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 mun realtor right here in

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 and

just a reminder as always uh you can

like rate review subscribe all of those

things when it comes to the show on

whatever platform you are listening or

watching to it uh watching the show on I

would really appreciate it if you guys

could do that um leave me a little

comment on YouTube if you want um again

if you leave a review I will read that

review and I'd appreciate it um so thank

you guys for doing that I only ask you

guys to do that um use me as your

realtor and and my contact info is in

the show notes and then as well use

Piper insurance as your home Auto and

umbrella insurance company in South

Carolina North Carolina and Georgia

they're independent so they can broker

with multiple different companies

including companies that help with

investment properties that can ensure

fix and flips which by the way is harder

than ever right now so you need someone

in in your wheelhouse for that uh don't

just use a company that uh is uh is kind

of bending the rules and giving you

rental property coverage for a Fix and

Flip you don't want to do that um so uh

so be careful with that uh but fix and

flips ground new construction commercial

all that good stuff Piper Insurance

Group they can help you contact info in

the show notes

well I had uh I had an episode planned

for today and um and then I was starting

to get ready to record it recording this

on January 21st and it's been a long day

for me I'm actually recording this at

night little nighttime episode um

and it turns out that uh from uh

sometime this afternoon the market stats

from the greater Greenville Association

Realtors came out so I am going to Pivot

do a hard pivot here

and instead of the episode I was going

to do we're going to table that one for

future time we're going to talk about

the market stats that the gjr uh just

released before we get into that real

quick um I have been getting some

questions about uh Trump and uh you know

obviously he just uh came into the White

House

yesterday and uh and what does this mean

for real estate we've talked about this

a little bit so I don't want to get uh

too In The Weeds on this but I will show

you guys a little something

here for those of you that are watching

on YouTube and this is a this is a great

episode to watch on YouTube If you uh if

you are able to um I am going to oh hold

on I'm showing you my desktop I don't

want to do that I just want to show you

a very specific screen and that is the

10e 10e yield uh which is something we

talk about a good bit on the

show um but I just want to point out

a a few patterns here okay um if you're

not familiar with reading this chart it

it's really simple okay this is a I've

got it set to the Past 5 days and what

you can see is that 5 days ago the 10e

yield was sitting at right in the in the

high 47s

4.77 roughly for uh for the better part

of January the 15th um then it started

to come down to the 4 sixs the end of

the 15th into the 16th then it uh end of

the 16th into the 17th it started to go

into the Low 4 sixes and then once we

get to the 20th you'll notice all of a

sudden this sudden drop happens right uh

when Trump is inaugurated and the reason

why this happened is because he didn't

roll out he he he signed a bunch of

executive orders but he did not roll out

any executive orders that produced any

Draconian uh tariffs now he did talk

about tariffs um the the tariffs are not

uh certainly not out of the picture by

any means uh but basically none of the

executive orders he did are bringing

about any uh any Draconian tariffs right

now tariffs would be really bad for this

chart and as a uh byproduct really bad

for mortgage rates okay so right now the

market is listening to Trump and hearing

okay okay maybe we're going to be okay

when it comes to tariffs maybe it's not

as high of a priority as Trump

campaigned on maybe inflation will stay

under control Trump did talk about that

talked about the need for containing

inflation um and so markets are hearing

all of these things and they're

responding somewhat positively and if

you go back uh you know even further go

back on this chart whoops go back on

this chart a month you can see that the

10e yield went all the way up to 4.8 uh

back in uh January 13th so here a little

more than a week later we're now at

4574 is what the tenure yield is uh is

currently sitting

on and um by the way I I'll also just

mention this as a little freebie um I

have heard from multiple sources that

this is the 10y year old are probably

not going to exceed 5% for this year so

if if you're someone that really watches

the bond market really closely um maybe

you know I've got several realtors that

listen to the show um if you're watching

this really closely and you're really

freaking out about uh mortgage rates and

how you know where they will go this

year I think it's I think we're pretty

safe that uh that the 10year yield will

not exceed 5% I think even if Trump did

