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 Greenville
South Carolina
and you can find all of my contact information
in the show notes
need to reach out to me for any of your real estate
needs just a reminder as always
if you like the show please like rate
review subscribe
all those good things with regard to the show
so that you don't miss episodes in the future
I'm also doing a Facebook live for this right now
if you're listening to this after the fact
that's not gonna really matter to you
but if you're watching on Facebook
please go ahead and find my show
selling Greenville
on pretty much every podcast platform that's out there
and give it a like subscribe to it
all of those good things I
did a little thing on Facebook recently
where I asked people
if they had any questions for a potential Q&A episode
and we did get some questions
not a ton of questions so if you
if your question was missed
or if you had a question didn't
didn't see my post
or maybe you're not connected with me on Facebook
which by the way you can if you want
all my socials are @stanmccune
so just let me know
if you have questions that you want to address
sometimes I just take one off
if a question's really good
I can do a whole episode on it in fact
really any of these questions
I could have done just about a whole episode on
so just let me know I'm always interested in
I want to produce content
that my listeners actually want to hear so
so please let me know if there's anything like that
but we're going to start right at the top
I'm gonna answer every single question
I got just a handful of questions here
start with Andrew Brooks Andrew
good guy by the way
if you need someone to help you with
with roof related things
specifically diagnosing roof related things
or if you're a realtor and you need a roof report right
there's a buyer who is concerned that a roof is leaking
or something like that
or that there's an issue with it
Andrew has really come through in the clutch for me
a few times on these sorts of things
so if you're a realtor you're listening to this
you want his information please let me know
I'm happy to share that
okay
and your s when will we see 5.5% interest rates again
I need an exact date please okay
so a a half serious half un serious question right
because I can't predict the future
and I always tell people don't time the market never
never never time the market
if you're waiting for rates to fall
you're doing the wrong thing it
perhaps unless you just can't afford what's out there
right if rates
falling is the only way that you can afford to move
then that's a whole another matter
but if you're just trying to time the market I
I never recommend that
just like with any anything stocks crypto
this is an investment advice
but it's general good advice for life
don't try to time
these sorts of things
that being said I have an answer for you Andrew okay
and it is November 4th, 2026 okay
write it down November 4th, 2026
that's when we're going to see 5.5% interest rates
again where did I come up with that date
well the midterms are November 3rd, 2026
so if we're going to
see any rates come down in the next couple of years
cause the reality is that the current
state of our government and the
the kind of
thing that's going on with the Fed right now and
and the president kind of not happy with the Fed I
I don't see rates coming down
the bond market of course is
is a part of all of this as well
the the bonds
the bond market doesn't
really seem to like what the president's doing
they don't hate it but they don't love it
they're kind of stuck in the MUD
all of these things
impact mortgage rates and so the long story short is
I think the the greatest likelihood
we have in the next two years of rates
coming down is immediately after that election
and they might go back up right
cause the
this is what happened actually
when Trump was elected
right around the time of the election
rates actually did come down to the low sixes
and when I say they came down
I'm talking about per aggregator websites
like Mortgage News Daily again
every single person
can potentially qualify for a different rate right
if you're looking at Mortgage News Daily right now
I think the rates are around 6.9%
a lot of people can get better than that
some people would end up being worse than that
you need to talk to a mortgage lender to know for sure
one way or the other
I can't do that for you
I can't determine that for you
but in terms of like
looking at aggregator websites like that
I see the the most likelihood being when there is a big
changeover in the government
cause we literally just saw that happen
this past year and so Andrew
look out November 2026
if it's gonna happen in the next two years
that's when I think it's going to happen
Jeff Gaskill
Jeff a friend of mine from way back
when I used when I was a child in New Jersey
Jeff was
in charge of my youth group growing up
so Jeff thank you for for weighing in here
this is a hypothetical question
cause he does not live in Greenville
but I I really do appreciate the question he asks
he has two questions okay
and I'll answer them each separately first question
how will you market my home I'm selling
that's a great question
I I just wanna start by saying this
cause this is something a lot of people don't
