Hello everyone and welcome to another

episode of selling Greenville your

favorite real estate podcast here in

Greenville, South Carolina, I'm your host

as always Stan Mccune I'm a realtor right

here in Greenville and you can find all

of my contact information in the show

notes in the show description if you

need to reach out to me for any of your

real estate needs here in Greenville or

outside of the Greenville Spartanburg

area and just a reminder as always

Piper Insurance Group, they are this show

Sponsor, they are my go-to for Home Auto

and umbrella insurance, they can help you

in South Carolina, North Carolina, and

Georgia, so basically this whole little

pocket down here and they're an

independent insurance agency so they can

call multiple different carriers you don't

just get stuck with one that is not

having the rate or the coverage that you

need and additionally if you're

interested in enduring investment

properties they can help you with that

too commercial properties, fix and flips

gr up new construction all those good

things so they are also in the show not

and I would highly recommend you

give them a call for a free quote today

and I'd also highly recommend if you

enjoy this show that you like, rate

subscribe all of those good things to

support the show and make sure you don't

miss future episodes, okay, today we're

going to be comparing Greenville South

Carolina to a bunch of other markets

that are kind of considered the

markets that compete with Greenville

markets such as well we're going to

we're going to do Greenville, we're going

to do Spartanburg

and then we're going to do Columbia

Charleston, South Carolina, Atlanta,

Georgia, Charlotte, North Carolina, Asheville,

North Carolina, Los Angeles, Houston

sorry if you hear my dog barking in the

background I don't know why she's

barking Houston Texas, Chicago,

Illinois, and that'll be it so we're

going to compare Greenville Spartanburg

to the local area that we're in, and the

the markets around here, South

Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, and then

also just to compare to some of the

markets that are moving to

Greenville, which are some of the ones

I just mentioned La Houston Chicago

those are some big markets moving to

Greenville, at least in my experience

we're going to be comparing to those

markets as well in case you're one of

those that might be interested in moving

from one of those areas so I've got some

really great statistical reporting

here and I'm going to share it on my

screen, if you're looking on YouTube, you

will get a great opportunity to see this

data and I highly recommend that if

you're if you have the opportunity to

put the pause on this, you're

listening to the audio and pull it up on

YouTube, I do recommend that you do that

because I'm not going to be going over

all the data, there's a lot of great data

from the National Association of Home

builders on all of these different

markets and I'm just going to go through

this now I'm not going to go through

all of it, but I'm going to go through

some of it so we're just going to

start, I'm not going to and I'm also I'm

going to go in more detail with these

first couple I'm not going to do

the full details on all of these I just

want to focus on some high points but

again if you're if you're watching on

YouTube, you'll get to really look at

this in more detail if you want, okay, so

for starters, I'm just going to read

the top line off of this which has kind

of the high points, okay, the population this

is for the Greenville Anderson Greer

South Carolina markets okay population

979.6 thousand that's a 2.3 thousand

increase from a year ago that's a

population for this greater Greenville

area median household income

69,413 okay if you're making less than

that you're a little bit less than the

median household if you're making more

than that great you're making a little

bit more that was up here on your

5.7% existing single family

median home price

336.2 thousand okay slight increase year on-ear

for the median home price for that

general

area total permits year today this is

something we're not going to get in

a whole lot of detail on with this but

If you're interested, permits Builder

permits are up 15.3% year on year up to

8,911 and the unemployment rate 4.5% as

of the time that I pulled this data

that was also a 1.61% increase over

last year okay okay so those are the

high points for the Greenville

Market we'll look at Spartanburg here

in a second, but I just want to point out

a few things here with regard to

Greenville specifically, first off, we

have the out of this entire sample set

out of all of the different things that

we're going to be looking at Greenville

has the second highest home ownership

rate of any of these markets, okay so the

home ownership rate, which I'm

trying to find it on here, here we go

the home ownership rate it's a little

it's funny if when you're doing a

podcast and you're recording this and

you can't do a whole lot of editing your

brain freezes up my brain just froze up

the home ownership rate

70.6% for the Greenville Anderson career

market so

70.6% of people that live in this market

are homeowners, that's great that's

that's really fantastic, 61% are single

family detached homeowners so your

standard house and then the remainder

is you know people that are in

duplexes, multi-family town

Home things of that nature so

Greenville has the second highest home

ownership rate of all of the markets

that we're going to look at in this

group and that's because people don't

