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Hello everyone and Welcome to another

episode of Selling Greenville your

favorite real estate podcast herein

Greenville, South Carolina, I'm your host

as always Stan Mccune realtor right here in

Greenville, South Carolina, and 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, please

like, rate, review, subscribe all of those

good things for the show just open up

whatever podcast app you're using and

just go ahead and hit the Subscribe

button download episodes re-download

episodes all of those things help so

anything like that that you can do just

takes a second I just got back from a

little spring break vacation I

actually won a vacation first time in my

life out to Las Vegas I've been to

Las Vegas many times when I used

to not be in real estate my job had

me going out to a convention there once

a year so I know Las Vegas quite well

really most of the Las Vegas

environment is not super appealing to me

but we still had a very good

time and we got to do some cool

hikes and by the way so I love desert

hiking Valley of Fire State Park very

very underrated Park out there obviously

it's much smaller than all of the

national parks that are in that area

that that part of the country but a

very very good if you like desert

environment

Valley of Fire State Park now before I

jump into today's like real episode I'll

just mention just kind of like what it's

like when I go on vacation right because

some people ask me this what what is

that like well first off any of my buyer

clients know that they can reach me at

any time as long as I'm awake and not

like in a show or something like that

they can reach me anytime and

if they want to look at any homes I've

got a team people that can show them

homes here in Greenville okay so it's

really that simple but I found

usually, it's better for my business if I

travel outside of the Eastern Time Zone

and it doesn't matter which direction I

travel although frequently we do end

up traveling more toward the Pacific

coast and the Pacific time zone and

in those instances oftentimes I'm the

first one awake in my family right my

my family we all like to sleep in

including myself to be honest I'm

more of a night person than a morning

person but I'll get up for everyone and

I'll just crank out 2 to 3 hours

worth of work in the morning every

single day on my vacation just make sure

I'm staying on top of things I'm cutting

out all the fat all of the things that

are non-essential I'm just cutting out

every single one of those things and

just focusing on the important task at

hands and at hand and there were many of

them this past week and so you know I

found myself making a lot of those

morning phone calls having to clean

up a lot of messes is doing repair

addendums I even listed a home

while I was in Las Vegas how I do that

well again there's a ton of prep in

advance that I have to do prior to

going on a trip like this so I knew that

this client was going to be ready to

list their home that week I had done

everything the week before and the week

before that in order to prepare for that

and of course, I've recorded these

podcast episodes in advance as well few

weeks ago or when I'm going on

vacation I don't usually do that

but again going on vacation I'm not

going to be recording podcast from a

from a hotel room, I try to do all that

in advance so I did last week's

episode with Chris White I had

recorded that with him the week

before and thankfully that all worked

out with all of our schedules so a

little bit of an inside look what

it's like for Stan going on vacation

every vacation is a working vacation for

me but that's okay I've got a system it

works I enjoy what I do so it's not like

a big drag on me if I'm having to work

while on vacation I just know that's

just part of the gig real estate

there are some huge advantages to being

a realtor and there are some a

disadvantages just like any job one of

the disadvantage is when your entire

business funnels through you personally

you have to take that business with

you everywhere that you go and I'm

totally fine with that all right little

bit of an inside look there for you guys

and from here we're going to jump

right into the market stats

for what we have as the month of

February if you'll give me a second I'm

trying to actually find where these

Market stats are

located all right here we go all right