don't fully understand
a lot of people confuse pricing with marketing now
now pricing
is something that a realtor needs to be
heavily involved with
for a variety of reasons
but at the end of the day pricing is not marketing okay
so here's what I'm saying with this
if your house is worth $300,000
and you list it for $315,000
there's no marketing in the world that can overcome
that like that is just the reality
any realtor that tells you otherwise is lying and
and they're just trying to get you to
to sign on with them and actually
this is a tactic that a lot of realtors will use
is they will listen to the seller
say that they want to overprice their home
and the realtor thinks you know what
I just need to get the listing and eventually the
the the seller will agree to
to reduce the price to where it needs to be
that is not a strategy that I like to use
I feel like that's a disingenuous strategy
and
and so people need to understand that a lot of realtors
when they're doing listing presentation
they lead with pricing and I
I really try not to do that unfortunately
a lot of sellers want to do that right
when they want to have that initial conversation
they all like it's just friend of mine
they just want to hear
what do you think my house is worth
and I understand that right
cause I'm considered an expert in my field
in the field of real estate
and that's like a very useful question
a very valuable question to have the answer to from
from my experience that I have and all of that
that being said
that's not marketing okay
the real value in a realtor is not finding a realtor
that can determine the price that
of that your home is worth
that's actually very easy
the for most homes is very easy
the real value is in the marketing so
first off I always do a home consultation
where we go through the home and see okay
what are the things that need to happen
in terms of decluttering the home
in terms of depersonalizing the home
is there staging that needs to happen
is there unstaging that needs to happen
that's part of the decluttering thing
some people I'll be honest
I have some clients that their home
is already picture perfect when
when you walk in and I have others that
that when I walk into the house it's
it's really in rough shape when you first walk in
so we'll go through I'll walk you through and
and really a lot of homes need some
some at least some basic repairs or pressure washing
or things like that
I always start working through that with my clients
with an eye to
what are the most minimal things that we can do
in order for the maximbang for our buck right
what are the smallest things that we can do
in order to get your home as marketable as possible
in order for you to to get the most amount of money
and of course I get a commission
based on how much a home sells for
but at the end of the day people get confused
they they
they think that if you know
if their home sells for 10,000 or 15 thousand dollars
more than it would have
if they hadn't made updates
that I'm making a ton of money you
you really do the math it's
it's really a lot more money
for the seller than it is for the for the realtor
so really we're doing that as a realtor that do that
which any good realtor does
they're doing that as as a service to their clients
so we start with that
and I'm and
I'm not gonna go through every single
step in the process but after that
I always have a professional photographer come through
my first listing I ever had
I had a client that they
they wanted to rush the listing and
they they just
they wanted to have their home sold yesterday
and they saw me as a newer agent as someone that could
that could quickly do it I did rush it
I took the pictures myself
they weren't good we didn't get showings and after that
they
they pulled the listing from me
so my very first listing
I Learned a very important lesson
which is if you have to rush it
to the point
where you don't use professional photography
you're rushing it too much
I also do videos
for the listings
you can go back
you can look at some of the videos that I've done
this is something I've only recently started doing I'm
I'm careful with with virtual tours and
and other forms of video because at the end of the day
I want people to come into the home right
that is what I want
I don't want people to view the home strictly from
their computer
that is a that's a
a problem right because at the end of the day
the home sells itself right
that is
you want the people to walk in and visualize themselves
inside the home and the only
way to do that is if they actually get inside the home
and so that's the
everything that I do centers around that and of course
put a house in the MLS that gets syndicated out
to all of the websites that are out there
and then we do and I do and my team does
we do an ad campaign that's really cool
I would show you an example
but I actually
I didn't even think about this until just recently
until I'm recording this but basically
it's an ad campaign that shows your home
using artificial intelligence
to people that are looking at homes in the area
and it shows
your home on websites that they're looking at like
like MSNBC like Fox News
even Amazon
I've I've literally had clients
that have sent me a screenshot where they
