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

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of your real estate needs here in the

Greenville area or if you're a

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thank you guys so much I did actually

didn't know that I had Realtors

listening to to this content and

that's actually really exciting for me

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I've got a small team right now and

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those good things all right we've got a

handful of things to talk about today

we finally got the market stats for the

from the greater Greenville Association

Realtors for both the months of August

and September we had delays due to

Hurricane Helen but and then we

also need to talk about mortgage rates

which have been going up but before

we get into that I want to just talk

about the election right because we are

I'm recording this one week before the

big presidential election is truly a

coin flip right now I follow it very

closely I'm very intrigued by the

election I always am it's a big

spectacle for me and I just enjoy the

circus around it as it would

as it might be, so the elections are

around the corner and someone

recently told me a someone in real

estate that they didn't tell me who

they were voting for they just told me

that they were voting with their purse

so in other words they were voting

specifically in such a way that they

felt like, or we should probably more

accurately say they were voting with

their bank account that's not the word

they said the word purse they're

voting with their bank account right

concerned about one candidate might be

worse for their business and

worse for their income than the other

now I've talked about both of these

candidates' proposals when it comes to

real estate, I'm concerned about both

Trump and Harris when it comes to their

real estate related proposals, right

now we've got particularly an

interesting situation where the bond

market and treasuries are doing weird

things and hopefully we'll have

time to come back to that a little bit

later but we've got a situation right

now where a lot of economists are

saying that basically both of these

candidates are going to add to inflation

and add to the debt, but in addition to

that we've got mortgage rates going up

as I've already alluded to due to what's

happening in the bond

market and long story short whoever

is President whoever ends up getting

into office is going to have a really

challenging time if they really make the

housing market a priority because we

need to see rates come down for the

housing market to rebound in any

meaningful way, but both candidates are

making proposals that people think would

increase inflation, which would then mean

that rates wouldn't come down right

because the FED is not going to reduce

the FED funds rate that influences all

of the other rates indirectly including

mortgage rates, so it's going to be

very interesting to see who has voted in

I can't really tell you guys which one

is going to be better or worse for

housing, I think Harris has more

concrete plans for the housing market

and perhaps you could make an argument

that one candidate versus the other is

better for the economy as a whole which

would then help Downstream the RIS

real estate market, I don't know, I don't

know the I'm this is not my favorite

election to vote in if you can

already tell I'm kind of non-committal

to both of these candidates I did

already vote, and I'll be honest I

voted third party because I did not feel

confident in either of these candidates

no judgment towards people that vote

for either other candidate I'm not one

of those

obviously you guys if you've listened to

the show for a while you know that

I'm not a big two-party

I do like to vote third party and

so so that's what's happened but get

out and vote this is this is an

important election I don't think it's

as important as some people think it is

not it's not you know I'm not of the

impression that it's going to completely

swing every single thing in this country

but but it is important so please

get out and vote there's a lot of early

voting in South Carolina right now and

then of course next week is the final

day to to vote all right let's get

into the greater Greenville Association

of Realtors Market

stats and we're going to we're not going

to go through these super duper

detailed I'm just going to go through

these like I normally do we're going to

start off with new listings data new

listings data now I have traditionally

told you guys when we go through this

that this new listings data is

inaccurate oftentimes for the most

recent month they've actually really

cleaned that up recently and and this

data actually is from what I can see

has been pretty accurate for the past

few months so so here's what we've

got we have had the past entire year we

have had year-on-year increases in new

listings and August and September were

no exception August new listings went up

10% year on-ear September 6 and a half%

year on-ear that September 6 and a half%

increase year onye up from up to,

1841 from

1728 new listings September of last year

that 6 and a half% increase is the

smallest increase since March of this

year so the perhaps we're entering a

a season here where new listings data is

slowing down now I need to tell you

there are two very very important

confounding things in this data okay

right at the end of September we had

hurricane Helen happen Okay Helen

directly impacted I had a listing I had

a home that was going to list the end of

September that didn't I had closings

that were going to happen the end of

September they didn't and so even