hopefully, you guys can see that okay for

some reason I use Zoom for all of these

recordings and for some reason, it showed

up a little bit weird but hopefully

you guys can see what I'm looking at I'm

looking at new listings

going through the month of February

so we've got some interesting things to

cover here new listings we've been

bouncing kind of back and forth the past

few months we've had some list some

months where new listings have been down

year on year some months where they've

been up year-on-year me as a realtor

and I think pretty much everyone

unless you're like a seller in this

market everyone wants there to be

more new listings right that's

beneficial to the market that helps

housing affordability that gives

buyers a lot more options at a time when

buyers are really feeling the squeeze

from a lot of different

angles so we've had some up and

down months February was a slightly up

month we had a 2.8% increase in new

listings year-on-year and also a

decent month-on-month increase which I

don't focus on a whole lot but we had

1,953 new listings in

February like I said that's a that's

a good that's a really strong

February that will register as one of

if not the strongest I actually think

this that was the strongest February of

all-time actually if I look back so the

most listings from what I can see here

and I didn't come prepared to

actually say that tidbit but it looks

like to me it's the most listings we've

ever had for February so that's great

great to see

1,940, 1,953 up from 1,899 February

last year what about pending sales okay

this is one of the metrics that's always

revised it's always wrong for the most

recent month don't know why so we'll

look back at January's pendings right of

course we don't have March numbers yet

these these stats always come out you

know mid to late of the month

following what they're for so these only

go through February unfortunately but

for pending sales because it's always

wrong for the most recent month we're

going to go back a month we're going to

look at January January's pending were

up sorry we're down minus

99.2% year on year okay and this has

been an interesting thing to track

and I told you guys this I predicted

that this would happen I told you guys

last time we went through Market stats

that I thought the January sales number

once it was revised even once it was

revised up it was still going to be a

year-on-year decrease and in fact it

was it was down from

1332 January 24 to January 25

February is going to be more of the same

right if once we get the revision next

month for February's numbers for

pending sales it's still going to be

I believe a decrease year-on-year

because February of 2024 we had 1,373

new listings and currently the unrevised

number for February 25 is 863 usually it

gets revised by about

400ish units that would put us a hair

below 1,300 so I think we're going to

see two straight months of

year-on-year declines and pending sales

but as I have told you guys

before that is not affecting closings as

much as you might think okay so we have

had now five straight months of closed

sales that are up year on year February

was no difference and

I'm grasping for straws there at the

right the right phrase to say

February was no different than

the other

four months that preceded it a 0.9%

so almost a 1% increase year-on-year in

closed sales 1,171 closed sales versus

1,160 the year

before that's interesting but that's

also a big slowdown right because

October was 5.5% up November was

11.5 December was 17.6% up January was

11.9% up and now we come all the way

down to Fe February being

only 9% up so basically 1% up year on

year would have surprised me if March

is down year-on-year in closed sales no

it would not surprise me because again

what we're looking at is weak pending

sales numbers and the weak pending sales

numbers eventually can show up as weak

closed sales numbers now when that

doesn't happen is when buyers aren't

exiting their contracts right when

buyers are sticking through and

taking it all the way through the end

and not backing out not having low

appraisals all of these sorts of things

but unfortunately, buyers are doing that

a lot right now and not just in

Greenville all over the country I mean

I'm talking to an agent in California

right now because I'm helping this agent

who is helping a client sell a home?