a bunch of tariffs uh caused a bunch of

inflation I think you know if the 10year

yield exceeds 5% I think it will come

back back down and will kind of rest in

the uh in the 5% range in the worst case

scenario that's what I think um not a

prediction but I have heard from

multiple sources uh that that that would

be a very likely scenario um so not

something to to really freak out about

too much that being said if the 10year

yield did go from 4.57 to uh

25 uh that would be you know

a 50 basis points increase U that would

be a pretty substantial increase um so

we wouldn't want that um but that's

better than there being an unlimited

ceiling and so um mortgage rates have

followed in suit we had according to

mortgage News Daily we had on January

13th they topped out at

7.26% um they're now sitting at

7.8% uh yester uh they basically have

been in the uh right around 7.07 to

7.08% now for for several days so that's

that's basically where they've been just

in the low

sevens after briefly going up above

7.25 um So currently that's the closest

thing that we have to being able to

measure the impact of of the uh all the

executive orders and everything that

Trump is doing it's really more right

now about what he didn't say and what he

didn't do than what what he has done and

I think that that's going to be the

story for the next several weeks until

we kind of know more about what he's

going to

do um and and nothing that he does

outside of injecting like housing

related stimulus in the market nothing

that he does is going to directly impact

the housing market it's all going to be

indirect and I don't there's no

indication no indicator to me based on

anything that he said while campaigning

or more recently that he is concerned

about housing affordability right now um

mentioned it very very few times okay

now he's talked about rates a little bit

um but I at the moment I don't think

that this is a big thing to him I don't

think he's really worried about the

housing market um Kamala campaigned

pretty heavily on the housing market um

Trump not so

much so I think he's going to just kind

of wait and see you know uh see where

the Vibes are see what people are

thinking uh how people feel as his

presidency goes on and then take it from

there and so that's how I will be

approaching it and we'll just see how

these next uh few months and and years

go all right so jumping right into the

GJ Market stats that were just released

today um we're going to just jump right

in there's some interesting stuff in

here um I didn't have a whole lot of

time to review this cuz like I said I

just saw this for the first time a

couple hours ago um but uh but I've done

this long enough now we've been going

over this data for years uh so uh I can

I can almost wing it so we're going to

start off right now with the with the

new listings

data new listings data is one of the

higher numbers that we've seen in quite

some time from a year-on-year increase

standpoint so in December of 2024 again

we're we're these are going to take us

through the end of the year okay so

through December of 2024 because

obviously we don't have January yet um

December sorry December of 2023 man I'm

already messed up on the dates through

December of

2023 uh there were uh in that month 1,63

new listings that jumped up in December

24 to 1,299 that's a

22.2% increase in new listings that's

after two uh two months in the negatives

right October was minus uh 4% November

was minus 1.3%

what's going on here well I think we're

still seeing the hurricane Helen effect

right we're still seeing uh the the uh

the effect of you know what happened in

September towards the end of September

it didn't affect the new listings in

September as much uh but it certainly

did affect new listings in October

November created a backlog um and then

uh as a result we have a big December of

new listings now that being being

said um I I will say this that we've

also seen I've inventory has has come

down a bit we'll we'll talk about this

in a second when we get to the inventory

section um but new listings have been

pretty slow the past past few weeks um I

would expect them to start picking up

pretty soon uh and and so it'll be

interesting once we get the January data

in to see exactly where January ends up

uh pending sales this uh this

information is always

revised in a in a big way for uh for the

most recent month so we're going to

ignore December we're just going to jump

back to November that the numbers the

most recent numbers are always low okay

normally by about 400 units um so

November we had uh a 3.5% year-on-year

increase uh in pending sales so this is

continuing the trend that we've seen all

year every single month in 2024 saw an

increase in pending sales year-over-year

for that month from

2023 why did that

happen a variety of reasons for that um

one is that a lot of these pending sales

uh in 2022 2023 were not logged in MLS

because they were Builder sales right so

remember Builders they will sometimes

use MLS often times they won't if