they saw one of my listings and they were just like
how did this happen you know
on a website that they were frequenting
and that was because AI had
had identified that they were looking at similar homes
and they
they pushed that one to them
and of course there's a whole lot of other things
we have my company Berkshire Hathaway Home Services
we have incredible yard signs
these flag signs
I have to pay someone to install them cause they're so
insane
and of course I pay for that
I pay for the professional photography for the video
the video editing all of these things I'm paying for
open houses that's another thing I
I don't typically lead with an open house
I feel like open houses are good strategies for homes
that have kind of gone stale
so I actually had a listing recently
where the listing had kind of gone stale
I decided to do an open house
what we did was we did a very small price reduction
now I personally don't like to do price reductions
just like you know
take the listing and just reduce the price
and just move on call it a day
what I like to do is
I like to unlist the home and then relist
it's a little bit more paperwork
particularly on my end
it's
it's more of a process in the multiple listing service
but it's not that big of a deal
it resets the listing on some websites
it doesn't reset it in the multiple Listing service
so you can still see you know the days on market
is still going to
to reflect from when it was originally listed
but it does reset on some websites and it just
it appears like a fresh new listing to
to new eyeballs that are seeing it
and I just did this recently where
I had a listing went stale
we had to reduce the price
which most listings right now
I think it's like 70% of listings right now
are having to do price reductions
so that's pretty normal at the moment
we just did a 3,000 dollar price reduction and
and again it wasn't a price reduction
we unlisted it relisted it for 3,000 less
and then I did an open house right on the
the back end of that so within just a couple of days
I did an open house
and within a couple of days of that
we got under contract so these sorts of things work
it's formulaic
it's a strategy that that has
has worked over and over and over again
so those are some of the things I
I didn't go through everything
there's a whole lot more
social media campaigns and things
that I do as well that's some of you guys have seen
if you're connected to my socials
but those are some examples
and then Jeff also asked
how many clients you normally handle at the same time
also good question
this is obviously real estate is really seasonal
obviously real estate really
there are down markets
which we are in right now and there are up markets
but generally
I'm working with 10 to 20 clients at a time
sometimes it's less sometimes it's more
during the you know
peak covid craziness where you know
homes were appreciating 20% per year and you know
everyone was looking to buy something
because mortgage rates were 2% or 3% whatever
during that time it wasn't uncommon
for me to be working with 30 to 35 buyers
and it sellers on top of that
it was crazy I was working 70
80 hours a week
and you know
that was just what the life was
it was difficult
but I think my clients were
were happy if
if not you guys can
can let me know that but everyone
to my knowledge
was happy
and felt like they were getting full service from me
and and if I ever feel like I can't do that
then I'm going to be having a conversation
when I have a potential new client
to let them know you know what
this is not I
I can't do this at this time
I'm going to have to
connect you with someone else
that's
extremely rare extremely rare
because I work my tail off for all of my clients and
and it's it's not too often that I
that I reach a point where
it's just too much right
I probably should have done a little bit more of that
during Covid not because of my clients
but because of my own mental health
and physical health on top of that
it was crazy
I spent an entire vacation just on my computer
like my kids were out on the beach
and I was just on my computer just
just working so
I probably for my own sake shouldn't have done that
that was in 2021 the
the absolute craziest time of my career
but you know what at the same time
sometimes you gotta work when there is work right
and now we're in kind of a real estate famine
as it were and
you know I've told you guys before
right now existing home sales are down to levels
we haven't seen since 1995
a lot of people don't
don't like fully comprehend just how staggering that is
cause our population is so much higher right now
than it was back then
and so these are the sorts of things these
this is why as a realtor you can't just
you can't just slack off right
you've got to always be pushing pushing pushing
this is why I've been doing a podcast for over 5 years
now why I don't miss a week
why I record on Mother's Day evening
like I am right now
because I don't think I'm gonna have time on Monday
or Tuesday to
to record I always release on Wednesday
so so there you go alright
Shannon Mahone asked
are novations legal in South Carolina
great question so
I this is not going to be for everyone okay so
if you're not an investor
you might wanna skip a a
a few minutes
but long story short novations