though there was just a few days left

in the month of September when that

hurricane hit that did impact some of

this data okay so keep that in mind we

probably would have had higher new

listings data it probably would have

been closer to 10% had that hurricane

not happened a 10% increase year onye

had the hurricane not happen

additionally as I've already alluded to

it is an election year and that does

Believe It or Not impact people's

behaviors when it comes to real estate

people are concerned they they think

that you know housing market Market

might crash or housing market might take

off depending on who's President that

I disagree with generally speaking that

that one person versus the other could

potentially cause a a crash or or a

boom I don't think either of those

things are likely to happen at the

moment just based on one person being

in office but there's more than that

right we also have the house we have the

Senate there

are a lot of local races as well

Governors and whatnot so there's a lot

that could happen and I understand to

some extent people holding off and being

cautious but just understand that

those two things do confound the data

for this month and we'll confound the

the data for the month of October when

that comes out which will probably be

in a few weeks and the month of November

will also be impacted so we're going to

have some very very messy data the

messiest data that we've had probably

since 2020 which was also a year with

multiple confounding things that

happened in it but long story

short we're having more new listings

coming online than we did last year

people are reaching that point where

they're ready to sell right they're

ready to move for one reason or another

death divorce job change things like

that and more people are ready to

sell than are ready to buy right now and

a lot of people need to sell in order to

buy and so that's what we're seeing in

the new listings data pending sales

this is a number that's usually Low by

about 400 units for the month before

so we'll look back at August August

of 2024 we had our first negative

pending sales print in a while so it was

negative 2.5% year on your pending sales

from August of 2023 so that's really bad

right if you're a seller new listings

is tracking a lot higher than it has in

Pre in the last year but pending sales

had a negative print and guess what the

month of September that's probably going

to be a negative as well because if we

add 400 to the number that it's

currently at which is 768 that gets us

to 1168 which would be lower than the

1174 which was last year's pending sale

print for September so what we're

seeing here is a demand pullback and

again messy data because of of Helen and

whatnot I don't know how all of that is

going to catch up or if it's going to

catch up but the long story short is the

housing Market is slowing there is no

denying it is slowing and with the

mortgage rates having gone up as much as

they have the past month it's going to

slow down some more people need to be

prepared for

that I actually saw just as on aside

I saw a very interesting discussion

on Twitter recently which was there was

a a realtor a team leader I can't

remember what state she was from but

she was talking about how she's telling

her Sellers hey don't lower your prices

before the presidential election because

a lot of people are just on the the

sidelines due to the presidential

election and people were commenting

that's terrible advice because the

longer you wait the more you're getting

into the slow season of real estate and

I thought that was a very interesting

discussion and that's something I think

that's it's going to be based on from

one listing to the next I don't think

that you can put a blanket you know hey

every single listing needs to hold

off until after the election before

doing price reductions or whatnot but I

also don't think you need to do the

opposite which is say you know well hold

on we're about to enter the really

really slow season we need to start

dropping prices now every listen is

going to be a little bit different and

I'm approaching it differently based on

based on the different listings that

I have one second for some reason I

just realized my computer is not

charging which is a

problem because I'm using it to record

all

this okay there we go sorry about that

close sales so let's look at close sales

here for a second Clos sales in in

August were up 8.1% year on year so

that's big that was actually we had a

great August 1548 close sales as

opposed to the year prior 1432 but then

September was a negative September was

minus 2.4 now again had Helen not

happened you know we do have a lot of

end of month closings right so losing

the final weekend

and the final days of the month

absolutely impacted closed sales for the

month of September so it was down

2.4% it was at 1,297 closings versus

1329 the year before I would say

probably if Helen hadn't happened we

would have needed what an extra what

32 closings to have a flat month I am

very very sure that there would have

been over 32 closings had we not lost

that final weekend and the final few

days of the month of September so I'm

going to take this as probably it's a

negative number that wouldn't have been

a negative if not for the hurricane some

of those closed sales will get pushed

into the month of October or did get

pushed into the month of October so

maybe we'll see some October numbers

look a a little bit different I don't

know because again a lot of closings

are are still being delay I actually

have a closing that was supposed to

happen weeks ago that because of Helen

and other things we still haven't closed

and so so that's going to get

bumped into probably November we're

