and an

unbelievable amount of wind damage in

Greenville

specifically we the the flooding wasn't

as bad as you know if you're seeing

images of insane flooding for the most

part that's not in Greenville now the

area around Unity Park which Unity Park

was built on a swamp number that those are

some of the most extreme number images that

I've seen But Unity Park was designed to

flood and to then have flood waters

received so they built a park on a swamp

knowing that number it was going to flood

and they they did a good job with it to

design it so that it can flood and then

unflood now the question is is it

designed to hold five feet of water

which was maybe maybe not quite five

maybe closer to four feet of water

there's enough water in the park that

you could easily ride a boat through

there if you wanted to I don't know if

it's quite designed to hold that much

water but I I hope that it was and I

know that the engine engers that worked

on Unity Park did a really fantastic job

with it so hopefully that'll be okay number

but for the most part you know people

with basement homes did have number did have

flooding I have a basement home I had

the slightest bit of water come into my

basement essentially I have a creek on

my property and the my garage faces

the creek my garage runs the entire number

width of my house so water came into my

garage and then number seeped a little bit

into my laundry room bathroom and number

guest bedroom but it was nothing it

was nothing I need to make an insurance

claim about or anything like that it

was kind of a a nothing event from that

standpoint but others I know had

severe flooding in their home again

not flooding where like you're like

getting up on top of your roof and

waiting for a helicopter to save you but

flooding where you know a tremendous

amount of water damage to their home so

these sorts of things number they do happen

they have happened but the biggest thing

that we're seeing is the wind damage I

mean number Greenville is not designed to

handle 65 mile per hour winds I mean I

don't know too many too many cities that

are designed to handle that but I mean

we just never have that so there are

trees uprooted everywhere massive

massive trees actually the the thicker

trees were the ones that number got caught

up the most on my property I have a lot

of thinner trees and only one of them

fell and that was a tree that already

was completely eaten up by termites

and so number the the wind damage was

isolated to specific pockets of of town

primarily in terms of like those trees

just falling everywhere specifically

the areas that had those really number thick

mature trees I've seen them down all

over town Taylor got hit really hard

the west side of Greenville got hit

really hard which is really sad because

number you know I I went through some of the

more impoverished areas of Greenville

and that was unfortunately some of the

worst hits number worst hit parts of town

and and just you know you drive

anywhere number you can't avoid it there is

chaos everywhere in Greenville number from

this wind damage power outages like I

said Duke Energy is sending us messages

that says power won't be on until Friday

number that being said I own rental

properties and one of my rental

properties they sent me a text message

this morning that said power would come

back on Friday which was the exact

same message I sent me about my own home

and then later they sent me a message

power has been restored again to my

rental property not not to my main house

so that is number what we're experiencing

right

now we've got we're seeing some

things that number that I've never seen

before we've got all these number at the

Haywood Mall all these number

semis number you know massive trucks that

are essentially mobile bedrooms little

mobile apartments for First Responders

coming in we've got First Responders

coming in from California I read we've

got electricians coming down here from

Canada we do not have the number the

Manpower for something like this it's

you know it's been declared a number a

National Emergency by the president

and and so things

are the the response seemed slow at the

beginning because again when you're at

when you're without power and you don't

know what's happening and you know

there's trees down everywhere it's like

when are we going to start seeing some

stuff well soon enough we started to

hear the chainsaws hear the generators

crank up and all of that and things are

starting to move I started to see some

Power Equipment near my house and so

I am hoping against hope that I'll get

power soon but if not that's okay

it's been a real Lifesaver that my

office has had power and internet at

least from the standpoint of my personal

business that's been extremely

helpful now a lot of people are

asking how we're doing number my family

we're doing fine like I said we we've

been out of power but that's not the

worst thing in the world right we

we've been able to manage we've got

you know I've got number gas grills and

things like that that we can warm things

up on my refrigerator and freezer are

like the best insulated refrigerator

freezer ever nothing has gone bad in

in them of course we've been restocking

with ice which is hard to find

probably the most stressful thing out of

