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

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Today I was actually planning to talk

about something else, but we'll come

back to that because the greater

Greenville Association of Realtors just

released their Market stats for

the month of January so now we have

January's data I don't know why it

always comes so late but we have it and

we're going to go over it because you

guys deserve to know exactly what is

happening in the market right now and

So here we go, so we're going to start

right at the top with closed sales

there's a lot of interesting stuff in

the data here if you're looking on

YouTube, you can actually see the

graphs and the charts that I'm that

I'm looking at assuming that the

share screen function of Zoom Works

and so here we are with closed sales

and closed sales is now running

four straight months year-on-year

positives so we are and and and really

if you don't include September

because September was an anomaly, right

that's when we had the hurricane

September data is kind of junk data

really I think we can basically say

we've had seven straight months of

positive closed data year on year when

it comes to closed sales so January of

2025 we had 977 Clos sales that compared

to January of 24 was 881 that's a

10.9% increase that's strong we've

had three straight months of double

digit year on-year increases now people

are starting to finally close on their

sales okay, this is good, people aren't

backing out as much things are

actually getting to the closing table

people are starting to adjust to the new

normal, that is the current market let's

look on days on Market until sale this

one of the numbers that pops out to

me we just jumped into the 60s we

went straight from 54 days on Market

till sale in December to 61 days on

Market till sale in January, what does

that means that's the average number of

days between when a property is listed

and when an offer is accepted in a given

month that's a

17.3% increase from last year, which was

52 days on Market until sale in

January of

24, so what's going on there, it's you

know this is what we're dealing with

right now, is buyers, yes they are

closing more regularly, but they are

taking a while to decide what property

they want they're not rushing into

anything things slowed way way down

during the holidays, things slowed way

way down in January, we did have a few

weird, you know snow ice events that

we don't have super often here in

Greenville and those sorts of things

impacted things as well, but here we are

now this is the highest days on

Market until sale that we've had

since Co, okay if you look if you're

looking at the data, the last time we

we got up above 60, was right before

Covid okay and then it didn't drop

back down until you know after lockdowns

happened during the

pandemic and then things stayed really

low and we've been knocking at the door

of 60 days now for a while, right, we

knocked on it early 23 we knocked on

early 24, now we've crested 60 days now

up to 61 days on Market in January of

2025 now you'll notice the

standard pattern that we have is that

the days on Market do tend to peak

this time of year, okay sometime in the

early months of the year is when the

peak happens in January, February, March

somewhere in there so we're we may

already be at the peak, if not maybe

we'll see it go up to 62 or 63 and then

it'll start to fall back down to the 50s

maybe even the 40s as well, we'll have

to see so I'm not drawing a whole lot

from this outside of seasonality outside

If you know that we had like I said a

few weird weather events that you

know caused some issues as well but

long story short, it is taking longer to

sell a home than it has at any time in

recent history basically in the past

five years, okay, so sellers, you need to

be prepared for that it's taking longer

and it just is there's nothing there's

no amount of marketing that can fix it

now here's what I will say a lot of

sellers are not pricing their homes

correctly and a lot of listing agents

aren't pricing the homes

correctly and that is causing some of

this problem as well, right we're having

you know people aren't budging off

the numbers that they think their home

is worth and the end result of that is

buyers are just kind of like okay, you

know if you think your home is worth

500,000 but everything I'm looking at

says it's worth

470 well I'm just going to wait until

you drop the price down a few times and

get close to 470 and then maybe I'll

consider submitting an offer so that's

some of what we're we're seeing

happening there median sales price

the median is what we tend to look at to

see directionally where the market is

going and directionally where the market

is going is not good if you're a seller

it's great if you're a buyer but we have

now had five straight months of

year-on-year declines to the median sales

price now the month of January it

declined from

31,500 median sales price from January

24 down to 305 January 25 I've already

told you guys expect to potentially

see

some more months of decreases I

said that February was the month that

would surprise me if we saw a year-

on-year decrease for the month of

February and then after that

it's kind of all bets are off so I

expected this for January down to 2.1%

year onye I do not expect that for

February, but we'll see, check back in

in a month and we'll see if prices have

declined again in February, then that is

an interesting sign I'm not going to

say it's a bad sign right because all of

this data kind of cuts both ways, right

it's bad for sellers but it's good for

buyers and you know in

general, we don't want this trend to

continue right because ultimately people

want their real estate to appreciate and

value and that goes for

buyers as well buyers don't want to see

prices falling non-stop, that would mean

nobody would buy, they would just rent

right and by the way there's an

appraiser that I'm friends with

hopefully at some point we'll have him

on the show here who is putting up

the yellow flag, you know, like at the

beach wind advisory, strong wave

advisory not a red flag yet but it's a

yellow flag that he's running some

models that would indicate to him that

there is going to be some problems with

Holmes appraising here in the future

future we need to be fully prepared for

that if you're a seller, you get an offer

that does not have an appraisal

contingency you accept that offer and

you do not think twice, okay obviously

there's other considerations than that