hoping maybe we can close the very

beginning of November but these are

the sorts of things that are happening

and a lot of closings are going to get

delayed a lot of people that went

under contract in September you know

homes need to have debris removed I I

mentioned I had a listing Well I had

multiple listings that needed Big Trees

removed I had one that has a tree on the

porch that that's an insurance claim a

whole lot happening, and so we're

going to see some weird weird things

with closings I would not be surprised

if we see down downward numbers for

closings for the rest of the year that

would not Shock me at all days on Market

until sale this is going to go this is

probably going to go way up these next

few months if I had to guess so

September was a big increase biggest

increase we've had since November of

last year 22.5% year on-ear up to 49

days on Market until sale that's how

long you can expect to go under contract

from the time you list the home now 49

days that doesn't take into into

consideration whether price reductions

happened or anything like that but

I I think for sure if I had to guess

we're going to push into the 50s because

right now everyone is really on hold and

and with Helen you know there's just a

lot

happening that's causing additional

delays so this is we're we're going to

get this number is going to get pushed

up we're going to start to see

listings probably for the rest of the

year are going to take some time in

order to sell median sales price we

had our first negative print in the

median sales price since I believe it

was March of 2023 so the median sales

price went down Year onye 3.4% from

September of 2023 it was 39,900 it went

down to 309,000 September

2024 it's not uncommon you know

if I I could I could go through this

data I've done it before but I could go

through this data and show you that you

know there's probably six or seven like

random months in the data over the

years where there's been you know a a

a month that had a year on-year a random

year- on-year decrease in the median

sales price and then things just kind of

picked back up and we went back into

positives, and so like I said we had

this happen in March of 2023 there was

only one negative print in all of 2023

that was that month, and here we have

September with a very random negative

3.4% year on year on the median sales

price and so some people will look at

that and say well, prices that means

prices are going down that means

housing's getting cheaper well, again

I don't want to conclude much from one

month, but three minus 3.4% is

substantial I also don't want to ignore

that I don't want to pretend like that

number doesn't exist because that's a

big number right we have the largest

increase we've had in 2024 to date was

4.2% and then the second largest was

a 3.4% increase so this compares to the

second largest increase that we've had

all year now still the 12 the past 12

months we still have a 2.4% increase in

the median sales price it's gone up from

300 307 500 to

315 for the for the past rolling 12

months but this most recent print

negative and very negative minus

3.4% and I would not be shocked because

mortgage rates were were had not gotten

to the point now where they are now now

they are according to mortgage News

Daily hovering around the low fours let

me see if it's been updated for today

yet sorry low fours low sevens yeah

it's at

7.08% now per mortgage News Daily it's

gone up almost a percentage point in the

past month and when rates go up demand

goes down and when demand goes down

prices can also go down, and so the

October median sales price for 2023 was

324,000 I would say there is a very very

good chance when the October numbers

come out that it is lower than that and

we might be in a stretch here where

we're going to see multiple months of

negative median sales price prints and

we're going to have to Grapple with and

I'm not sure yet how I'm going to do

this but we're going to have to Grapple

with how much of this is messy data as

I've already said how much of this is we

we had a hurricane messed up a bunch of

stuff maybe even cause you know

some homes to sell for less than they

should because of trees falling or

whatever owners not not wanting to do

those sorts of things we're going to

have to back out somehow you know all

the messiness with the elections because

right in 2020 the elections didn't

really impact the housing market in any

meaningful way people were just buying

buying buying because rates were so low

and because we had missed about you know

four to six weeks of the of prime

real estate season that got spread out

throughout the rest of the year and

so it's going to be interesting to see

what happens here I kind of sense

that we're about to have multiple months

of negative prints in the median sales

price and and again I'm not sure yet

how what sort of conclusions I'm going

to draw from that yet I am leaning

towards not drawing any major

conclusions unless it continues into

early next year after everyone knows

who's President and we kind of see you

know what the Federal Reserve decides

and all of that but I really don't

know this is this is very interesting

very unprecedented moment in

Greenville real estate and if if

prices start to go down if if this

medium price starts to go down

consistently say for the next four to

five months then I think we can for sure

say that we are in a deflationary

deflation Market where prices are

actually meaningfully going down now the

the problem then is you know obviously a

lot of people love that right that's

great if you're a buyer as long as we

don't go into a recession right we don't

want that to happen sometimes the

economy can follow the housing market if