all of this was number because we were all

blindsided by this right nobody nobody

could have predicted this would happen

the only thing comparable to it was

over 100 years ago Asheville had a storm

like

this and and so that's how you know

it's when we say it's a one in 100 Year

event like literally it was a one in 100

Year

event but but I was foolish I'll be

honest I had the day before all the

storm number made landfall I number had a long

day of driving and brought my gas tank

down pretty low and did not get gas

and he was to say that was not a good

choice when I went out after the

storm and after things kind of settled

number priority number one was get gas well

needless to say that's priority number

one for like a bunch of people and so I

was going around to gas stations and

I was actually number

experiencing people in line at gas

stations that a didn't had power and so

they couldn't pump gas couldn't you know

couldn't do anything I guess people

were just sitting there hoping that

power would would get restored to the

gas station obviously that didn't happen

and then I also saw inance of the

people in line in some cases very long

lines like we're talking about maybe

multi- hour lines at gas stations that

did not have gas like they even had

signs that said we don't have gas but I

guess they were just waiting to be

refilled

on gasoline I was in a desperate

situation I had 40 miles to till empty

when I left my house and you know it

was hard to find places that even had

power at that point well I finally

got in line number with 18 miles till empty

at a gas station that had gas had power

I could tell it had gas it's funny I

became an expert at being able to

identify whether it had gas or not right

if you see people actually pumping

and actually you know at their at their

pump at their gas cap then you had an

idea okay they're actually refilling

their vehicles whereas if they were at

stations that didn't have gas number you

know people would just be hanging out

talking have their tailgate down you

know just chilling waiting I guess

hoping against hope that the gas would

would get refilled while they were there

so number it was crazy I I finally after

waiting for 45 minutes finally pulled up

to the pump number on empty and got a was

able to get a full refill there was no

price gouging although I saw some people

say that they thought that price gouging

should have happened number in order to

prevent people from number going too crazy

with their with their gasoline number that

didn't happen gas here is still hovering

around $3 it was number it was cheaper than

that prior to this event it was it

was starting to get into the mid tws

but it's $3 so it's it's still quite

cheap relatively

speaking and so number yeah that was that

was my closest call and and probably

the scariest part of this whole thing

for me a lot of businesses are

opening but without the ability to

process number payments and so cash number has

become a thing again of course ATMs

are are all down number as well so you

either have cash or you don't number so

number it it's it's interesting okay even my

dog my dog who is a number three-year-old

mini golden doodle unbelievable amount

of energy never goes to bed before we do

she she fancies herself a guard dog and

and needs to wait until we all go to bed

before she does one night you know

with all with basically our house lit by

candlelight she was like ConEd out at

9:30 p.m. I have never seen her since

she was a very very tiny puppy conked

out at 9:30 p.m. so just very

interesting times I am

I'm good with not having interesting

times anymore but nonetheless

interesting times are constantly upon us

there's another storm brewing in the

Gulf apparently but the the from

what I've heard today it seems like

maybe there it's it seems like it's

going to be a weaker storm perhaps it

won't develop into a cyclone perhaps

it'll Veer into Mexico or somewhere else

so that's what we're hoping because we

need we really don't need we we

definitely don't need more wind but we

really don't need rain particularly in

North Carolina and I do want to bring

attention to them for a second

because I think you know I think that

that's

a like I said the the national media I'm

I'm pretty unimpressed with with how

they're handling this thing and so I

want to go ahead if you're on YouTube or

if you want to log in on YouTube and and

take a look at this and here's number I'm

I'm showing a video of Chimney Rock

the downtown stretch of Chimney Rock was

really crushed like just absolutely

crushed just debris everywhere local

businesses devastated very very

difficult very difficult things to see

here's number another video of the of the

Chimney Rock area like it it's hard to

comprehend again these things do not

happen in Western North Carolina it's

it's so unusual you know you can see

boats just on in out in debris Fields

it's it's just really devastating people

you know I'm hearing stories of

people number dying on tops of their roofs

you know waiting to be rescued number by

air Assistance or whatever the case may

be and

unfortunately you know there's only

so much that can be done right now only

so many resources that are out

there and number and so it's it's just it's

a it's a devastating event you know

even though I'm not personally in