come here to rent, they come here to own

okay and that's something obviously

that I'm passionate about as a realtor

Now renters have a huge burden, okay

there's a section here that's housing

cost burden and renters in this metro

area, it's basically so you can add up

the renter burden being over 30% of

their income, there's also rental burden

over 50% of their income going towards

the rent for those over 30% that's

that makes up

47% of the renter Market here in

Greenville those that their burden is

over 50% of their income, that's 23% so

in total, 70% of renters are paying

over 30% of their income towards

rent that's not great in comparison to

homeowners that same number would

compare to only 22% of homeowners are

paying 30% or more of their income

towards their mortgage

payment and only of that group only

7% is paying over 50% so that's a far

cry from the 70% total for renters and

23% for those that are paying over

50% of their income towards renting

and that's not because there's this

huge discrepancy between what it costs to

buy versus what it costs to rent there

used to be a big discrepancy that

discrepancy that Gap has narrowed U

what's different now is it's just so

challenging you, you have to have money

to be a homeowner right now and it's

a challenge like that's just the reality

of the situation so a lot of people are

forced to rent when they don't want to

and here's one of the reasons why if

you look at the age demographics

Greenville is very young now there's

a little bit of a barbell thing that you

see going on here because we've got

less than 25, well that's a huge group

of people right, that's people that are

less than 25 years old, that's a large

group and then you've got on the other

side 65 and older, that's also a large

group that goes into Infinity obviously

there's not a whole lot of people over

100 years old but those are always

going to be the largest I shouldn't say

always, but usually going to be

the largest two groups, and then you've

got we break it down in here from 25 to

34 35 to 44 45 to 54 and 55 to 64 okay

that's the age demographics, how does it

all shake out again, not going to get too

much in the weeds here but

45% of the population in this Greenville

Anderson Greer area is 20 is 34 or

less years old, that's huge, almost half

of the Greenville population is 34 or

younger okay and then you know

between 35 and 64 that only comes out to

what 38% 65 and older 18% so

greenville's very young 45% of the

population 34 or younger

in terms of the economy, if you're

looking at the economy, non-farm

employment kind of hit a little bit of a

of a sag but it is turning in the

right direction unemployment rate had

been going up quite a bit the past

year but it has kind of plateaued a

little bit inflation if you're looking at

the CPI data inflation not doing super

great it did buy bottom out but

it's starting to go back up again so

obviously that's something to keep track of

but the state GDP there's no

negatives right this State GDP goes

all the way back to fourth quarter of

2020 and it's just all positive, you see

a huge number for the third quarter or the

second quarter of 2020 that was just

all the makeup that happened

after

covid and after the lockdowns so

Generally speaking economy doing well

would be nice to the inflation wasn't

going up, but that's a national thing we

can't avoid that now, all of that

being said, Greenville has had one of the

sharpest Corrections from its from

its high of real estate prices of any of

these markets and you can see that in

the median existing single family home

price it peaked right, we have a nice

Crystal Clear Peak right around the

fourth quarter of

2023 and it started to go down, it's come

back up a little bit from its most

recent low but this it's not yet and

this is not even inflation-adjusted it's

not yet come back to that Peak so this

is what we've been talking about when we

go over the market stats we've been

talking about how Greenville has five

straight months of the meeting price

point being down year on-ear and that's

being reflected in this data where we

can see that it is not, and again the way

The Association Home Builders pulls

the data it's never going to match

exactly what the greater Greenville

Association of realtor data is but

this is basically confirming

what we already knew basically all

right, let's close that one

out and I'm going to drag from one

monitor to the next and pull it up for

all of

y'all on the YouTube

there we go Spartanburg

all right, this is going to be

the last one that I read all of the

Topline data on but I just want you guys

to be able to compare it population

for Spartanburg, South Carolina 384.94

median household income obviously that's

that's about a third of Greenville right

that population not surprising bber

is not as populous as Greenville, Greer

and Anderson, that's just it's just not

never going to be that median household

income and just to clarify

this is the

2023 inflation adjusted dollars so I

guess we didn't have 2024 just yet when

I pulled this data but it's

substantially lower than Greenville 61,2

196, that is a 6% increase year on-year

but still a lot lower than Greenville

median home price 2951 th000 also

significantly lower than Greenville

so that's good if you're a home buyer

that that's a helpful thing for you

total permits they were up 99.5% year

onye so not as dramatic as Greenville

30

3186 building permits unemployment

rate however is higher

4.7% which is a 1.7% increase year

on year and so so some good and some

bad when compared When comparing