they're a big production Builder often

times they just kind of keep that all to

themselves they use the MLS kind of as a

a safety valve if if they're B if

they're just not bringing in business

organically through their own websites

through their own open houses through

their through their model home meetings

and all of that um what they will do at

that point is then they'll put something

on MLS but even then I've seen instances

where homes uh listed by builders in MLS

once they go under contract they just

cancel the listing you know and don't

even show reflect it as pending um so

there's a lot of funky things going on

well the new construction Market did not

do nearly as well in 24 as it did in 23

in 24 uh a lot more people that were

buying were buying uh resale homes as

opposed to new

construction and so the end result is

we're seeing a lot more of this data

reflected in multiple listing service

that wasn't reflected in previous years

I think so I think that that's a big

factor uh as to why every single month

was in uh was an increase year-over-year

in pending sales versus 2023 um November

no different 1131 pending sales versus

1093 I think December which is currently

as as as 6 6:30 will probably get

revised up to around a th000 pending

sales and the end result of that will be

an increase as well over the 901 that we

had December in 2023 um so we're going

to have a solid year of a lot of pending

sales in comparison to the previous year

uh but close sales haven't been quite as

balming

now um and we've talked about this

before a lot of Falls a lot of contract

fall through fall throughs this year and

that's why you could have uh tremendous

pending sales but not as good a closed

sales that being said the final quarter

of the year did end up being

substantially stronger than the final

quarter of last year and again we can uh

we can thank hurricane hen for some of

that cuz what happened in September we

had us 1.6% year-over-year pending sales

okay we had 1,38 pending sales sorry

close sales we're at closed sales we're

past pendings 1,38 closed sales in

September of 2024 as opposed to

1,329 so just 21 units fewer uh but that

was a decrease one of three year-on-year

decreases that we had in closed sales

but guess what I think that that was

Hurricane Helen having an impact again

right Helen basically wiped out uh many

many closings at the end of the month

and there's usually a lot of closings at

the end of a

month and so um what ended up happening

here was then we saw a bolster in the

previous months October was a year-

on-year increase in Clos sales 5.5%

November increased 11.2% and then

December a whopping 17.3% this is the uh

second largest increase year- on-year in

closed sales that we had for the entire

year and for that to happen in December

is really really unusual so um so I just

want to point out two things here okay

one is it's not uncommon for there to be

a bump from November to December the a

little month- on-month bump and that's

exactly what we saw happen in fact

December ended up being the most

closings for a month since August which

is rare but if you look historically on

the chart okay uh the vertical lines are

januaries okay so if you look

historically from November to December

it's the dot right before the vertical

line is your December month you see

almost every year there is an increase

that happens in closed sales um almost

every single year you have to go back to

2018 is the last time that we didn't

have that but we did in 2017 and 2016

2015 it it is very very predictable

there's a lot of sales that happen in

December and uh a lot of that is just

you know sellers and buyers are more

receptive to doing a deal at the end of

the year right you've got time to to

make it happen you usually people have

off work kids are off school it's it's

not the worst time if you're going to

move during the winter December is not

the worst time to move maybe a little be

disruptive to your holiday plans

whatever um but uh but it's not the

worst time to move and that happens

every single year we see a little month-

on-month bump from November to December

this bump was substantial though as I've

already said multiple times and so I

think we saw two things I think we saw

that seasonal bump that happens at the

end of the year combined with the

backlog of of closings caused by Helen

both homes that went under contract uh

that got damaged during Helen that then

caused this whole ripple effect of

insurance claims and all of that

combined with all of the homes that uh

that would have listed in October and

maybe even November that didn't list

until a month or two later as a result

of storm damage or as a result of people

needing to kind of get back into the

groove after the storm so um we are

still seeing Ripple effects from that

hurricane in this data which is crazy to

see but that was a huge huge event for

this

Market Days on Market until sale we saw

a slight month- on-month uptick but we

basically now have had uh three straight

months the entire uh fourth quarter of

