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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. 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 local real estate
needs. Just a reminder as always, please
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platform, please support the show. At
the very least, subscribing so you don't
miss future episodes. In addition to
that, liking, rating, all of those good
things would really help. Today we're
going to be going over the market stats,
which are now called monthly indicators.
Interestingly,, for those of you who
don't know,, if you're a realtor,
this might mean this might be more
meaningful than if you're not a realtor.
Oh, I pressed something. There we go.
if you're if you're not a realtor,
this probably doesn't mean a whole lot,
but if you're a realtor, you're you and
you don't realize this. Joe Pittz,
the basically the MLS director in
Greenville, resigned and now we have
Linda who is now in charge of our local
multiple listing service which I
shouldn't say in charge of it, but she's
essentially running it., and what
that means is,, she's also in charge
of these market stats, and she's the one
that is,, producing these. And,,
and so you'll notice a few little
changes., and, and I noticed it right
away. First off is the color scheme. It
now matches the GJR logo, which is nice.
It's a nice,, nice grayish bluish
color scheme. which is a bit of an
update from that old I don't know
yellow and orange color scheme that
we had before. so that's great. we
also got these out earlier than we
have in the past. Now, it I was not
able to do this for last week's episode,
but if they continue to produce these
statistics earlier than what it had
been, then I might be able to do this
episode earlier in the month, which will
feel a little bit better, right? Because
the statistics are always lagging by,
you know, a few weeks anyway, right? Cuz
we're now towards the end of May and
we're just now going over April stats.
So, it'd be nice if I could be going
over the April stats more towards the
beginning of May versus the end of May.
So, hopefully that will coordinate
better with my podcast schedule and
all of that here going forward, but
but we'll see. so, some changes have
happened. Joe is great. Linda also
seems like she's doing a really good job
so far. Very qualified for the
position. So, I'm excited to see to
see where that goes. So,, so let's
just jump right in., I, if you're
watching on YouTube, you can already see
I've pulled up the monthly indicators.
and we're going to start right at
the top with new listings. New listings,
were up, as they have been for the
majority of the past 12 months. They
were up
12.6%. So, more sellers coming online
right now. And this is something I keep
hearing. I in fact I heard a a
realtor recently say that normally her
business is 50/50 sellers and buyers and
right now it's very lopsided like
7525 sellers to buyers. and this is
what's happening is that again a lot
of there there's just a lot more sellers
than buyers right now and that's what's
caused the softening of the market.,
often times sellers are off are also
buyers, but we're in a weird market
right now., where we have more more
sellers than buyers., and, when
that happens, that can result in a buyer
market as we've discussed many times.
But new listings, we had
2555 new listings for the month of
April. If that holds, if that doesn't
get revised, that'll be the most new
listings ever that we have had ever in
one month in Greenville. Now, it's
only a little bit higher than what March
was. March was
2551. but still, that is a new new
listings record if that holds. for
the month of April 2025, April of
last year was
2,269. So, almost 300 new listings
more for April this year versus last
year. Pending sales. This one is the one
that's always has heavy revisions for
for the most recent month. So, the
most recent month looks really low,
right? It says 975 pending sales versus
1617 last year. Don't look at that.
That's a 39.7% decrease year-on-year.
That's going to get revised., let's
look back at March. March was revised.
That was a big revision. Okay, March
originally, and I've got off to the side
on a separate screen here what March
came in before the revision. It was 952
pending sales. That got revised all the
way up to
1572. So,, over a 600 sales
revision., and I thought that we
would probably end up
year-on-year a little bit below
March 2024, but we actually went up 1.8%
because March of last year was 1,544
pending sales. Now, 1572 for March of
this year., I do I I'd be surprised
if that held for the month of April,
though, because April came in at 975,
like I said, versus 1,617 April last
year, even with a similar revision to
to March. April should still end up
being down year, unless we get some kind
of a massive revision., at some
point, I'm going to probably talk to
Linda to try to understand why these big
revisions are happening. I I I really
don't don't understand it. but it it
just is what it is. But basically, I
would expect April to probably be to
come in a hair low after this revision
comes in for pending sales. but
regardless, we've been kind of hovering
in comparable territory for now several
months. for well, for the entire
year, very comparable in terms of
pending sales to last year. January was
down 6%, February is up 4.2%. March
was up 1.8%. And I'm projecting April to
be close to being flat, maybe slightly
below, what April was last year. So,
so, so really those are all very very
comparable numbers to last year. So new
listings go new listings data is strong
a lot more new listings but in terms of
sales that's not resulting in more sales
versus last year. So what's c what
the end result is when you get a lot
more new listings but not a lot more
pending sales that causes inventory to
go up which we'll talk about here in a
second. Now the interesting thing we've
talked about this multiple times we're
still seeing the trend of more closed
sales versus last year. So, I I think
there's a variety of reasons for this.