are are a way for a real estate investor to
essentially assign a contract to another buyer right
so if you want to novate a contract
rather than doing the traditional contract assignment
where there's still the assignor
and the assignee and the seller
so we have three parties when you novate a contract
you remove the assignor from the equation entirely
and basically you replace
the old contract with a brand new one
that now has a new buyer
now why would you want to do that
well you again if you're an investor
you know about wholesaling you understand
what wholesalers do is that they
get a home under contract
let's just say for $100,000
and then they find another investor
that is willing to buy it for 1 hundred $30,000
and then that investor ends up buying it
the wholesaler makes 30 grand
the seller makes 100 grand or or or
you know obviously 100 grand is their gross proceeds
not factoring in closing costs or anything like that
and then the
the buyer pays 130 plus their own closing cost
all of that that's kind of how it works
novations
kind of a similar process or a similar end result
except that
the novated contract
is a complete replacement to the original contract
whereas with assignment contracts
you've got all the original contract and
and all of that language still involved okay
Shannon or Michael
I'm not sure who who asked this question
is it legal or not
okay first off
I'm not an attorney okay
so this is what I think
it's not what I know
talk to an attorney if you want to to verify this
this is not legal advice or anything like that
so I can't say for sure if it's legal or not
but I can tell you what I think
and what I think is that it is legal
that's what I believe and that's because I am on the
the SE statehouse.org and it discusses actually
if you're watching this on YouTube
I will actually share my screen here
alright screen being shared
it talks about wholesaling
so this is
this is something that was added this past year
it says wholesaling means
having a contractual interest in purchasing
residential real estate from a property owner
then
marketing the property for sale to a different buyer
prior to taking legal ownership of the property
advertising or marketing real estate
owned by another individual or entity
with the expectation of compensation
falls under the definition of a broker
it requires licensure wholesaling
does not refer to the assigning
or offering to assign a
contractual right to purchase residential real estate
okay so definition here wholesaling
that means marketing a property you don't own
and you're not marketing it as a Realtor
using the methods that realtors are required to market
we have a lot of rules for how we market a property
okay
if you've heard of clear cooperation
that's what that's talking about it's a
it's a whole thing I'm not gonna get into all of that
contract assignments
believe it or not Shannon are still legal okay
they have to be right because 1031
exchanges and things like that
require contract assignments
so wholesaling
is as defined by South Carolina law has to do the
the primary crux of wholesaling is the marketing bit
okay now then later it says that
this law says that you are prohibited
from wholesaling
and it's it's illegal for
for agents to wholesale
it's illegal for anyone to wholesale okay
it's just it's illegal so
in here
everything is focused on marketing
with regard to how this law was structured
nowhere in this law does this say anything about
novations or novated contracts not
not addressed
but here is what I will say
if you market a property that you do not own to buyers
even if you aren't doing a contract assignment right
because this does not define wholesaling
as assigning a contract
you are violating the wholesaling law okay
as I understand it so
you could still be in violation of the wholesaling law
even if you're doing a novation agreement
because the wholesaling law
is focused on how you're marketing right now
if you do a novated contract and and you
convince the seller to allow you to market the property
with a realtor on the multiple listing service
I don't know maybe that would be allowed right
that's a great question for an attorney
I think that there could be something there
but
but again I can't give legal advice
that's a felony in South Carolina
if you're not an attorney
so I'm not gonna do that
but that's something perhaps to look into if you're
if you or someone else listing this
are looking for alternatives to real estate wholesaling
Eric Mitchell Greenville
South Carolina that's a great name Eric
I don't remember when you changed your last name to
to Greenville South Carolina
but that's that's great
I I appreciate that
Eric Mitchell Greenville
South Carolina asked
was it the chicken or the egg that was first
Eric you know the answer to this and it's really easy
it was the egg that was first right
because dinosaurs predated the chickens right
we know that modern day chickens
actually share a tremendous amount of DNA with t rexes
if you didn't know that now you do
I'm educating y'all on a lot more than just real estate
tonight
it's
it's it's the
the dinosaurs laid eggs right
they they laid these gigantic eggs and then it was much
much further down the road that
that chickens came right
they had to they had to evolve from those dinosaurs