but if it's a good offer in every other

way, then absolutely you don't want to be

messing with appraisers right now I

never get home appraised prior to

listings very very rare, it has to be a

unique home, usually at a higher price

point for me to consider it, I just got a

4 $1,000 home appraised prior to

listing it, it's we're going to list it

for exactly what it appraised for

and

I felt the need to do that and it

was worth it to be completely honest for

I'm not going to get into all the

details there, but we are in a weird

time when it comes to the state of

the market right

now and sellers just need to be prepared

appraisals, are you know this data is

going to start getting baked into these

appraisals and it's going to hurt in

some areas, if you're a seller not in

every area not every Market's the Same

by the way, one more little tidbit here

this is not in line with

The state data Greenville is doing is seeing

these price these median sales price

declines when much of the rest of

The state of South Carolina isn't why is

that because Greenville is an

affordability Market okay we need to

understand this when people go to

Charleston, they don't go to Charleston

for affordability, I mean it might be

maybe if they're comparing it to like

Miami Beach, yeah sure, more affordable

but Charleston's one of the most

expensive markets in South Carolina

we'll be talking about this actually

probably next week because I'm going to

be comparing Greenville to some other

markets and that was what I was going

to do today, but this data came up and

I'd rather do this right now but

Charleston is not a place if you're

moving to South Carolina, you don't move

to specifically for housing

affordability because it's way more

expensive than most of the state, okay if

you move to Greenville, one of

the biggest perks is affordability and so

when affordability gets shot because

mortgage rates are where

they're at, then guess what, another lever

has to get squeezed, what lever is

getting squeezed is home prices people

aren't willing to pay these top dollar

prices while paying top dollar mortgage

rates and I think that that's what we're

experiencing here, but again I think

we're going to the trend reverse

probably start in February, will that

reversal continue for the rest of the

year maybe maybe not but this is a

very unusual Trend I make no mistake

about it, this is an unusual Trend that

could become a concerning Trend if these

price decreases continued continued

on for the foreseeable future the

average sales price, again the median is

more accurate in terms of like what

people are actually paying the average

is skewed by homes on the on the high

end so I don't put a whole lot of

thought into this, but the average has

gone up now for straight months

unlike the median, so the median price is

going down the average, however is going

up the average for January was

384,000

Market is more of a thing now in

Greenville than it was last year, it was

more of a thing last year than it was

the year before, if you look at the if

you're looking on YouTube, you look at

the chart, you know, it's remarkable

how the average stayed below 200,000 for

so many years going back to this

chart goes all the way back to 2007

and it wasn't until 2014 that we started

to see it creep above, well then it has

just been continuing to go up, we had one

you know outlier month last year

month of October when it was 4:14

but in general, it's been in a

straight line trajectory up towards

400,000 since

2014 and I'd be pretty surprised

if we don't break 400,000 on the average

by the end of this year, so we'll see

percent of list price received, this is

the percentage found when dividing a

property's sales price by its most

recent list price important detail it

does not factor price changes most

recent list price, then taking the

average for all property sold in a given

month not accounting for seller

concessions, okay also an important

detail this doesn't account for sellers

are paying closing costs, things of that

nature the percent of list price

received okay if you list a home for

100,000, what will you get for it for the

month of January, you got $97,700 okay

because it was

97.7% list price received and as a

seller, you were probably also asked

for some concessions too, okay that's

something not baked into this data as I

already said how does that compare to

last year that is a0 4% decrease from

last year, so also not a great sign, not a

great sign of your seller right now a

another decrease in January, now do I

expect this to rebound in February I

do you know again there's a seasonality

element to this and if you look at

previous previous years

the vertical lines are the

January frequently is the seasonal

bottom for the percent of list price

received and you know what you have

you have a variety of things happening

you have sellers that got through the

holidays and they're just like I'm

just ready to sell this home you've

got you know buyers that are not you

know as aggressive in the month of

January because to them they still have

the entire year left ahead, you know to

find a home, potentially a lot of

people's leases don't end in January

a lot of people's leases end in May

June

July and so there's just not a whole

lot of urgency if you're a buyer but

there might be a whole lot of urgency if

you're a seller if you're if you're

a seller that listed your home in the

fourth quarter of a year, you're probably

In an urgent sale situation, right

because you listed your home during the

the worst time to list your home and

so, this is what happens, okay the

the After Shock is sellers are a

little bit more willing to negotiate

in January and buyers are a little bit

less and that results in the percent of

Less Price received being lower in

that month, but interesting that it's

lower year on Year from January of 24th

so we'll keep tracking that housing

affordability index unchanged year on

year which is somewhat of a good

thing I guess it would be nice it would

be really nice if it went up a little

bit right, we want the housing

affordability index to be 100, it's 98

right now

at least 100 right 100 means that the

average family can afford the average

priced home

so is at 98 with the median

prices going down you would hope that

that would help to drive this number up

but again mortgage rates are keeping

this up because this number factors in

mortgage rates, it factors in median

home prices and it factors in household

income, it's comparing all those

three data points, and unfortunately