there and then move to

Greenville so I'm helping I'm

having to communicate with the listing

agent in California quite a bit and

guess what my client who's buying in

this area has now had three contracts on

her home in California which is very

reasonably priced by the way by

California standards and so this is the

thing that's happening contracts are

falling through and so that pending

data being kind of weak for the past

couple of months I think that's going to

be reflected in the closed sales data

would not be surprised if March is down

year on year and March sales last

year was 1,384 pretty strong so

we're going to have to really see a good

push for the end of this month in close

sales in order to actually

surpass what we had last year and that

would kind of surprise me at this point

days on Market until sale okay I've been

getting this question a lot how long is

it taking right now for home to sell

okay February the number was 62 and

that's the highest number that we've had

in several years right that's

the highest number that we've had since

basically the pandemic month right

March of 2020 was the last time that

it was anywhere near this level really

the last time that it was well

outside of last month January it was 61

days but otherwise since March of

2020 it has been below 60 days okay so

here we are now two straight months

above 60 days what does that mean that's

how long it's taking for a home to go

under contract from the time it's listed

until the time it goes under contract

you list your home on average it's going

to take you 62 days to get under

contract so just prepare yourself it's

no longer list your home get multiple

offers boom we're moving along buyer has

to close in 21 days from start to finish

it's an entire 25-day ordeal no no

no no no it's much longer now now it

takes 60 days to get under contract and

then it takes another 30 to 45 days to

close and that's assuming that the buyer

doesn't back out and buyers are backing

out a lot right now okay so be prepared

it just takes longer you can't just sell

a home overnight like you could in

some other markets 62 days on

Market until sale that's an 8.8%

increase over February of 2024 which

was 57 days now seasonality plays a big

role in this number you can see pretty

much every year not including some of

these weird covid years but pretty

much every year you see right around

this time of year that the days on

Market until sale spikes okay sometimes

it's January sometimes it's February

sometimes it's March but it's typically

spiking in one of those three months and

so we might see March go up a little bit

more and then an April Start to come

back down if normal seasonality Trends

happen and basically what happens

is all of the demand the market

gets flooded by demand in February and

March before it gets sorry I should say

the market gets flooded with

Supply before all the demand gets

flooded in okay so a lot of home buyers

are you know sitting on the sidelines

until April May but a lot of Home

sellers are getting ready to sell in

February March right so the Supply hits

before the demand and then once that

demand really really starts to come

online in March or April, that's when we

start to see the days on Market retract

because the demand basically forces

buyers to have to purchase homes more

quickly right they've got more

competition hopefully that made sense

let me know if it did make any sense

median sales price

okay this will probably be the headline

of this podcast first month in six

months that we finally saw a

year-on-year increase in the median

sales price it went up from

299 958 so basically 300,000 a year ago

up to 315,000 so that's a sizable

increase that's a 5% year-on-year

increase now I didn't know for a fact

it was going to be that large of an

increase but I've been telling you guys

for multiple months now if you've been

listening to this show for multiple

months I just validated my knowledge of

the data because I've been telling you

if there is going to be a month this

year where we see a year-on-year

increase in the median sales price it's

going to be February because that

February of last year number was weak

now the February this year number that's

a strong February number to get that

315 that's the highest February

number that we've ever had and I mean

it's really flirting with the highest

median sales price we've ever had period

which was 324 990 so 315 that's

really strong it'll be interesting to

see if that Trend continues okay

that's a big thing that I am interested

in this

year because we need to see okay how

is the market going to respond this is

one of the metrics you know when people

ask me what is the average home price in

Greenville I don't tell them the average

I tell them the median it's more

accurate 315 is the average in the

greater Greenville

area not really it's the median but

that's what I'm going to tell people now

we do have the average as well if you're

really

interested that bumped up had a huge

increase year-on-year from

357,000 in change to

4,807 so that's a 12.3% increase

year-over-year for February 25 versus

February 24 that's a largest increase

we've seen on the average in a long long

long time and again a lot of what's

Happening Here is just the higher-priced

homes are more in Vogue right now than

they have been in Greenville in a while

and so that skews the averages versus

the median so that's why the average is

so disconnected from the median but

we go back above 400,000 for the average

price we've done that now a few

different times and it'll be again

interesting to see do we stay above 400

from here on out have we seen the final

months of the green the true average

being below 400,000 I don't know not

willing to make that prediction

because I just really don't know

there's so much that's that's really

hard to predict when you're looking at

the average sales price so we'll just

keep tracking that but that's a huge

increase 12.3% year-on-year percent

of list price received the percentage

found when dividing a property sales

price by its most recent list price

so not including you know price

reductions and then taking the

average for all property sold in a given

month not accounting for sell or

concessions so the seller helps to pay

for buyer closing cost that's also not

factored into this so it's not when

we're looking at the percent of list

price received you might think this is a

useless piece of information right

because it's not factoring in price

reductions and it's also not factoring

in seller concessions but the value

in it is looking back historically right

and so the percent of list price

received currently is

98.2% that went down from the

98.3% of a year ago so it just went down

.1% basically the same as what it was a

year ago how does that compare

historically I mean it's really really

closely in line with where things were

pre- pandemic pre pandemic things were

hovering right around

98% and it's probably slightly kind

of slightly above perhaps some of the

some of the early winter months pre

pandemic

so long story short in terms of like

what sellers are getting when they list