and so
so yeah the egg came first Eric
come on man where you at now
in case you're wondering why I'm ragging on Eric
he's another realtor in my office
Love Eric
great guy lot of
lot of good times
lot of good times with Eric
in fact
there was someone recently that came to me that was
that was talking about real estate
and I found out that they were
that they had been working with Eric and I said
you might want to talk to Eric about this
and so anyway that that all got
that all got worked out
but
thanks for the question Eric
I hope you're listening because if not
that would be very very sad
Amy Parsons
ass
I'm just gonna read what she says
I would love to see some advice to current homeowners
who think at some point
they may sell as to what renovations
seem to be the best return on investment
say I'm thinking about moving to my next size home
my current starter house could use a bathroom remodel
flooring or kitchen upgrades
assuming structural issues are okay
what should I invest in that I might make money back
great question
question that I get a lot
in fact I believe I'm gonna be doing a
an episode specifically on
not on this question specifically
but on some data that we have
that that came out recently from National Association
of Realtors on this very thing
so stay tuned for that if
if I do that it'll be in the next
in the next few weeks
but to answer your question really
the way that I think about this okay
let's start big picture
every home has negatives neutrals and positives right
what you want to do when you're selling a home
is to objectively okay
objectively look at your home
and what are the negatives
I say objective because you know what happens
when I go into listing presentations all the time
these sellers will nitpick all of their neighbors
all of my comps and they will
come up with all these
reasons why their house is better
than all of their neighbor's home
and better than all of the homes that have
sold recently and that's fine
people have an emotional connection to their home
and they know their home better than they
know their neighbor's homes
and there's nothing
absolutely nothing wrong with any of that but when
when it's time to sell
nobody looking at your home
is going to be aware of any of those things that
that you believe that you were aware of
so you need to be you need to think about your home
from the standpoint of a new buyer
and what is that buyer going to think when they step in
so what are those negatives
here's what we wanna do
we wanna take the negatives and at the very least
turn them into neutrals
turn them into something that won't be noticed
take something that's very negatively noticeable
and make it something that nobody will notice again
you've got that room
that your teenager painted purple and orange
because they're big into Clemson
guess what
if you got a Gamecocks fan that comes through there
they're gonna be triggered
because they're easily triggered
university of South Carolina fans with all due respect
very very triggered
I just lost a a bunch of potential clients saying that
sorry to everyone
you wanna take that and you wanna neutralize it right
put a nice neutral pink color
that's just one example
you've got
messed up countertops in your kitchen
and that's gonna be something that someone very clearly
sees when they walk in you want to neutralize that
now here's the thing with that example
you have the opportunity to turn a negative
into a positive
and that is where the biggest gains come is you
if you can turn something
that would be a complete turn off
into something that's now a feature
that is how you wanna do it
so
if you've got those kitchen countertops that are all
messed up
maybe the kids painted on them
they're cracked
not level who knows what
you have the opportunity now
rather than getting the cheapest possible replacement
to put a little bit more money in
and a lot of people don't realize really
when it comes to countertops
they're not as expensive as you think well
they're they're expensive I should say this
the difference between cheap and like
top of the market
in terms of materials I'm not talking about like
top of the market being like
level 5 granite
or level 5 quartz or something like that
but the difference between say
a faux butcher block
and a granite
is not gonna be as big of a difference as you think
because the labor costs are gonna be comparable
the material costs are gonna be higher for the granite
but at the end of the day
it's not gonna be that much more but the
the person getting that solid
beautiful stone versus
the laminated countertop
that you were going to replace it with
on the cheap that adds value
that turns the negative into a positive
and that's very what you wanna do okay
you also wanna take as many neutrals as possible
and turn those into positives too right
something when you walk into a space and
and you know what these things are okay
if you're a homeowner
you already know you obviously I me as a realtor
I can come up with a fresh set of eyes
but I'm telling you you the homeowner you know
it's the things that you've always wanted to do
those are the things
that I'm talking about you've always wanted to
to have a pantry and you've got a space for it
but you just never put the pantry in
that's what I'm talking about right