again, I'm not going to go too far
into the weeds, but I think it's more
just sellers and buyers understanding
what the market is. Sellers
understanding better what they need to
do in order to sell a home. You don't
you can't just put a home on the market
that has all sorts of problems with
it and expect it to sell itself. That
doesn't happen anymore., homes have
to be updated, in good condition,
priced right, all of those things. if
they're not, they just don't sell. Like,
it's it's really that simple., and
it's taken sellers a few years to get
used to that because we had a few years
where you could just put anything on the
market. You could put a terrible condo
on the market,, that, you know, need
a new carpet and smelled like cats and
and everything and people, somebody out
there would buy it, right, in 2021,
maybe even parts of 2022., that's not
the case anymore. It took it took the
market a few years to kind of figure
that out. Now, we're seeing a higher
close rate when it comes to when it
comes to these transactions. Last year,
I had several that had many several
of my listings that had many contracts
on them that fell through. I'm not
seeing that this year. So, anecdotally,
I am personally experiencing as well
that we have fewer of these pending
sales that aren't getting to the closing
table. So, that's great. Everyone,
everyone likes that, right? That is
really out of all of the things in here,
what buyers and sellers, what should
make them the most excited is that fewer
homes going under contract or I
should say more homes going under
contract are getting to the closing
table than than last year. That's
great for all parties because everyone
is upset when a home goes under contract
and then it doesn't sell. So, closing
sales. So, closed sales up 9.6% 6%
year-on-year., April 25 was
1,531 as compared to
1,397 last year. We've now had seven
straight months of positive closed
sale data., after the year before, it
was kind of a mixed
bag. Days on market until sale, we are
seeing the usual seasonality. Okay. And
this is, you know, we talked about this
a little bit too, is that if we saw
normal seasonal trends, we would expect
days on market to start to go down
during the spring and summer season.
That's exactly what happened., month,
we went all the way down from March was
58 days on market, now went all the way
down to 48 days for the month of
April., that is again, if you're a
seller, that's great news to be able to
have the average number of days from
when your property is listed to when
it's an offer is accepted go down to
basically a month and a half as
opposed to two months. That's that's a
that's a big difference, right? That
means that that homes are selling
more more quickly. that means that
you're more likely to get a higher price
point. so if you're a seller, that's
good news. Yearon year, barely an
increase. So, April of last year and and
this is interesting, right? Because
we've had some pretty big increases
recently in terms of days on market from
a yearon-year perspective, right? so,
I mean, we can go back trying to see
go back all the way to August of last
year. It was it was a 9.8% increase
in terms of days on market.
September was a 22.5% increase
year-on-year. October 28.6. November
17.8, December only 5.9, but then
January 17.3% increase, February 8.8%
increase year-on-year, March 7.4%
increase year-on-year. Now, April just a
one day or a 2.1% increase versus
last year, 48 days on market versus 47
days on market last year. So, that's
interesting. I'm I'm going to be very
interested to see how our the remainder
of our spring and summer season compares
to last year because this is a number
that's kind of swinging in the sellers
direction. Now, we've seen, you know,
this has been the big story of this
year. Is the market swinging one way or
the other? And it's been swinging in the
buyer direction for some time now, but
now that we're entering that normal
seasonal busy season, it seems to be
swinging a little bit more in the
sellers direction. And we can see this
again with the median sales price. The
median sales price held firm month on
month. We had the exact same print,
$315,000. That's what last month was. And
that's basically what the month before
was, which is which is interesting. It's
rare that we have three straight months
like this cuz February was 3,4
$314,900, March $315,000, April
$315,000., and that is a 1.6% 6%
year-on-year increase from the
$310,05 of April last year, which is
basically identical to March as well,
which was $310,000. Also 1.6% increase.
Of course, that $5 difference doesn't
doesn't register in the percent
increase. so, so very interesting.
So, we've now had basically three
straight flat
months prints., but in terms of
year-on-year, we've had three straight
increases after having had five straight
decreases. So,, again, those
increases are not huge, right?