Western North Carolina I don't do

business up there I do a lot of

hiking up there I like to hike I love

that little town of Chimney Rock I love

Asheville I love you know just all of

those little mountain towns up there

great hiking spots great restaurants

great

breweries number good places to to spend a

weekend or whatever and so it does number

touch me and impact me

personally to number to see the sort of

Devastation up there as well and so

you know if if you have a moment to send

prayers or Good Vibes to Greenville to

Western North Carolina number please do so

I've heard the Greenwood in Abbyville

South Carolina also got

hit pretty pretty hard and it's just

there's just a lot a lot that happened

now thankfully you know what happened in

Asheville was they've got the French

Broad River which is a giant river that

goes straight through their city and it

reached a level that it had never

reached before in modern history and

it crested a over 100-year record and

there are just people that are

completely stranded without food without

water without power and number I I have

some clients up there looking to buy

Greenville I've communicated with some

of them they seem okay but not everyone

out there is okay and number and and so

hopefully em emergency responders

will be able to get to number to these

people that are stranded and be able to

number to bring them to

safety so what does this mean okay

and and what else do I want to say about

this well I just want to say this right

away okay because this is at the end of

the day I'm not a news podcast I'm a

real estate podcast sometimes current

events number become a big part of what we

talk about on here number but this is a real

estate podcast and so number so beyond what

I've talked about just in terms of the

the han element of this I don't

want to completely get away from what

you guys are listing here for and so I

just want to start by saying this for

those thinking about moving to

Greenville I can assure you this is a

rare event event I've already mentioned

the 100e storm thing multiple times I

personally have lived here 20 years and

never in my life have I ever lost

electricity for more than a day I mean

it takes a tremendously rare Confluence

of events for a storm like this to hit

with such Force like Colleen Did super

duper rare because usually these storms

number they they get so much weaker as they

go over the land that by the time they

get to Greenville I mean think about how

much land they have to cross over from

the Gulf even if they're coming in from

the Atlantic it's really really rare

that we get tropical forms number tropical

storm Force wins and number and so this

was just a super unusual event that we

really just never happened number would

never have happened it happened

close a little more than a hundred years

ago we can anticipate it'll probably

happen once every hundred or so years

but it's not something I mean every

place in the US has weird 100e storm

events and so you can't base anything

off of that if you're thinking about

Greenville please don't let the storm

influence your decision one way or

another that's that is me as a realtor

talking but that's me as a common sense

person talking you should not Factor

this in number Factor it in from the

standpoint of maybe avoiding flood plane

areas which I always tell my clients to

do but beyond that I would not

draw any major conclusions from the

storm event another you know

consideration or another thing you know

that I think indicates how rare of a

storm event it was my mom who number moved

down here recently who used to live in

New Jersey she lived in New Jersey at

the time that Sandy hit the New York

metro area and she has multiple times

mentioned how similar this storm feels

to her to what Sandy felt like number and of

course Sandy was one of those events

that was once in a lifetime and nobody

thinks wow New York gets crazy

hurricanes number you know ever since the

Sandy event happened and I think the

same is true here nobody should be

drawing any odd conclusions about you

know the weather patterns around here

this is this was just a a strange turn

of events that nobody could control and

here we are just doing the best with

with the hand that we've been dealt

now more specifically for Real Estate

how is this impacting real estate my

business Etc I'll I'll start with what

I've been doing what I've been doing

is first things first I went out to my

active listings I wanted to see well I

got I got a phone call early morning

that told me that one of my listings had

a tree fall on it so it was like okay

that's a priority and then there was

another one that supposed to be closing

that was supposed to close last week

that is now supposed to close this

week that was also obviously a

priority along with others I also have

rental properties as well and so really

first things first I just wanted to see

what all these properties what what this

situation was with them and so the first

priority was my listings and my

assption was with my rentals that I

would hear from the tenants and

ultimately from my property manager if

there were issues that they were

having which I did from my Airbnb my

Airbnb property was angry about the

weather and I'm sorry that's not