Spartanburg to Greenville and that's no

surprise to me right some people come

here and they specifically want to move

to Spartanburg some people would

rather live in Greenville but spart

andberg is just more affordable and

maybe they can take their Greenville

income with them to to Spartanburg

where they live and that can make sense

for them but I am not never going to

be even though this show is called

selling Greenville I sell a lot of homes

in Spartanburg I'm never going to be one

of these agents that tells you that

Spartanburg is worse than Greenville

it's just different right there are

some things that I prefer in Greenville

over Spartanberg and vice versa so

it's just a different thing

depending on what you're interested

in all right so in terms of the rest

of this data here Spartanburg has out

of everything that we're looking at the

highest home ownership rate out of all

these markets

72.4% home ownership rate

63% of those are people that live in in

single family detached homes your

standard houses so that's great

Spartanburg people are not wanting to

rent not having to rent they are able to

buy and that's great that being said

economically not quite as good as

Greenville right you can see the

unemployment rate is trending in the

right direction it did Peak already and

it's starting to come back down that

being said non-farm employment is

kind of flat for the past several

quarters inflation again the same as

before and state GDP the same as as

Greenville as well so not as strong as

Greenville but also not cratering at

the same time now affordability wise

renters are facing the same issues that

they have in Greenville we've got the

exact same number 70% of renters are are

finding their financial rent their

financial burden of renting to be at

least 30% or more of their income 22%

of that is their burden is over

50% just to be clear it's 20 it's not

22% of the 70% it's 22% in total I'm

just lumping 48% and 22% 48% the burd's

over 30% 22% the burd's over 50% that

comes out to to 70% total with and

then I split out that 22% are really

having that burden of having to pay 50%

or more towards of their income towards

their rent whereas if you're a

homeowner only 22% of homeowners in in

Spartanburg have a burden of their

income going towards towards cost of

living or towards housing of over 30%

and only

6% are paying over 50% of their

income towards housing so that's

great those are those are some really

good numbers for homeowners not great if

you're renting if you're if you're

renting in Spartanburg and you're you're

not you don't have a plan in place for

home ownership you you might want to

start thinking about that right because

rents it's not going to get cheaper and

and there's a lot of rumors that next

year might the market might flip right

now it's a it's a renter Friendly Market

and it might flip next year to a

landlord Friendly Market if that happens

rents are going to are going to really

take off so that's something to keep in

mind Spartanburg is also extremely

young like

Greenville with

46% of the demographic being under the

age of 35 so

46% of people that live in Spartanburg

are 34 or younger very very young

population and the rest of of the

numbers are pretty comparable to

Greenville and and as I already said

Spartanburg is a great option for

those wanting to live in the upstate for

a lower cost than what Greenville

provides and and I'm very very

positive and very optimistic about

anyone that wants to move to the to the

Spartanburg area it's just like

greenville's first cousin right we

share a lot in common our downtowns have

some similarities obviously no waterfall

flowing through Spartanburg but spart

andberg has some good stuff too Spartan

B has some very good restaurants very

good breweries some they they've got

a a baseball team coming there I

think pretty soon like

Greenville great high school sports

in better than Greenville High School

sports in Spartanburg County so a

lot to a lot to like there and and

you know like I said it's it's just

different and that's just the way it's

going to be and Different Strokes for

different folks as my dad used to

say let's look at Columbia South

Carolina here are my thoughts on on

Columbia again I'm not going to read the

the top line for for

everything but in general Columbia is an

affordable Market okay median home price

276.50 okay that's very very affordable

compared to what we were just talking

about in Greenville and Spartanburg but

the median household income is close to

to Greenville it's at

67,8 that's great right your household

income is higher than Spartanburg just a

hair below Greenville but your median

home price is way lower than both

that seems like a no-brainer right

housing costs are about 20% lower

than Greenville so why don't we hear

more about Columbia well it's a

college and government City and the

reality is that that's just not for

everyone but that being said there is a

net migration thing on here that I

haven't been talking about with

Greenville and Spartanburg both are

positive on net migration okay so just

to be clear both the the markets we just

talked about have major immigration

flows happening we already know that

that's why I didn't really focus on that

but in case you're wondering if

Colombia has people moving in or out

Columbia has people moving in a net

migration of of 23,000 between 2016

and 2020 I would expect that that has

continued since 2020 as

well so I think you will be hearing

more about Colombia in future years it

has you know our only National Park