the housing market starts to experience

deflation that could have Ripple effects

into the broader economy I I just don't

know what to make of all of this the

other thing is you know vice

president Harris has proposed a big down

payment assistance option for

first-time home buyers I think Donald

Trump very much is going to want to put

his thumb on the scale of of mortgage

rates to try to get mortgage rates down

one way or another so I don't know

how all of these things are going to

shake shake out with whoever is in the

white house next President Biden has

kind of not done a whole lot when it

comes to the housing market which is

probably in my opinion probably the best

way to do it I would prefer a president

kind of let the housing market do

what the housing market is going to to

do naturally make it a truly free market

but I have a hunch that the next

president is going to want to have

you know put their thb on the scale

and have some kind of impact because

housing does does impact people it

does impact the economy it is something

that people like to feel like the

president is doing something about even

if oftentimes the president meddling is

worse than not meddling

the average sales price I don't focus on

this very much because averages tend

to be skewed by the by the high end and

the low end but that being said

the average also followed what the

median was doing and had a negative

print as well minus 1.6% year on-ear

down from 385 last year, September to

379,000 of September of this year

percent of list price received went down

a little bit to

98.3% so if you list a home for

100,000, you can reasonably expect it to

sell for

98,3 but that doesn't include you

know any concessions, any closing costs

any buyer agent compensation none of

that is included in that number that's

just a Topline number and that is

pretty in line with historical averages

but if we start to get below 98 then at

that point we would start to be getting

into you know numbers that would reflect

what was happening back in you know 2015

2016 so it has been coming down a

little bit the past what's let's see

here the past six months we've had

negative year onye Prints but it's still

staying up in the normal range so

sellers aren't you know sellers can

expect to get roughly what they were

getting prior to the pandemic in terms

of the percentage of list price

received and how much it sells for I

should say how much it sells for in

comparison to what it's listed for the

one really positive thing on here not to

not surprisingly is the housing

affordability index it crested 100 for

the first time since February that meant

for in the month of September the median

household could purchase more than the

median home which is great we like

that number to stay as high as possible

problem though mortgage rates have gone

up a lot since then this number is going

to come down I suspect in October it'll

come down and go back into the 90s again

inventory of homes for sale this number

is frequently off for the most recent

month but we can look at the past

several months it's been going up

year on-year 35 to 40% and I think the

month of September will be about the

same our inventory levels now are are

really starting to be slightly higher

than they were pre pandemic and so

we're we're seeing that shift again it's

it's gradual so we're not seeing

anything dramatic just yet but we're

starting to see some Tremors is there

the possibility of a buyer Market yes a

buyer's market is more in the cards in

this moment than it has been for a very

long time now we're not in it yet once

we're in it I will try to let you guys

know right because a lot of a lot of

it's lagging data to determine whether

we're in a buyer Market or not we're not

quite in a buyer Market just yet but if

rates continue to stay where they are

that would not surprise me if if we

find ourselves on a buyer Market in 2025

and I'll get to the rates in just a

second last but not least on here

month supply of inventory it it says

we're at 3.9 but that number is going to

get revised it's probably going to get

revised down to like 3.5 months of

inventory that's still going to be a

big increase from September which was

of 2023 which was 2.8 months of

inventory so we've now been above three

months of inventory and steadily

increasing throughout the year since

April and traditionally people say

you know once you get to six months of

inventory that's kind of the Tipping

Point between a buyer market and a

sellers Market that's a lagging

indicator though I'm not going to get

get into the details of of why I believe

this is true but I believe right now the

way the current Dynamics are if we got

to somewhere between 4 and four and a

half months of inventory that's the

point at which we would flip over into a

buyer Market maybe at some point I'll

get a little bit more into the Weeds on

why I believe that that has shifted

but just just know if we got to four and

a half months of inventory for sure by

that point it would feel like a buyer

Market to a lot of people okay let's

talk talk about mortgage rates real

quick I'm I'm not going to get too

too in the weeds here but it's worth

discussing the fact that mortgage rates

have been going up steadily despite the

fact that the the Federal Reserve not

too long ago reduced the FED funds

rate we had a whole podcast about this

and everything and you know at the

time a lot of people thought okay this

is going to have the long term effect of

mortgage rates going down well that is

not at all what happened and the reason

why that hasn't happened is because the

basically people have changed their

behavior in terms of the bond market

which then

impacts mortgage rates indirectly so we'