you've been able to get by without the pantry and that
that might actually be a bad example because that
that's probably a negative
but again that's a simple thing
a negative that you can turn into a positive
having a pantry is not generally speaking
going to be that expensive depending
you know just a small little pantry right
having that over having nothing
just cabinets that people that you're using
that's a that's a huge value add
okay now
all that big picture aside
talking about specifics
really and
and again I'm I'm
I'm gonna probably most likely
do an episode where I dive more deeply into this
so I'm not gonna get too too specific
but kitchens bathrooms and the primary suite
those are the three things
that bring back the most return
if you can upgrade those things
that helps tremendously right
now how much do you need to upgrade
well that depends on your house right
if your cabinets are terrible right
some of them don't open properly
they
they've been painted many
many times over the years and
and the paint is just worn out
the cabinets are worn out
replacing the cabinets can go a long way
if the cabinets are in good shape
they're just look worn
maybe they just need to be painted
and and that might be
that might be good enough
Bathrooms a lot of times people just need to replace their
their toilet and their vanity
and that's a really really simple thing to do
like that's
that's a lot less expensive than people realize
and you typically do return more for your money
when you do that
you might you know
have a really ugly tub
maybe you need to just reglaze your tub right
cause
you know once you pull out a tub
that could be a whole thing
a lot of times that's that's not necessary
maybe you just need to even just change
you know the fixtures on the tub and in the bathroom
things like that in fact
fixtures are a great thing
that's light fixtures hardware
handles
knobs pulls
all of these sorts of things
that could be a really simple way
to give your home cohesion
cause a lot of people will
will have this little style over here
this little style over here
all sorts of different styles
conflicting throughout the house
because you kind of piecemealed it over the years
getting that to be cohesive
so that when people are walking through the house
they're they're walking through an experience
they they feel like everything is interconnected
that could be really useful so
so
and and then I
I mentioned Primary Suite as well
you know it's funny
people don't spend a lot of time at
as much time as they think they will
in their primary suite
but they give it a ton of value in their mind
and really one of the simplest ways that you can
add a lot of value there
beyond kind of what I've already discussed
is a nice closet system right
you don't have to do it in every closet
but if you if you have a a good sized closet or
or actually perhaps even more importantly
if you have a poorly sized closet
putting in a closet system
that really maximizes the space
that is going to be a again
turning either a negative or a neutral into a positive
every single time people love closet systems
and you don't need to hire a professional to do this
you can you can install a closet system yourself
I've done it many times
I personally some people are gonna hate this
I like the IKEA systems
they're very flexible very simple to put in and again
if it's not a luxury home
they're
nobody is going to nitpick that
you've got IKEA closet systems in the house
and they're
they're cheaper than anything you can get at Home Depot
or Lowe's or
or any of those options
so I am a fan of that and
and I I think that that's a very simple way to upgrade
of course there's a lot of exterior stuff
this depends on the home
obviously curb appeal is really important
there's only so much you can do about that for
for some homes
but you can pretty up the landscape pressure wash
a lot of homes need exterior painting
and they're in denial about that
exterior painting
nobody likes
likes to do that
but it's necessary for a lot of homes
particularly on decks a lot of decks
homeowners just get used to
or perhaps they don't even use the deck
so they're not even thinking about it
but they just get used to the
the appearance of the deck
and then when a buyer goes out there
they're like whoa
this deck needs a lot of work again
that's something that you can do
I stained a humongous deck at my last house
would I do it again
probably not
to be completely honest I
I would just
try to get squeeze in another closing somewhere
in order to be able to afford
to pay someone else to do it
cause it was a tremendous amount of work
but that was just the it was a 2 story deck and it was
the way it was laid out with my house
it was just a it was a lot
it was a lot
but an average person can do it
it's really not that much money
it's just a lot of time a lot of labor
and so those are some things
Amy that hopefully are helpful for you
and you asked another question
and this will be my final question
that I'll be answering tonight
Amy asks if you're thinking about putting your foot
in the real estate market
as a landlord where do you start
okay so
for someone that's looking to buy
their first rental property
where do you start I need
I think you need to start with