in the state of South Carolina near near

Columbia South Carolina and like I

said college town government town a

lot of healthc care jobs there as

well and so people that are in those

Industries or are willing to go into

those Industries they can get paid a good

amount and live somewhere where it's

relatively cheap to live and so not

surprisingly the home ownership rate is

very high it's the third highest on here

the home ownership rate is 70.1% so

very close to what Greenville and

Spartanburg were and I guess you could

ask the question of why is it not higher

right because all this all this data I

just threw at you you would think okay

it should be like way way higher because

everything is is cheap there incomes are

good and so I would say that even

though we have a similar

46% of residents being 34 or younger

exactly the same as what Spartanburg

was a little bit higher than Greenville

a larger portion of these of these

people that are in this age demographic

under the age of 35 are going to be

students in comparison to some of these

other markets so that's something to keep in

mind as well you know Columbia lends

itself to to a lot of people that are

transient that they don't really plan to

live there for forever it's a starting

point for them maybe they graduated

college stayed there got a job or

maybe they were in the military station

there who knows but it's not an area

in general again I don't I my mom's side

of the family is from the Columbia area

so I have no ill will towards Columbia I

was just there for a conference a few

weeks ago I had a great time enjoyed

every every moment that I was over there

there's nothing wrong with Columbia it's

just not a place that people tend to

live for their entire lives anymore it

used to be that place but but now not

quite as much and and and I think you

know it's mostly just because of of the

unique demographic you have to either

really be cool with the college town

atmosphere really be cool with the with

the government presences there and

all of that that's just not for everyone

now economically stagnate a little bit

right you can look at non non-farm

employment has plateaued it hasn't

reached it hasn't come back to the

peak that it had a few quarters ago

unemployment rate got up to 4.6% started

to come back down so that's good

and and interestingly building

permits were let's see here oh they they

were up 7% year on year so

that's interesting there was something

else that I saw on the building permits

I wanted to point out oh yes the the

the single family what what was

interesting is that even though those

building permits were up year on year

the single family building permits were

down so they're building tons of multif

family in Colombia right now and I

find that to be extremely interesting as

well that does not bode well for the

price of housing for single family in

the future so now if if you're

thinking about buying in Colombia I

would say Now's the Time right because

they're they're not building as much

this year or they they didn't build as

much this past year as they did in 23

and and probably that bodess this

similarly for the future as well so

keep that in mind but at the

end of the day I think most people I

know who have chosen Columbia over the

Greenville Spartanburg areaa it's just

for work reasons I don't know anyone

that goes to Columbia and is like I'd

rather live here than Greenville or

Spartanburg or any of the areas in

between they're they're going there

for work for affordability reasons and

there's nothing

at all wrong with that okay I'm I'm not

here to trash on any of these areas I'm

simply highlighting differences all

right moving right

along you like that little VI there

Charleston and North

Charleston

okay now if you know anything about

Charleston you know that Charleston has

has a lot more money flowing through it

than the other markets that we've looked

at it's one of if not the most expensive

housing market in South Carolina and

I I'll just jump right into the to the

data here the unemployment rate is low

4.1% even though non-farm

employment has plateaued a little bit

but it's still on the upward trajectory

right so economically that's

interesting but what catches my eye is

the median home price

40.8 th000 and it is Sky rocketing

okay that median price is to the Moon

right this looks like you know stocks

for NVIDIA once the once AI became

a thing the housing prices in

Charleston are showing no signs of

easing and I find that to be fascinating

it it had a little bit of a of a low

in 22 but then 2023 happened and it just

starts going back up

again now if you look at the

housing cost burden section living in

Charleston is a much more significant

financial burden than any of the other

South Carolina markets that we're

looking at so in other words the the

other way to think about this is that

people are willing to pay more to live

in Charleston than they're willing to

pay in Greenville Spartanburg or

Columbia so so I guess hopefully that

makes sense how does that translate out

to the burden for renters we'll start

with them again for their their

income to be over 30% or over 50%

that number you know we've been looking

at that number being I believe is

around 70% for the other markets that

we've looked at in Charleston North

Charleston

75% okay 48% their renting burden is

30%

of their income 27% is 50% or more of

their income homeowners a lot L again a

lot less but a lot higher than the other

markets we just looked at for homeowners

where there where 30% of their income is