this past year in the uh low mid 50s so

uh we're now at 54 days on Market until

sale for the month of December that all

that means is the average number of days

between when a property is listed when

an offer is accepted in a given month

doesn't necessarily mean that that's the

final offer right because it could be

that the offer is accepted it goes under

contract and then that falls through and

then it goes back on the market um but

we look at these numbers in aggregate

rather than getting bogged down to the

details and uh we're at 54 days until

sale modest increase that was a 5.9%

year-on-year increase from December of

23 um as opposed to the past several

months prior to December had been

massive increases now we're starting to

uh close the gap a little bit with 2023

we're starting to see uh the market kind

of look a little bit there some of the

data is starting to look a little bit

more you know what we were what we were

seeing uh back last year now it's

starting to kind of look like that again

here with regard to to these numbers um

so sellers towards the end of last year

we starting to see the market uh cool

down quite a bit and basically where the

market was at the end of last year is

pretty close to where it is uh at the

end of sorry I should say at the end of

23 it's pretty much as close to where it

was at the end of this past year

2024 median sales price of course this

is always a highlight of the show and I

said on here recently that I would not

be surprised if we see more we've

already seen three consecutive months of

year on-year decreases to the median

sales price I said I wouldn't be

surprised if we continued to see that

Trend uh going into the new year and

sure enough December was another

decrease a 1.5% decrease to the median

sales price uh to

310,000 and December 2023 was 315,000 um

now the 12month median if we're looking

at if we want to look at that you know

if you're a seller and you want

something positive the 12-month median

when you when you look at the the past

12 months and take the median number for

that was

34900 whereas the 12-month Medan for

last year for 23 was 31,900 so there's a

1.3%

increase uh when it comes to that but if

you just look at where we ended 23

through where we ended 24 prices did

come down okay we saw a Contracting real

estate market in Greenville buyers

should be happy this is good for

affordability if you're a seller you're

not happy you're hoping that 2025 gets

better if you already sold in

2024 then then you're not happy okay you

you experienced some frustrations it was

a hard year for a lot of sellers um in

2024 I know because I had more listings

than I had buyer clients in 24 for the

first time in my

career um so it it was it was just one

of those years okay um and here's what

it looks like is going to happen I think

we might see um we might see uh another

decrease year onye when the January data

comes out um but then we're going to

have a very favorable comparison to

February February 2024 the median was

only

299,000 I'd be pretty surprised if we

dip below that number in February of

2025 a lot rests on these mortgage rates

um so we'll just have to see mortgage

rates here's the thing rates right now

are higher than they were a year ago

okay so this is what's happening this is

why something has to give so what's

giving is the rates can't give so the

price is giving and so that's what we're

that's what we've seen now four straight

months with uh median sales price

declines but the number the percent of

decline year-on-year is getting smaller

so September was a 3.4% decrease year

onye October then

uh went to 3.2% decrease November a

little bit less 2.7% decrease then

December 1.5% decrease um and like I

said we'll probably see another decrease

in January and then if I had to make

just a short-term prediction uh that's

not for my bold predictions episode I

would say probably February will we'll

reverse that Trend and start seeing

increases to the median sales price year

on year again average sales price um

usually the average it goes up even when

the median doesn't uh no change this

month a

2.6% increase to the average sales price

now sitting at 376 really 377,000 uh

which is up from 367,000 December

2023 for those interested in the average

I think the median is more accurate in

terms of what the average buyer can

expect to find or what the average house

costs um but for those interested in the

average

376 uh 377,000 uh and the 12mth average

for the whole year was uh was 384,000

which is a 3.3% increase over

23 percent of list price

received sellers got for the first time

in a long time a little bit of an

increase so we saw in December again the

people are a little bit more willing to

do a deal including buyers in the month

of December once you get towards the end

of the year and buyers gave sellers a

little bit more in December than what

they had uh the the previous December

and kind of reversed the trend we had

been seeing several months of decreases

year onye in the percent of list price