1.6%., but 1.6% that's something,
right? That is, if you're a seller, you
want to see that positive. And really,
if you're a buyer, it's it's it's not
positive from the standpoint of of
obviously prices going up, but for the
most part, that's going to that that's
still an increase that is still going to
be below general wage increases.
so that's still a positive thing, right?
If you're if you're a buyer, really
markets are healthier. and there are
more options for all parties including
buyers when we are in an appreciating
market. Buyers always talk about as if
you know if if you're on chronically
online and and you hear all these
people, the doomers that are talking
about how we're going to have a real
estate crash, blah blah blah. They've
been predicting this for years upon
years now. they are are really
excited, really really hoping that we
see a a big crash that we see prices go
way way down. The problem is that most
of these buyers then would lose their
jobs or credit channels wouldn't be
available to them or whatever the case
may be. They wouldn't be able to buy a
home. So, it's actually for the most
part,, as a realtor, I would prefer
to see small increases. Even if, you
know, if I were a realtor where 80% of
my clients were buyers or 90% of my
clients were buyers, I still would not
want to see the median sales price going
down too far or too consistently.
because that has ripple effects through
the market as a whole that ultimately at
the very least indirectly if not
directly hurts buyers. so that's
something to keep in mind. A 1.6%
increase buyers should be really
happy about that, right? Because that's
just enough of an increase to help
sellers perhaps get enough equity into
their homes to be able to put them on
the market. but it's not so much of
an increase that buyers are getting
priced out. So as a as as people's
wages increase eventually even if the
housing market continues to go up at
this pace wage increases should go
faster than a 1.6%
home value increase. Again, we're
looking at median sales prices. That's
not a onetoone correlation with actual
home value appreciation., but it's
the the closest metric that we have when
we're looking at
this. The average,, again, I say this
every week or every month we talk about
this, the average is skewed by,, if
we get a bunch of really expensive homes
sold or a bunch of really cheap homes
sold., this average can be skewed.
That being said, if you're interested,
the average was $387,272,
sales for the month of April. That's
a 4.2% 2% increase from
371760 April of last year. Percent of
list price received. This one also
started to go in the seller's direction.
98.6%
percent of list price received. So
you list a home for
$100,000. or perhaps maybe you list
it for 110, right? We'll give this as an
example. List the home for 110. Not too
many homes are listing for 110, but
again using as an example. List it for
110. It doesn't sell. you reduce the
price eventually to 100,000 and then
it goes under contract and sells for
98,600. That's what a
98.6% of list price received means.
Okay. now what does that mean in
comparison to previous years? Well,
that's a a slight increase, a.1%
increase year-on-year. It's a 2%
increase month. so we're pretty close
to 99%. so this number is is running
a bit hot. This is this is basically
close to if not hotter than what we
were experiencing pre- pandemic. So
again this this is reflecting of kind of
a healing market. We we might say the
market kind of getting its sea legs.
because if you know if you look at
recent years it's been all over the
map, but now we're starting to see
something a little bit more
normal. it this tells me that sellers
are pricing their homes correctly.
and and basically that's the case,
right? When we're in the 98% range,
that's really where we have been since
2017., and so 98% range, that usually
means that sellers are pricing their
homes correctly, buyers are being
appropriately aggressive, all of those
good things., once we start to get to
99%, that's like really hot. So, we'll
have to keep tracking this. At 99%,
usually that's telling me that we're
we're in more of that sellers market
kind of mode., I'd be pretty pretty
surprised if we hit 99% in this metric
this year., but you never know.
There's a lot that could happen, a lot
that could change., mortgage rates
could come down. They haven't. They
could., and that could change the
dynamic. We shall see. Housing
affordability index,, it went up
versus last year, which is great. And
this is exactly what I'm telling you
guys about is that housing, so the
housing affordability index takes into
account people's wages and, borrowing
rates. Okay? And both of those things
are more positive than they were last
year. Even though prices are up, the net
result is that the housing affordability
index has has become better. It's now at
96. We want it to be at least 100.,
but it's at 96, which is up from 95
one year ago. Now, that did go down
monthtomonth., but this is again this
is a seasonal a seasonal metric as
well. So, it's not uncommon for it to go
down during the the busier spring
months. So, I'm more interested in the
year-on-year. We went from 95 to 96 this
year. So, that means in general the
housing market is ever so slightly more
affordable than it was last
year. Inventory of homes for sale. Okay,
this is what we were talking about. Now,
this is this is a metric that also
tends to be tends to be off year on
year. So, I will I'm pulling up off to
the side here what I have for March. So,
March originally printed at
5,3003. and that got revised all the
way down to
4681. Okay, so a big big downward
revision of roughly
600 and change. Okay, very similar to
the other big revision that we saw. That
being said, that was still a massive
increase year-on-year versus inventory
in March of last year, which was 3715.