going towards 30% or more is going

towards their mortgage that's 21% of

homeowners 50% or more that's 9% so 30%

of homeowners in Charleston are are

paying at least 30% of their income

towards their mortgage home ownership

rate that being said is still comparable

to Greenville sparber it's a little bit

lower 69.5% so this is the first one in

the 60s that we're looking at so

that affordability has impacted things

for people but but not not too much again

people are moving there knowing what

they're getting into from the outset

they you know they have to have money

the median household income is 80

5,165 so yeah that's that makes sense

right that's substantially more than any

of these other markets that we've looked

at and of course Charleston is a

Beach town is a college town too so most

of the people who move down there do so

for that

beachparty atmosphere that Charleston

has to offer right and again that

doesn't work for any for for every

single person right there there are is a

certain demographic retirees obviously

love the beach kids you know younger

adults love the beach younger adults

love the college atmosphere all of those

different things so it it appeals to

different people in different ways

but Charleston Charleston's fascinating

to me right we do Greenville does lose

some people to Charleston but not a lot

because again it's just so different

do you want to live in a more of your

your classic class family sort of

sort of environment or do you want to

live in a beach college town right most

and and do you want to pay a premium for

that most people choose choose

Greenville Spartanburg o over Charleston

once you break it down in that way all

right moving on to the next

one we have

Atlanta

and P this up and then it got got really

wonky on me here we got Atlanta Sandy

Springs and Roswell I'm going to share

this with you guys on YouTube all right

here we go now

Atlanta on the other hand looks much

healthier in terms of of income and

median home price and all of this than

Charleston right the median income is

slightly higher while the median home

price is $85,000 lower so you can make

more money in Atlanta than in Charleston

and and spend a lot less on housing

so it's

8655 median household income and the

the home purchase price is

375.000 both of those numers

substantially larger than Greenville

Spartanburg so you know again if you

want to make more

money then you will in Greenville

Spartanburg obviously Atlanta is has a

much more robust job market in General

you're going to find a lot more

options down there than you will green a

lot more higher paying options the

existing single family median home

price also higher than Greenville

Spartanburg but proportionally in

in contrast to how much higher the

income is I think the income more

than offsets the the increase in the

home price and of course compared to

Charleston it's a no-brainer but I mean

talk about a market that could be more

different than Charleston Atlanta and

Charleston are are not comparable nobody

is looking at the southeast and saying

I want to go to either Atlanta or

Charleston nobody's doing that some

people are looking at Atlanta versus

Greenville or Charleston versus

Spartanburg I we do have that but

but nobody's comparing it nobody's

comparing Atlanta to Charleston let's

just be real I'm also impressed when

I look at this I look at the

unemployment rate the unemployment rate

3.6%

Atlanta that's impressive proud of you

guys our our our little brother or you

know they would probably consider

themselves their big brother for the

southeast but I I would like to say the

the little brother to Greenville right

not little in terms of population or or

any of that but in terms of my own

feelings towards it okay that's the only

thing that matters that 3.6 un

appointment rate by the way is the

lowest of any of these markets that

we'll be looking at including the ones

we've not yet looked at

so it's a little bit surprising when you

factor all that in that

32% of homeowners have a housing cost

burden of 30% or over or 50% or over 22%

30% or over 10% 50 50% or over so

32% of homeowners in the Atlanta Market

are are experiencing this crunch of

they're putting a lot of their income

you know a third of homeowners are

putting a huge portion of their income

towards their mortgage payment and

renters similarly it's let's

see here

83% of renters are at a point where

they're putting at least 30% of their

income towards renting so it's

surprising to me right I don't

know exactly what to make of

that outside of maybe there's some

discrepancies in the data but despite

the fact that income in Atlanta is is

pretty high in comparison to to the cost

of housing people are still finding

themselves financially constrained in

in that

market Atlanta also has I'll just

point out this is kind of random a

smaller share despite being comparable

in terms of the other statistics the age

statistics all of that where it's not

comparable is there's not a whole lot of

the 65 and older population in in

Atlanta in comparison to the other

Market only

14% of the sample size for the

demographics here in Atlanta are 65

and older so I find that to be

interesting if you're 65 or older you

might want to do some research into that

figure out why are people in my

demographic not moving to Atlanta

interesting now comparing to

Greenville Spartanburg I do know know

some people who have chosen Atlanta over

Greenville Spartanburg and usually it's

because they want to be around a more

diverse group of people a more diverse

political scene perhaps and and and