a home and in terms of like what

buyers are offering and what they're

actually going under contract for if you

don't factor in all the price reductions

and whatnot it's pretty comparable to

what they were getting in 2018 2019

and that checks out for me personally

you know I've been an agent since

what I think

2016 it's been it's been a long time

feels like a lot longer

so I've seen a lot of different

Trends you know 9 years of real estate

is an eternity okay and I'm I'm been

doing it for over nine years now

that's an eternity in real estate time

and so what it feels like right now

is kind of like somewhere between like

2016 and 2019 that's kind of where the

market feels right now for what

we're having here in Greenville in case

you're interested in that how's

affordability index we like this number

to be at 100 that means that the median

household can afford the median-priced

home given prevailing interest rates

given prevailing income median income

in our area etc etc and unfortunately

February was not at 100 it was at 97 it

was at 100 last year okay February 24

was 100 so it went down 3% to 97

again mortgage rates crushing

affordability right now and and

this is something maybe at some point

I'll take do a little bit of a de-dive

into this housing affordability index

because I think it could be interesting

to see okay what how many Trends can

we like reverse engineer just from this

number I think that there might be some

interesting things there but we want it

to be above 100 it's not there if

mortgage rates came down just a little

bit we'd get there it house prices

would have to come down a decent bit if

mortgage rates stayed where they are

so we'll keep tracking this and

we'll see what happens inventory of

homes for sale okay this is another one

of the numbers that always gets revised

so I'm going to I've got another screen

here where I've got last

months for me to reference here so

inventory of homes for

sale we're not going to look at February

at the moment we're going to look back

at January January was up 20

8% which is in line with what it's

been doing the past four months or

the past several months it's been around

20% each month about 20% increase

onye so January was at

4,234 units of inventory and it

was at

3,55 the year before January before now

February of

2025 it's going to get revised these

numbers always get revised down again by

about 400 and so it's currently saying

4780 it's probably going to get revised

down to the 4300

4350 range something like that either

way that's still going to be a huge

increase versus the

3,582 of February last year so again

it's going to be close to a 20% increase

in supply year-on-year okay buyers have way

more options and this is also what's

causing sellers to have more angst when

they're selling is because they have

their homes that they're listing have

more competition in contrast to

other years month supply of

inventory very simple way of thinking

about this is if no more homes were

listed forever again in the Greenville

MLS how long would it take based on

current absorption rates for all the

homes to get sold and again this divides

two numbers that I just said are flawed

pending sales and months of inventory

so January is going to be accurate it

was 3.1 months of Supply okay that

was up 14.8% from the year before which

was 2.7 February is not going to be

right but I can tell you right now it's

going to be probably between 3.1 and

3.3 which is also going to be a large

increase from the 2.8 months of

inventory from the year before

inventory months of inventory is

interesting right because this is one of

the core metrics that people look at to

determine if we're in a buyer or a

seller's Market I've talked extensively

on this show about how I don't think

it's as accurate of a metric for that as

we used to think and we need to kind

of reshape our thinking we're still in

this weird post-pandemic real estate

market which is now you know we've

kind of fixed the core pandemic

things that we had but now these

mortgage rates are so high so it's still

a very weird environment we've got

people with what's called the

lockin effect they've got these cushy

2.5% mortgage rates they're never going

to sell and so there's a lot of stuff

happening that's in impacting these

Supply numbers that is not baked into

the the historical data so we have to

keep that in mind where we're looking at

this but regardless this is also a

number that tends to be seasonal and

intend to spike in the middle of the

year and we've got a lot of historical

data for that so there's a possibility

an outside possibility we could hit four

months of inventory four months

supply of inventory before the end of

the summer I'm not going to predict that

either I personally would be a little

bit surprised if we got up to four

but it's definitely in the cards and we

haven't had 4 months of inventory

since 201 20 okay so so that would be

a very interesting a very interesting

Trend to see and actually I think you

have to go back fur I think you have to

go back to 2019 I didn't draw a straight

line across here but I think you have

to go back to 2019 so

again if that feels if that sounds like

the market is getting softer is because

the market is getting softer and I'll

just show you one quick thing I don't

always go over this with you guys but

to my point about the average sales

price being influenced by the more

expensive homes the price range with the

strongest sales for the month of

February was the 750,000 to a million

price range it had a

20.1% increase year-on-year bedroom

counts with the stronger sales four

bedrooms or more larger homes

interesting 4.8% increase year-on-year

and lastly the property type with

the strongest sales was condos

3.6% that's a little bit of

an unexpected twist that doesn't really

go with some of these other things

but remember Greenville is building some

very nice condos right now if you're

looking at parts of downtown Downtown

Greenville some of the other downtown

you can buy some very very nice

condos sometimes extremely expensive

condos and so that could be

influencing you know all of these

numbers as well so I hope that's helpful

for you guys let me know if you have

any questions any specific questions a

lot of you guys are great about reaching

out I always respond if I don't respond

it's because I didn't get the message

sometimes emails go to spam sometimes

a lot of other things happen you

might text my Google Voice number

because I have that out there sometimes

been having issues with that don't text

that m text my 973 number, yeah that's

my high school New Jersey number right I

went to high school in New Jersey

I've been in Greenville my entire adult life

but that's the better number right

now I'm never going to get rid of that

number my Google Voice is being

squirrely forget that okay, so if you

don't hear from me and you reached

out something went wrong try again

another way you will reach me some way

somehow contact info on the show notes

like, review, subscribe we will talk

again next time

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