we're still kind of stuck in 98 but

month on month, that is an increase

December was 97, we went up in January

to 98 so we at least have that

little bit of positivity to give to you

guys, if you're a buyer inventory of

homes for sale this one really surprised

me okay and I'm actually going to I've

got on the side here, you guys can't see

it if you're looking at YouTube I

have

oh you know

hold on here, what am I

doing did I

skip I think I might have act

accidentally skip pending sales I want to

talk about pending sales for just one

second, here my brain is mush at the

moment I'm at the end of my day so

apologies but if I already

talked about this but I'm going to

talk about it here again for a second

pending sales okay, pending sales are

the number properties that have had

offers accepted in a given month it's

always wrong for the most recent month

of January so we'll look at December

December was revised as predicted but it

wasn't revised as much as I thought now

December had a year-on-year increase in

pending sales still a 2.1% increase, 920

pending sales versus 91 in the January

before in the December before and

Then January again this number is

going to be revised, but January was way

lower okay and even with revisions I

don't think we're going to see January

be a good month, I think we're going

to see a substantial decrease in pending

sales once this data gets revised

because currently it's sitting at 787

pending sales for January, I would expect

that to get revised up to 11 to 1200

but January of 2024 was

1332 so we're definitely I mean I

would put money on it if I could that

January 25 is going to end up being you

know probably close to 10% lower than

January of 24 and so again a

a slow start to the year for one reason

or another, but as we already talked

about the closed sales in data had has

been strong, okay now what we may see is

that the February closed sales data ends

up being weak because the pending sales

from January was weak, but what

we're also seeing is that the pendings

and the closings are there's not as

big of a spread between the two of them

what does that mean, more homes that are

going under contract are actually

closing and that's good, that's good

for all parties, right that means sellers

are actually you know doing

repairs and doing things that they need

to do that means homes are appraising

or that parties are able to figure out a

way to negotiate a low appraisal

that means that buyers are

serious when they make offers that means

a whole lot of things that we haven't

necessarily been able to say for a while

and so I am positive I

feel good about that, okay I apologize

for that I don't know why I

believe I skipped it although I'm

looking at a whole bunch of data and as

I already said I haven't had a ton of

time to review all of this because

literally I got it right as I was

sitting down to record this, so let's

look at inventory again, let's go back to

that for a second here, so inventory is

always revised down right so December

inventory was listed last month as

being 4413 that got revised down to

4146 that's still a basically 20%

increase your year from December of

2023 January is currently sitting

at

4,638 that would be a huge increase from

January 24, which was

354 but January is going to get Revis

down as well, you know call it 4,300

that's still a huge increase year-on-year

okay that's still going to be like a 20%

increase year-on-year

what do I make of this? I'm actually

kind of surprised because if I pull up

the multiple listing service and just

look at everything as active it's way

below this number, okay and it's been at

kind of standard seasonal lows, right if

you're looking at the chart, you can see

it typically inventory typically bottoms

out in January is time frame sometimes

it bottoms out in February or March

but but it typically does now in

recent years it's been bottoming out

later in the spring, well, in some

years it bottomed out in 24 in

January so it's going to be interesting

to see what happens because I don't feel

like this number matches what I'm seeing

I'm seeing less inventory than what is

being showed in this data so I'm be

very interested to see if this gets

revised down, but at the moment it looks

like inventory either way even if

even if this gets heavily revised

based on you know, just what I'm seeing

inventory is still higher than what

it was a year ago, okay so buyers have more

options sellers have more competition

but I'm just a little bit surprised that

It's this much higher, I thought it

would be you know 5% higher, not 20 not

potentially 20% so that's just

something that we'll have to

keep tabs on and see exactly what

happens and then month supply of

course you're dividing pending sales

sorry you're dividing inventory by

pending sales, I just told you guys that

both those numbers are going to be

revised so we don't know what this

number is going to come in at currently

3.5 months of inventory okay what does

that means that if

these numbers were accurate, which they

aren't, but if they were accurate

if we didn't have any more listings at

the absorption rate we currently have it

would take three and a half months for

every house in the multiple listing

service to get sold, okay if the

absorption rate stayed the same but

listings fell off a cliff, we didn't get

a single new listing for three and a

half months, everything would get sold

between now and then that's a massive

If it stays at 3.5, which again it

won't what what's it going to go down to

probably 3.2 right because December just

got revised to 3.0 and it was 3.3 last

month was before it got revised so

January is probably going to be

3.2 that's still a huge increase from

January 24, which is 2.7, so again

buyers have more options and

this is something you know I'm not

seeing as much this month in February so

I expect this number to go down but some

of these numbers aren't exactly

reflective of what I'm personally seeing

and I'm not exactly sure why but just

going to follow the data like I always

have currently it looks like

inventory went up substantially from

from January a year ago and that's

something to keep tabs on so that

that is all that we have for today

please feel free to let me know if you

guys, have any specific questions about

any of this data, sometimes you guys do

have questions, sometimes you don't my

contact information is in the show notes

if you do have questions on it, you guys

know I'm accessible and of

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