really the big one is oftentimes they

just want to see and experience the

perks of a big city right Atlanta has

every Big City perk imaginable you know

it's not New York City doesn't have you

know all those incredible bodegas

everywhere and mass transportation

Atlanta kind of kind of disgusting you

know great great place to see rats if

you're if you're into that in the

in the the MARTA as it's called

Metro Atlanta rail something or another

but but yeah not a whole lot of

people generally choose Atlanta over

Greenville but I have experienced that a

little bit now the home ownership

rate a little bit lower

67.1% again a little bit surprising

given some of these other dynamics that

we're talking about but it's possible

that median home price or sorry the the

median household

income is is really being pushed up

by by the upper income earners and so

maybe you know it's possible that

without me digging into the data in a

tremendous amount of detail and having

to go off of these charts that I have

it's possible that that Atlanta just

doesn't have the middle class that some

of these others do all right moving

right along

here we have the

Charlotte

conquered Gastonia

Market all

right now I was actually a little

surprised to see that the Charlotte

median home price was higher than

Atlanta but the income is lower but the

housing cost Bur is lower so apparently

people in Charlotte make larger down

payments on their homes than Atlanta

so how does that break out median

household income 81

81,82 median home price

43.8 th000 that's a big big for

Charlotte being only an hour and a half

from Greenville that's a huge jump from

Greenville Spartanburg and it's it's

really close to spart you know some

parts of Spartanburg are only an hour

away from Charlotte you can live in

Spartanburg for

$150,000 close to that less than you

can live in Charlotte

wild and then you know to go back to

the housing cost burden again

27% of homeowners are are putting

either 30 or 50% or more towards

towards their mortgage payment for

renters the the number is

73% okay so they strin

in terms of cost of living in Charlotte

but it's it's higher than Greenville

Spartanburg not as high as Atlanta though

which is which is supremely fascinating

to me again my only explanation is that

people have more cash Charlotte they're

putting down larger down payments and

that's causing them to not have as much

of a of a monthly burden as people in

Atlanta that apparently are putting down

small down payments now the home

ownership rate is only 65.4% so that's

lower than Atlanta I believe if I'm not

mistaken that's the lowest that we've

looked at here up to this point so

home ownership rate not great that's

where that median home price is being

reflected in in the data now

Charlotte is I I kind of half truth

before Charlotte's tied with Atlanta for

the lowest unemployment rate but

you can also see that nonfarm

employment has been

skyrocketing so you know I I think

Charlotte is you know we're going to see

the the income numbers in Charlotte

start to take off seems like the econ

the economy in Charlotte quite strong

right now quite robust doing quite well

Charlotte's a banking Town among other

things and so we're seeing and

and there's not a whole lot of farming

that I'm aware of in this area anyway so

really to the moon on non-farm

employment in the Charlotte Metro Area

and that being said as I already

mentioned low home ownership rate very

interesting to me Charlotte's also a

very transit town a lot of people

that that don't stay there for for

very many years which is common with

just a lot of big cities right that's

not a lot of people get tired of the

big city lifestyle they start to have

kids they're like you know what I I

don't want to be in this huge City with

with all this crime and and whatnot and

they they mooved to a smaller area and

I'm not suggesting a has a bunch of

crime I'm just talking broadly

speaking what people tend to the process

by which they tend to go from a from a

big city to a smaller one so are

there people who choose Charlotte over

Greenville Spartanburg despite the good

economic numbers most people that I run

into don't prefer Charlotte over

Greenville and I think it's because it's

kind of a tweener city right it's not a

huge City like Atlanta but it doesn't

have the small City benefits of a

Greenville or a Spartanburg or even like

an Asheville or somewhere like that

and so it's like what actually is the

identity of Charlotte it it's it's a

little bit nebulous and you know

it's not even half the population of

Atlanta so so I think that that's why

you know when people are looking at the

southeast oftentimes their eye is drawn

to to the Charlotte area they do some

research and they're like

not really where I want to go some of

those people come to Greenville some go

to Spartanburg some go to Atlanta some

go Columbia and elsewhere all right

moving right

along we're gonna go to Asheville North

Carolina just an hourish away from

Greenville Spartanburg

and and so we do have some people

that prefer Asheville over Greenville

I'll get to that in a second

Asheville to me is the most

disconnected income to home price of any

in the Southeast that we're looking at

so the median household income 67,8 37

and the the median home price 440,000

44.6 th000 that is insane an insane

discrepancy between those two numbers

but that being said the home ownership

rate

69.5% so it's below the 70% threshold

that we've saw in the in most the South

Carolina markets but that's still