what are your goals and expectations right
I always
when I have a new investor
potential investor client that reaches out to me
and for those that don't know me
this is how I got into this business is I
I started as a real estate investor
I still do real estate investments I
I have several rental properties
I still flip houses on the side
not a huge thing that I do but
but something that helps to pay for the bills
when it's so I've always
investors have always made up 30 to 40% of my business
that's just been the way it is
when I have a a potential new investor client reach out
I interview them
and it's a mutual interview
to make sure that they're comfortable with me
but I'm also making sure that I'm comfortable with them
because a lot of people come into investments
and and real estate investing for the first time
with completely unrealistic expectations
they're thinking oh
I'm gonna make you know 20% cash on cash or I'm gonna
you know
be able to find something easily that's a 12 to 15
cap rate or
you know I'm gonna find something that
you know buy something at 70% loan to value after repair
you know all these sorts of things which if you're
if you're an investor you
you know what all these things mean
and if you're not that's fine
you don't
you don't need to know what they mean because honestly
a lot of those rules in my opinion
you can just throw away
because they're not particularly helpful
in every market every market is different and
and when I say market
I mean both market at in terms of the
the time that we're in
like we're in a very specific market
real estate market in 2025
but I'm also talking about different locations right
the Greenville market is different than the Boise
Idaho market or the Austin
Texas market for instance
and so we need to start with expectations
what exactly are your expectations
are you thinking that you're gonna make a ton of money
rentals generally speaking
unless you're we're talking about mobile homes right
mobile home parks specifically
which are hard to get
and basically very challenging to finance
generally speaking
rentals are not a great way to make a ton of money okay
people need to to understand that to
to be able to I
I hear people say that
they want to get enough rentals to retire
that's hard to do
it's hard to accrue enough rental properties
to be able to reach the point
where you can just retire
they don't make as much money as people think
and I'm talking about all levels of rentals
long term rentals midterm rentals like 30 day 30
you know to 90 day rentals or short term like Airbnbs
it is not a cash cow
what rentals are great about
and I'm not an accountant and it's not financial advice
of course
but they have some great tax benefits
and this is the the savvy investors that when
when I know that I've got an investor that gets it
the first conversation we have
when they're talking about rental properties is
they're talking about the tax benefits
and understanding tax write offs
depreciation
de depreciating those assets and all of that
that's when I know okay I've
I'm having a conversation with someone that gets it
if I have someone that leads with
I want to build a rental
portfolio to retire in five years
and they don't you know
they don't have you know
several million dollars sitting in an account
where they can just buy up a bunch of real estate
then we need to have a heart to heart conversation
that your expectations simply aren't aligned with
reality
for most people a rental property is going to make them
a little bit of money right on a year to year basis
but it's going to be a really nice tax write off at
at the end of the day
that's what it's going to be like for most people
so I would say if
if you're thinking
about putting your foot in the real estate market
as a landlord
probably your first conversation needs to be
with your financial planner and
or your accountant
that would be where I would start
the next thing would be to talk to a realtor
and discuss with a realtor what exactly your plans are
and I would personally talk to a realtor before
talking to a lender
a lot of people purchase rentals with leverage
with financing
I would talk to a realtor first because at least for me
working in the in the investor world as much as I do
I have access to a lot of lenders
that I have built relationships with over the years
that can do loans that are
are more creative then just your standard loan when
when you're just purchasing a random home
so that's something that
that you need to keep in mind
have that meeting and then see where that goes right
and
and you know in
if you want to prepare for that meeting
again my recommendation would be
to be prepared with financially
what it is that you're looking to do
and also
what you are thinking in terms of what sorts of
of properties that you're
you're actually interested
in potentially having as a rental portfolio
and also what's your exit strategy
you need to consider that as well
that's one of the most important things here
and you need to think about it
right at the very beginning
is your exit to
have that rental property for the rest of your life
well I've got news for you
not very many landlords do that okay
so that's not an exit strategy
that is a an idea
a a
a concept of a plan as our
as our president would say something like that