something I can control so find

another Airbnb that doesn't have weather

issues Airbnb people are crazy but

number but I went around it was very

difficult to get around the you know the

particularly the first day after number

After the

Storm but I went around town

I I looked at number I looked at my

listings one of them was really really

difficult to get to I don't even know

how I got to it because it was on the

west side of Greenville like I said this

side of of town that got hit harder than

others but number but I found a way to

get there and sure enough a tree had

fallen on the front porch so you know

I immediately called the seller and I'm

letting the seller know you know hey

here's what happened here's what I

recommend doing then my next number my next

call is to the buyers agent hey here's

what happened here's what we're doing we

can keep this closing together I've I've

dealt with this multiple times with

insurance claims in the middle of a

transaction we can work this together

and so far so good everything is working

okay with that I've got number I'm

coordinating the number debris removal and

and whatnot at number my other

listings number which were not did not have

property damage but did have debris number

damage and that's something I'm just

doing for my clients I'm just handling

these things because coincidentally

right now all of my listings are are

vacant properties and so it's not

your standard situation where you've got

owner occupants that are handling it

themselves I'm I'm doing the work for my

clients right now and I'm fine to do

that number because I get paid to do this

you know it's like I I don't get paid to

not work and I want to make sure that

they have the the best service possible

and I want to get their home sold and so

that that's how I started and now

it's getting all the plans in place and

trying to figure out all the timelines

today number well Friday I was supposed to

have a

closing that got moved to today well

guess what then today it it got moved

for the dumbest reason possible and that

is that the homeowners insurance could

not bind the policy because the

insurance carrier didn't have number didn't

have electricity so

you can't make this stuff up so closing

got delayed till tomorrow and and you

know hopefully that will end up

happening we we did do the final

walkth through of course there's a

lot of projects you know I've got a

house that I'm flipping I've got

other projects going on we couldn't get

those couldn't get you know more work

done at those number because of electricity

related problems my Airbnb they couldn't

clean because of lack of electricity

it's just it's just crazy and so

these are the sorts of things I mean I'm

I'm estimating probably oh and not to

mention having to commute to work you

know having to to go spend a lot more

time in the office than I normally do to

just charge things right we've got power

Banks and whatnot but we we were ill

prepared for this event I'm going to be

honest and you know I'll probably

be getting a generator here in the

future because I can see why people

have them you know it's something that

number will you know come in handy number if

something like this ever happens again

and I like to be number someone who is

prepared and so I will be prepared in

the future even though I think

generators are probably going to take a

while to to become available again

but that's a a little version of what

I've been doing all of this I'm

probably adding about four hours to my

workday per day number to be completely

honest you know even though I mean on

the flip side however number real estate

kind of shut down for a few days right

nobody was doing anything I mean all the

schools were pretty much closed today

on Monday a lot of businesses are

still closed it's going to take a few

days for things to open back up because

youve got not just the power outages but

also all the workers all the students

and and whatnot that are number maybe unable

to even number get to where they need to be

or maybe they have power outages and

it's a huge thing for them

and so there's just a lot of Ripple

effects from this number this storm

event now what about the market as a

whole Beyond just my business I've

already referenced to me having a

closing delayed and number no doubt I

will have multiple closings delayed as a

result of this number one that's not even

that's a month from now number that I'm very

confident will be delayed as a result of

this and that this is what's going to

happen we're going to have tons and tons

of is delayed some by multiple weeks

I've already heard number some that are

getting delayed by two weeks or or

more and so that is just the reality of

the situation listings all over the

place have damage right obviously number

homes everywhere are suffering damage

from this and the listings are no

exception and so number you know this is why

the first thing I did basically was to

go out and look at my list ings was

because I I wanted to make sure you know

if there was damage we need to get out

in front of it ASAP not gonna Pat

myself on the back too much number but I

know for a fact that a lot of Agents

aren't aren't doing that so so there

we go a a weak Pat a small pat on the

back for myself a lot of wrenchers

are going to be displaced like let's