pretty good that being said 28% of

homeowners have that cost burden right

at over 30 or over 50% renters

71% so again the the cost of living

it it it it does

hurt now Asheville's unemployment

rate seems high

5.4% but you can see if you're looking

on YouTube a massive Spike what's that

Spike what happened to Asheville

Asheville got wiped out by a hurricane

so had a huge Spike up to around 10%

unemployment when when hurricane hen

happened that's come back down to 5.4%

I'm not going to read too much into that

it's going to keep coming down as

relief efforts from Helen happen so

is Asheville the right place for you

by the way I haven't talked much about

ra I haven't talked at all about

racial demographics I'm gonna mention

this one thing Asheville is super white

right it's a hippie hipster kind of town

82% white and and you know it is

what it is that's all I'm going to say

about that I've intentionally avoided

the the racial discussion but that's

just an insane insane number in my

opinion none of the other markets that

we're looking at have anything close to

an 82% Dynamic for any racial

demographic so was Asheville right

place for you well if you want to pay a

premium to live in the mountains it

could be right because that's what

people are doing they're paying a huge

premium to live in this area as opposed

to Greenville Spartanburg and the

like and I do like the mountains by the

way but I personally would I I I

couldn't I couldn't see myself living

living in Asheville

specifically oh Greenville too much

Asheville's great for day trips though I

will say that plenty plenty of stuff to

do for for a good day trip all right

let's look outside of the southeast

let's go to La real quick

first this is our first Market with

negative net migration from 2016 to 2020

people leaving La that's not just a Fox

news headline that's actually something

that's been happening and the reason

it's pretty simple housing is just not

affordable and unemployment is high and

heading in the wrong direction so

housing median home price

1,

227,000 okay massive massive home price

and the median household income is high

but it doesn't not high compared to that

91,9 60 is your median household

income so that's a that's an

unaffordable Market unemployment rate

heading in the wrong

direction now I don't know if the fires

out in this area have influenced this

number at all but it's

5.6% and and it's been trending up

that way basically since 2022 so

so I tend to think that the that the

fires have not hurt this in fact the

fires in some ways because I think it

was mostly damaging to residential areas

I don't know if it will have any

impact it might have a positive impact

on unemployment at least in the short

term you know as as more PE more jobs

open up to help out with construction

with with different you know relief

efforts and whatnot

owning and renting both put a huge

strain a huge strain on the people

living there but it's noteworthy that

unlike the southeast owning is not that

much better than renting in this regard

okay so the if you're owning 33% of

owners are putting 30% of their

income towards housing towards their

mortgage payment 16% are putting over

50% so that's 49% total on the flip side

the renter burden 56% of renters are

putting 30% or more towards their of

their income towards their rent cost

30% are putting 50% of their income are

more towards it and so all of those

numbers are higher but the gap between

renting and owning is a lot lower than

the other markets that we're looking

at and and of course owners are

probably way wealthier than renters so

so really this is a market where you

have to be in love with the area to own

right because you're paying such a

premium and that's why it has the

lowest home ownership rate

48.2% home ownership rate lowest home

ownership rate by far of any Market that

that we're looking at today very hard to

own in La not surprising because it's so

disconnected from all of the other

fundamentals all right we're almost done

here two more markets if you can hang

with me

here two more

markets next

up Houston Houston Houston Pasadena and

the woodlands from a sheer income to

purchase price standpoint Houston

Housing seems I you know I don't know

this Market very well but it seems

extremely reasonable right income is

10,000 higher than Greenville but the

median home price is only slightly

higher so the income

79,3 household income existing single

family median home price

345.00 so both are higher than

Greenville but that but percent wise the

median household income is way higher

than Greenville and Spartanburg and

the median home price is only

slightly higher than Greenville a good

bit higher than Spartanburg so that's

something to to keep in mind there

but Texas where where what you're not

seeing in this data is that Texas gets

you with property taxes School District

taxes and other such things so the

monthly costs are are just even though

the the median home price cost is not as

high as you might think all of the other

costs that are factored in are

substantially higher than the Greenville

spart Market this is why we have a

higher cost burden than any of the

South Carolina markets so 23% of

homeowners are paying 30% of their

income towards their mortgage 30% or

more 10% are doing 50% or more towards

the mortgage renters it's 51% are are

in the 30% number 27% are in the 50%

number for a total of 78% of

renters are are putting at least 30% of

their income towards their rent

burden so even though there

this seems like an affordable Market the