he said something like that
I Iit's not an exit strategy
you need to be thinking okay
what if what happens if I
if this goes for 3 months vacant
what happens if it goes for six months vacant
you know what
one of the best things that I Learned early on as a
rental property owner and
and as a landlord and I managed I
I I
I have a property manager for all my properties
I don't manage any of them directly
for a variety of reasons but
one thing I Learned very early on is
you need to have an emergency fund
for every single rental that you have
if you don't have an emergency
fund for for your rentals
then you're not prepared cause guess what
when that rental goes vacant
you might need to put some money into it
and you're not gonna have any money coming in
not great okay
if you're not prepared for that situation
and this is where so many landlords and landladies
get caught
and this is where we see properties come on the market
you know duplexes
triplexes quadplexes that need tons and tons of work
it was a landlord
landlady that stopped investing into the property
and very very quickly it goes downhill
it does not take much for a property to for
for a the cascading effect of rental properties
to
for the condition to
to continue to degrade and get worse
and so you need to be prepared for that
but back to the the exit strategy
bit
think about what's your plan for this home in a year
in five years in 10 years
and what's your backup plan
and your backup to the backup
this is
this is what people need to consider
and remember as well you might end up getting a loan
depending on the type of property you're purchasing
you might end up getting having to
to get a loan that's like a five year loan
that's not uncommon
particularly in the multi family space
and so you really need to to be thinking very clearly
okay five years out what am I
gonna do because this loan is going to come due now
a lot of banks will renew it
but then you don't know in five years
what mortgage rates are gonna be like
they might be really really bad
this is what's happening in the apartment
space right now
is that a lot of these 5 year notes are coming due
and now the number is no longer pencil
for the apartment owners because they had a
you know a cushy
rate
on the loan that they had for those apartments before
and now the rate is double
or perhaps even worse than double
and so these are are
these are the the sorts of things
that you need to be thinking about
so
I would start with probably talking to an accountant
financial planner
or someone that you get that sort of advice from
talk to your realtor at that point
and then be thinking about all of these
these other things in the background
and then if if it all makes sense
if after talk to all these different parties
then you're like yeah
I'm ready this makes sense
this fits in with my overall financial strategy
etcetera etcetera
make the move OK and actually purchase that property
and here's what I'm gonna say
a lot of first time renters
or or not first time renters but first time landlords
it's really hard to make that
that first purchase for a lot of them
now I have some of them that are like really aggressive
they know what they want they move on it
they want to get that that first one
but a lot of them particularly in this market right now
they're struggling right
struggling to finally come off
come off the fence
and so the more specific you are in your mind
with what you're looking for
the less likely you are to get stuck like that
and so I always encourage my clients
try to be as specific as possible in your mind
with what you're looking for
because I I can help you more if you are more specific
I actually
dislike when a client comes to me with a very broad
buying criteria you would think that's easier
no no
no it's way harder
because no one actually
has a broad criteria in their mind
they all have a very
very specific criteria in their mind
but if it seems broad to me
that means they're not sharing something right
something needs to be shared
and so
make sure that you crystallize in your mind
what that is what is
what would it take for me to come off the fence
and to purchase a property
what would that property actually look like
if you can actually come up with that
and commit to that
then you can be successful
purchasing your first rental property
alright that's all I have for you guys today
or tonight as I'm recording this
thank you guys so much for listening
all my contact information in the show notes
if you need a realtor in the Greenville area
or outside the Greenville area
remember my company has a relocation's department
Berkshire Hathaway Home Services is a very
very large
nationwide and really international brokerage
so I can help you even if you're moving out of state
or whatever it is that you're doing
please let me know
and please if you enjoy this content like the show
rate review subscribe
if you watch this on Facebook Live
and you're interested in future episodes
look it up
selling Greenville on a lot of podcast platforms
pretty much all of them that I'm aware of
and on YouTube as well
you can find me on there @stanmccune
you can find me on all my socials @stanmccune
and I appreciate you guys so much as always
for listening and watching
we will talk again next time!