received November we finally had a flat

month and then December we went up to

98.2% so if you have a home list of for

100,000 you can reasonably expect to get

98,2

for it um that does not include sour

concession so you do have to factor that

in as well um which which may include

realtor commissions um and that was up

0.1% from the 98.1% in December of 2023

so you know really the the 98 that's

pretty historically normal and really

the main thing is we don't want this to

to have major fluctuations right it it

almost doesn't matter what this number

is it matters what it's doing

right if the market is getting

97% fine sellers can live with it buyers

are can live with it everyone can live

with that if it's 99% everyone can live

with that even if it's 100% like it was

during Co people can live with that it's

just when the the it's going way up at a

rapid Pace or way down at a rapid Pace

that messes people up because then you

got sellers that you know that they're

expecting well if I list it for 300 I'm

going to get 290 for it and uh and and

in reality because things are

Contracting they're actually only going

to get 280 for it nobody likes that um

and then they get confused and they're

like well my neighbor they just sold

their house for you know they listed

their house uh half a year ago for 300

they got 290 you're telling me if I

listed for 300 I'm going to get 280 um

and and again I'm just throwing out

hypothetical numbers here but that's why

for this I like to see stability and

that's what we've seen we've been seeing

it BAS basically it's been in the 98s

the entire year now it started in the

summer months it was in uh well it it

did the normal seasonal thing right in

the in the winter months it was in the

low 98s in the summer months went to the

high 98s and then back down again um

basically sellers have the most leverage

during the summer months spring and I

should say I should include the spring

months in there spring and summer months

that's when sellers have the most

leverage and that's reflected in the

data um but even so remarkably stable

data in the 98s the entire time housing

affordability index um even though home

prices have moderated this number takes

into account mortgage rates and

unfortunately mortgage rates have not

been moderating and as a result we have

a slight decrease in housing

affordability index we like this number

to be 100 or more that means that the

average family can purchase the average

home uh it's a little bit less than that

it's 97 right now which was a decrease

year on Year from the 98 that we had in

December of 23 uh and again that's all

mortgage rates right because otherwise

we housing is more affordable in

December of 24 than it was in 23 we

literally just looked at the median um

but and that's what this number is

factoring in it's factoring in medians

is not factoring in averages um except

for the average um uh the average uh

mortgage rate and I'm not exactly sure

how they calculate all of that in terms

of the mortgage rates I've never really

gotten into the Weeds on that uh but the

point is that housing affordability is a

two well it's really a three-prong thing

and if you're watching on YouTube you

can read the description but it's

looking at incomes it's looking at

mortgage rates it's looking at home

prices and right now incomes are going

in the right direction home prices uh

for the moment are going in the right

direction but mortgage rates are not and

as a result housing got a little bit

less affordable but it's still pretty

close to 100 if we saw mortgage rates

just come down a quarter point we'd

probably be uh sitting right there

around 100 that which is what we want to

see we want homes to be affordable for

buyers inventory of homes for sale all

right I said we talk about this um and I

don't think that the data is exactly

reflective of precisely what's happening

but um I will I will explain uh a little

color to this in just a moment so here's

what we had we had a

27.7% increase year onye in the

inventory of homes in December in 23 it

was uh 3,456 homes in December that were

available in active status at the end of

the month in December 24 it was

4,413 so basically a th000 more um

resulting in a 27.7% increase we had an

increase every single month of the year

and almost every single month was over

20% okay we only had two months that

were less than 20% that was January only

had a 133% increase November only had a

19% increase uh but 19's pretty close to

22 um all right so what's happening here

well if you remember which you may or

may not um we saw inventory Peak back in

September and again some of that had to

do with Helen right closings that didn't

happen homes that were still uh had to

come back on the market or whatever

homes that would have gone under

contract but didn't available on active

stats at the end of the month uh that

was when we hit the high point of the

year and since then it's come down but

Helen isn't the only explanation for

this that if I left you with that that

would be a lazy explanation this is a