housing cost burden is problematic and I

think that's because that number gets

baked in some of these other costs that

Texas has that South Carolina does

not now of interest is that Houston has

a huge under 25 population 3

5% of Houston is 25 or younger that's a

massive massive number I have no idea

why maybe it's related to immigration

again if you are on YouTube you can

see the racial demographic extremely

diverse in that way and so so maybe

there is just a lot of the younger

population coming to Houston for that

reason but the the other

interesting thing is the 55 to 64 65

and older numbers are low only 11% of

the population's 55 to 64 only 133% 65

and older not a place that older people

are moving to is a place that younger

people are living economic

numbers solid but the home ownership

rate is only

61.4% so non-farm unemployment has been

mostly going up unemployment rate 4.5%

but obviously it would be good if that

unemployment or if that home

ownership rate were higher and so

you know I think a lot of people moving

to Greenville from Houston are doing

so for for affordability reasons and and

again affordability not necessarily

being that Topline what's the house

price comparison but affordability being

all these other things baked in that you

have to pay in Texas that you don't have

to pay in South Carolina among other

things obviously the weather in Texas is

is a unique thing right frequently

100°

all that kind of stuff we don't have

that to that extent here in Greenville

all right now Chicago last last Market

here Chicago Neighborville Elgen

Indiana I guess elen's Indiana I

don't I don't remember but Chicago is

an interesting one because the median

income is comparable to LA right it's

close it's

$887,000

$71 but housing costs are nearly

onethird the cost of living in LA and

and and at 379.8 th000 so yeah if

you're thinking about moving to Chicago

or La don't just move to Chicago okay

I'm I'm joking there's a lot of other

factors besides just that income to

home price ratio but that's a big big

difference from from what we just saw

and so the home ownership rate is way

higher than both Houston and Los Angeles

although not as high as the South

Carolina markets 65.9% home ownership

rate now I don't know all this going

on in Chicago but you hear headlines

about crime rates you hear headlines

about killings I've heard that

some people want to move out due to that

I I don't know I i' try I'm not a real

estate expert in Chicago so I'm not

going to pontificate I'm just telling

you what I've heard of course you hear

things about the weather up there I

think there's no question nobody likes

the weather in Chicago you get Lake

Effect all that kind of stuff and so

the end result of net migration is low

in in Chicago it's in the negatives

and so people are leaving Chicago

despite the fact that housing is

Affordable in comparison to incomes

so that's very interesting Chicago is a

just a unique

market and I think it reflects the

economy a little bit unemployment rates

High 5.3% non-farm employment has

really stagnated in recent quarters

so the economy Chicago not doing quite

as well as some of these others and so

so people are leaving Chicago despite

having a a pretty affordable housing

market on the surface at least for a

big city and I'm I'm sure like Houston

that there's a lot baked into into

those you know into the the prices

that we're looking at the home

ownership burden is 24% of homeowners

are paying 30% or more of their income

towards their mortgage 11% paying 50% or

more renting not much better

although a little bit better than some

of the other markets that we looked at

46% are paying 30% of their income or

more 23% 50% or

more

so

you know as I already said as with

Houston there's going to be a lot of

other cost to factor in all that you can

see that in the fact that the housing

cost buring is still quite high and and

and actually this this is higher than

than the numbers we just looked at for

Houston if you're a homeowner

although it's a little bit less for

renters so that's kind of interesting

maybe Chicago is a little bit more of

a better Market to rent in than than

some of these other big markets that

we've looked at but unfortunately

it's just not getting better right it's

not getting this is not a market that's

becoming more affordable despite all of

these crazy numbers the median house

price for Chicago has gone up from below

300,000 in 2020 now up to 300

basically 380,000 and it just looks like

it's still skyrocketing so so that's

very interesting something's going to

have to give right because you can't

have you can't be completely

disconnected from fundamentals like this

and maybe the income will catch up to

the to the home prices going up but

but for now I think they're fine

right because as we've already said that

that median household income is high

in comparison to that 379.8 thousand,

median home price but when I've had

quite a few clients move to

Greenville Spartanburg from the

Chicago area and usually it's because of

weather usually it's maybe also politics

things of that nature there's crime

rates again these are the things that

I've heard of people that move down here

and it's more affordable as well so

so there you have it I don't want

to Bel this this has already gone longer

than I planned for it to go so thank

you thank you guys so much for listening

all of my contact information is in the

show notes so as Piper Insurance Groups

contact info please like rate review

subscribe all those good things to the

show we will talk again next time