just be honest when I was on the west

side of Greenville and I said that that

was some of the worst damage saw

that's where that's a heavy heavy rental

area I saw tons of cars crushed really

really sad

and what does this mean for the vacant

rental properties that have property

damage I mean renters are going to have

to find new places to move to now

there's going to be damag vacant rental

properties not bringing in income to

their landlords and also requiring

repairs well a lot of these landlords

are super duper poor like let's just be

honest I've seen them they you know

people have this perception of landlords

as being super duper wealthy that is not

your typical landlord in the Greenville

Market a lot of them number you know are

kind of live off the land types if if

that makes any sense and they own some

real estate that they bought years and

years ago for really cheap and they

haven't updated it like they should have

and they're getting below Market rent

and when something like this happens

usually there's nothing they can do

about about it and so I suspect these

renters these number these number landlords and

landladies are going to start trying to

sell off these properties so there's

going to be some opportunities for

investors I'm not sure if they'll hit

the market or not number but there will for

sure be

opportunities

as well I've already alluded to this

but obviously some there are going to be

some listings number that people are that

buyers are going to want to look at that

they're going to have a hard time

looking at they're going to have a hard

time getting there number because there are

just so many down trees so many down

power lines some areas I mean it's so

frustrating trying to get one place and

then the main road that you need to get

to it's blocked off and it's like

there's no indication that it's blocked

off and you know then you have to

turn around now it adds 20 minutes to

your trip I mean it's just insane some

of this stuff

inspections number can't really be done in

many cases you know I already mentioned

that that property that had the tree

fall on it that's one of my listings

you know the the buyer agent was like

well maybe we'll go ahead and have

inspections done and then come back and

inspect the repairs I was just like you

don't want to do that you don't like

don't waste your time just wait until

it's all done we'll give you extra time

for your due diligence like let's make

this work for everyone in the best way

possible and so number I think that

that's going to be an issue we're going

to see a backlog of inspections

happening and what I'm curious about

is will these next you know few weeks

will we just lose business Al together

for the year or will there be kind of a

backlog of real estate business that

happens as people that were you know for

to give an example I was going to list a

house this past weekend but after the

storm it was like well obviously we're

not listing dur a house during a time

when nobody's going to be looking at

houses so we'll wait at least a week

how many other people are in that boat

how many others are waiting to look

their homes now or how many buyers

are waiting to buy now that you know are

going to put their search on hold for a

couple weeks kind of get their get their

life in order and then come back into

the market in a couple of weeks and

versus how many are just going to drop

out you know maybe they were and

probably not too many listings are going

to drop out but if there's a lot of

damage to it you know they might it

might take a while for the house to get

repaired and then by that point we might

be in November holiday season so maybe

those people just be like hey I'm just

going to wait until the spring who knows

I I'm I'm really unsure if if we're

going to Simply see a worse year of real

estate as a result of this or if we're

going to see something comparable to

covid which was that when we had the the

shutdown for a few weeks then when

everyone came back into the market and

started buy you know buying and selling

again they essentially number made up for

that lost time and ended up being a very

very crazy next few months I could see

it going in either direction of course

this is the slower time of year right

where where by the time you're listening

to this it'll already be in October

this is when things really start to slow

down so I don't know what all of that

means for number for Greenville real estate

it'll be interesting to track and number and

and follow but number but that's what

we'll be doing and I'll keep you guys number

in the loop on all that's going on and

all the happenings number let me know if you

have any specific questions a lot of you

guys number have been reaching out to make

sure I'm okay and I really appreciate

that you know we're we're okay others

aren't and so so thank you for

those messages feel free to hit me up

with any more if you do have any number but

that's all for today's episode that has

been sponsored by Piper Insurance Group

please reach out to them number for your

homeowners insurance quote in the show

notes also my contact information in

the show notes if you need a realtor for

any reason in the Greenville area please

like rate review subscribe this show and

we will talk again next time