26% increase. We went from 3715 of March
24 to 46.81 of March 25., so this is
what's happening. We've got a lot of new
listings year on year, but not a lot of
new and really flat pending sales year.
now closed sales are up a little
bit., but this specific metric is
talking about active status. So, this
metric takes out not just the closed
sales, but also takes out the under
contracts as well. So, this is where the
it's tied at the hip to pending sales.
April is going to be a another big
increase yearon year. I don't know
exactly what it's going to be, but if we
have a similar revision, right, April
currently is at
56.81 homes for sale. If we have a
similar revision to what we had in
March, that'll come down to around 5,000
and April of 24 was
39.46. So, I think that we're going to
see a similar roughly 25% year-on-year
increase in inventory to to see numbers
that large. I mean, that's substantial.
Buyers have
25% more options than they had a year
ago. So, this number great for buyers,
right? Not all the numbers we've looked
at are inherently great for buyers.
We're not seeing a lot of numbers that
are like inherently bad for buyers.,
but if you're if you're a seller, this
really isn't a great number, right?,
and this is historically high., I I
need would need to draw a line straight
across., but it looks like, you know,
this is comparable to 2016, if not maybe
2015 levels., again, it it's going to
be it's going to end up being revised,
so probably closer to 2016 levels.
but this is what we're seeing right now
is the market has shifted and it's
continuing to shift in the month supply.
again this is taking the the
inventory of homes for sale at the end
of a given month divided by the average
monthly pending sales from the past 12
months. Both of those numbers get big
big revisions. So we're not going to
look so much at April of this past year.
What we are going to look at or April of
this year, what we are going to look at
is March. March originally when it
printed last month was at four months of
inventory. It got revised down to 3.4
months of inventory. Now 3.4 is the
highest we've had since September. And
that's a 17.2% increase over the 2.9 of
the prior year. So that's a that's a
substantial difference in month supply.
And that's to be expected. Again, what
we're seeing, the story of this episode
is more inventory
and but but a market that is still
being stable. Okay, more inventory,
stable market. And here we have April
showed 4.3 months of inventory. That's
going to get revised down. what's it
going to get revised down to? I don't
know, maybe 3.5, 3.6, 3.7. Regardless,
we're starting to creep up. Okay. And
we're starting to see levels that
could compare favorably to the
prepandemic
market. And so we'll keep tracking that.
But that's a big increase, right? To go
from March from 2.9 months of inventory
in 2024 to March of 2025 at 3.4.
that's that's big. That's substantial.
So,, so again, all that that means is
that the market is shifting and has been
shifting for quite some time now,, a
little bit more in the buyer direction.
That should come as no surprise to
anyone., but it's good when the data
bears out what we what we think we know,
right? Because we don't just want to go
off of vibes. We want want to go off of
data. We're in a very
vibesoriented world right now where a
lot of people are just flat out ignoring
data or just not trusting data. I'm not
that type. I want the data to always
support my priors. if I think
something's happening but the data
doesn't support it, then I want to try
to figure out why. right now with the
data supporting is that the market is
fairly stable. it is kind
of obviously still softening more in the
buyer direction., but at the same
time, it hasn't completely fallen out to
where sellers are just completely in
trouble. We've talked about in the past
some sellers are, you know, if you
bought in 2023, you're trying to sell
now, you might be in trouble., if you
bought last year and you're trying to
sell now, good luck., you probably
haven't had enough appreciation because
1.6% 6% appreciation. That's not even
going to cover a lot of your closing
fees., so you've got to keep those
things in mind., and if you have any
questions about that, please let me
know. My contact info is in the show
notes. Happy to talk to you guys even
just about the show, right? You you say
you don't need a realtor, that's totally
fine, but you want to talk shop. I'm
happy to do that, text me first.
Don't just call me out of the blue. I
will probably ignore your call thinking
that it's spam. Okay? particularly if
it's not an 864 number. If it's an 864
number and I can pick up, I will.,
but if you're out of state,, I'm
gonna assume it's a spam call. So,
please text me ahead of time. My contact
info in the show notes. If you like
this,, content, please like, rate,
review, subscribe, and we will talk
again next time.
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