seasonal Trend okay and if you you can

look if you're looking on YouTube you

see it you know there's little Hills

every year and every year even though

this this is counterintuitive to some

people inventory goes up during the

summer months more Supply comes into the

market than demand now if it doesn't

feel that way if it feels like demand

outpaces Supply that's that's because

not all the supply is good all right

there's some trashy houses that come on

the market uh during the summer months

you know sellers that are just like oh

it's a summer I can sell my home um so

the demand does increase substantially

uh and and the supply doesn't increase

substantially but the good Supply

doesn't keep up with the good demand and

so the end result is uh that um that we

end up having inventory go uh usually it

bottoms out uh around this time of year

January February you can see that all

across the data historically and then it

starts to rise as we go into the spring

season and that's precisely what we're

seeing here it uh it topped out in

September and it's uh it's been coming

down since then now month on-month very

slight increase from November to

December um I'm not drawing any that

that's a little bit unusual but I'm not

drawing any any major conclusions from

that I think that we'll probably

continue to see it bottom out and uh and

I'm actually quite confident of that

because as I've been pulling up the

active inventory it is way way down like

if I'm just pulling up the multiple

listing service just looking at how many

homes are for sale it's substantially

down from what it was uh back in

December so I think January we'll

probably see uh this number come down a

bit now will it be a uh a decrease year

on year no I don't think so because

January of last year only had

3500 uh homes uh uh in active status at

the end of the month of January I think

we're going to have more than that it'll

probably be close to 4,000 uh but

that'll still be month- on-month a

decrease and continuing that normal

seasonal Trend and then we'll gear back

up uh for the spring and summer months

for inventory to start to take off again

month supply of inventory this kind of

gives you a a better picture of what's

actually happening right

um it's taking uh the uh the uh

inventory of homes for sale at the end

of a given month divided by the average

monthly pending sales from the last 12

months and I should mention that

sometimes this inventory number gets

ends up getting revised so we it may not

end up actually being this number we

we'll see sometimes it's revised really

heavily sometimes it's not um pending

sales is always revised really heavily

um as I've already said so it says on

here December was 3.3 months supply of

inventory which should be a 22.2%

increase I don't think so I I think that

uh and in that 22.2% increase over 2.7

months of Supply in 2023 I think that's

going to come back down once all this

data gets revised I think that this is

going to be probably in the low lower 3

is probably 3.1 3.2 which could continue

a downward Trend that we've seen also

since since September September was 3.4

months October 3.3 November 3.2 December

will probably be 3 3.1 uh months of

inventory still an increase year on-ear

just not a dramatic increase and that's

still pretty pretty low months of

inventory right if you don't if you're a

buyer right now or you're a buyer agent

right now you don't feel like there's a

whole lot on the market for you or for

your clients I mean there's not right um

talked about this many times uh the

traditional metric that you need to be

at six months of inventory for it to be

a a a flat Market or or a market

transitioning to a buyer Market no um if

if we started to get into the mid fours

we would we would really be in a buyer

Market by that point because of the

changes in in how the market has

been um in in more recent years uh but

we're nowhere near that right now it

appears that we're hovering around 3

month supply of inventory um

so basically what that means is that no

more homes came on the market and the

absorption rate continued we people kept

buying homes at the pace that they're

currently buying we would be out of

homes within 3 months okay that's all

that that means

um you know what I'm going to cut it

there I could I could get into the

housing Supply overview um but I think

that we've talked long enough and I'm

tired it's night time I've had a long

day um I I did a lot of driving today a

lot of a lot of walking um around a

bunch of different places um but uh but

it's good it's been a good start to the

year I hope it's been a good start to

year for you guys as well thank you guys

so much for listening my contact

information is in the show notes you

need to reach out to me for any of your

local or not local real estate needs and

uh just a reminder Piper Insurance Group

you need to reach out to them for a free

quote today they are also in the show

notes thank you guys for listening like

it rate it review it subscribe to it if

you like this show we will talk again

next time