talked about this before the 10-year

treasury is pegged basically to the

30-year fixed rate mortgage right if the

10e treasury goes up the 30-year fixed

rate mortgage goes up right if it goes

down 30-year fixed rate mortgage goes

down if it goes up or down depends on

whether people are are buying bonds

treasuries things of that nature from

the government if they aren't buying

then the number goes up right so that

it's more attractive for people to buy

if they do buy then the number goes down

simple supply and demand right when the

reason why gas prices go up is because

there's more gas than there are

buyers if the price of gas goes down

s sorry I I I got that reversed I'm I'm

trying to talk faster than my brain is

working if more people are buying gas

then gas is being produced then the

price of gas goes up if more gas is

being produced then buyers are coming

into the market to buy the gas then the

price comes down similar thing with

what's happening in treasuries if people

decide you know what we don't want to

buy 10year treasury bills and and and

things of that nature then those are

the the yield that you get on the

treasuries is going to go up to make it

more attractive for people to buy them

and to you know Supply the government

with more money now I can't if you're

completely confused I'm sorry that's the

best I can do find another podcast that

gets into more detail I don't have

time to to get into all of the detail

when it comes to that but the question

needs to be asked here and here's where

I'm going with this is that why is is

this happening why are Traders and and

Brokers stock Brokers changing their

behaviors in terms of what they're doing

and why are we seeing the 10-year

yield doing these strange things you

know it it bottomed out here in mid

midt it was at it got all the way down

to 3.61 and now it's at

4286 and Naturally Speaking n naturally

as as a result of this the mortgage

mortgage rates have done the same thing

we saw mortgage rates get down to 6

point I think

6.14 was the lowest on mortgage News

Daily and now it's up to 7.08 almost a

1% swing in just a month so this is

really really wild so what's happening

here well a few things are happening

first off there's Market Jitters about

the election I think particularly about

Trump and potential the the

Republican Party doing like a full sweep

right getting the White House getting

the and getting the full legislature the

house and the Senate I think that

there's concerns if we don't have

divided government that what we're going

to have is an intense inflationary

period and that's very possible usually

when you get undivided government right

you have one party controlling the White

House and the

legislature usually what that means is

they start spending all sorts of money

on things that then causes things to get

out of whack in terms of inflation

and if inflation goes up then guess what

the Federal Reserve is not going to

to reduce their rates and as such that's

going to cause these rates to be

elevated so the 10year treasury here's

what's happening is Traders are not

looking at what's happening right now

they're trying to project what's going

to happen in the future and what and

basically what they are saying is two

things with them not being as

involved in as involved with Bond

purchases as they have been they're

saying a they anticipate more inflation

in the future and B they have seen a lot

of strong jobs data recently and they're

saying okay that means that we are

most likely not going into an inflation

or not guys I'm sorry I'm about to

lose my mind here we're not going into a

recession is one conclusion and

perhaps are right perhaps are wrong

again they're they're guessing but

they're looking at the strong economic

data strong jobs data that's come out

the past few weeks and they're

concluding we're most likely not going

to go into a recession so rather than

dumping their money into something safe

like the 10-year treasury they're

dping their money into more risky

assets assuming that the economy is

going to be is going to be strong

in the next year or so so that's part of

what's happening and then also the

the consideration for the possibility

that inflation

may end up being higher and as a

result the federal funds rate is

going to stay elevated as well there's

other things involved with this but I

think at the very least those are the

things that I think are going on and

I've heard several other experts say

that that's why they think that even

though the Federal Reserve reduced the

FED funds rate we are still seeing

mortgages go up at a very very quick

rate now

I'm I'm not sure if we'll see them go

up into the mid sevens but as long as

they're over sevens that's bad bad news

for the housing market okay so so

we'll see I I you know it wouldn't

surprise me if after the election we see

this kind of come back down as people

kind of come to their senses

especially if we have a situation where

it's divided government right where we

have you know someone that wins in

the white house but there's not a sweep

of also the legislature that would

probably be the best case scenario for

for mortgage rates is that divided

government scenario but we'll have to

see perhaps by the time you're listening

to this some of you if you don't

listen to it the week that it comes out

you might already know who's won the

election I don't know right now it's a

complete coin flip like I said I track

it very closely and I have no idea

whatsoever who is going to win it can

really go in either direction if I had

to put money on it which I'm certainly

not going to do I'd probably bet on

Trump at this point but a lot can

happen in a week and I'm recording this

on Tuesday October 29th so that's

exactly what we have we have a week

so we'll see lot can happen I'm not

sure what's going to happen but I

will keep you guys a prize of how it

impacts real estate one way or the other

so thanks for listening my contact

information is in the show notes,

Piper Insurance Group also in the show

notes like rate review subscribe all of

those good things, and we will talk again

next time