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 if you need a Realtor in the Greenville area
you can find all of my contact information in the show
notes and please
or if you just want to talk about the show okay
feel free to reach out that way as well
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today we're going to be showing
I'm gonna be showing you guys some new technology
that was released by the Greater
Greenville Association of Realtors
just this past week
now I'm recording this on Labor Day actually
so happy delayed belated Labor Day
I'm recording this on Labor Day
probably will release this on let's see here
either the 10th or the 17th
I'm not yet sure how my schedule is gonna play out
but I wanted to go ahead and get this recorded while
all while using this software is fresh on my mind
this would be a great episode to watch on YouTube
if you can I am going to make it digestible
for audio consumption as well
but basically GGR released
this is basically Christmas for me software
called Info Sparks this
Info Sparks gives me access to real time
data on the market which is incredible right
so you guys know that that I analyze the market
when GGR puts out the market stats
the Great Agreement Association
Realtors puts out the market stats every month
we go over that
that's been a staple of the show for a long time
I know a lot of people that listen to the show
specifically for that episode
realtors as well as just other investors
people that are just interested in the market
in general listen to that
well now I have access to real time data
unlike anytime before for
specifically for the Greenville market
I want to make sure that you guys are clear on this
in case other people get on to this
and think I'm talking about the US market
as all know this is specifically the Greenville
South Carolina market
I do have access to other markets in this software
within South Carolina
but we don't care about those right
we just care about Greenville
at least for the purposes of this episode
now what we're going to be doing is
I want to answer the question with this data
on why it feels like a buyers market right now
and listen it does feel like a buyers market right now
to a lot of people a lot of people feel that way
in fact
someone at my company recently declared it
is a buyer's market
which is interesting because not the
the traditional metrics
that we use to determine if it's a buyer's
market or not
would tell us that it's a seller's market
it doesn't feel that way why
why does the way it feel not match up with the data
well I've hinted to you guys
and talked to you guys for a while about that
I believe that new home construction
is playing a role in that
and I'm going to prove it on this episode
now before we dive into the data
which if you're looking on YouTube
you can already get a little bit of a
of a glimpse and a preview of what I'm looking at
but before we dive into this data
I wanna make sure that
that you understand a very important thing
cause there are 3 different terms
and I may use them all in the show
but they are synonymous
they're they're usually used in different contexts
but they can be used synonymously
and and the three terms are previously owned homes
resales and existing homes
those all speak to the same thing
and they all speak of the same thing
which is any home that is sold
that is not new construction okay
it could be called a previously owned home
it could be called a resale
it could be called an existing home in Info Sparks
they call it previously owned okay that
the technical like if you're in the economic world
they call it existing homes
and then if you're a realtor like me
we tend to call it resales
I'll I'll probably be using
all of those as part of this discussion alright
so why does it feel like a buyer's market
and what does new construction have to do with this
we're gonna start with this okay
there has been a huge spike in
in new listings in recent years
so we're looking at currently all construction types
you can see a very
very big spike has happened in new listings in 2025
so for those that are listening that can't see this
may of 2025 had 2,710 new listings now
by the way I
I got trained on how to use
this Info Spark software they told us that
some of the data might not perfectly match
the data that's produced by the Greenville Realtor
Association
data isn't exactly like black and white okay
you'd think that it is
but there is some process by which data has to be cold
and where it can be slightly different
so if you're comparing this to GGR reports
or to previous podcast
some of these numbers might be a little bit different
but 2,710 new listings at the
the high point of our year
this year which was may
that compares to the high point of last year
May 2024 or sorry
April 2024 was the high point last year which is 2,267
so that's a huge huge spike
that's what that's nearly a 10% spike I believe no
no no
that's nearly a 20% spike year on year for the for the
for the top end of the market
and in general
it is way higher than we've seen any other years
now
if we break this out between previously owned homes
and new construction
this is where you can really start to
see what's going on here
here's the here's the the
the story that I wanna paint for you guys
for starters we've got data that shows
you can see new home construction has been
which is at the bottom of the graph
has been rising at a rate
in terms of new listings that previously owned homes
at resales have not been growing yet
but you also need to consider this
is that there's a lot of shadow inventory
with new construction as well
because a lot of builders don't put their homes
into the multiple listing service okay
and so we've got some of this inventory captured
into the into the Multiple Listing service
but a lot of the
the new home construction is not even in here
so these numbers for new construction are actually
depressed
in comparison to what they probably should be right now
and even with the on MLS listings
here is the thing that I want you guys to look at
the ratio of previously owned new listings to
new construction new listings is basically 2 to 1
so in August of 2025
the most recent month we have new listings for
for resales was 1,506
resales for new construction was 799 okay
so
so the ratio was less than 2 to 1
from resale to new construction compare that to
just a couple of years ago 2021 at the peak
the peak month of that year was July
and the peak month of that year
resales had 1,544 new listings
new construction had 523
so the ratio was basically 3 to one
and that tracks for for many
many months up until the past few years
if you go back even further
the ratio was even higher like April of 2016
which was the high point of that year 2016
previously owned new listings was 1,455
new construction was 259 okay
that is a huge huge
huge difference so historically
the ratio had been more like 4 to 1 or 5 to 1
and now it's 2 to 1 for every
for every two homes
for every two resales that come on the market
one new construction home is coming on the market
and this is creating a massive impact
here's the other thing that we need to consider here
okay
so August of 2025 again
I already said there were 1,506 resale new listings
let's compare that to I don't know
let's go back 10 years to August 2015
August 2015 had 1,210
homes that were
that were resales that came on the market
OK so a
a difference of oh gosh
what's the
I don't know what the what the percent is here
hold on I
that that's about a
let's let's just call it a 20 ish percent increase okay
it's not a huge increase over the course of 10 years
but if you look at August 2025 for new construction
it was seven 99
you look at August 2015 new construction was 250
that's an increase of over 300%
I can do that math in my head real quick
that's an increase of over we
we had we're over 300%
more than what we were just 10 years ago
so whereas we're a fraction higher for August 2025
on resale inventory versus 2015
not inventory but new listings
we are in multipliers when it comes to new construction
that's really the main takeaway that you need to
to take away here and so that is a huge difference
we're seeing new construction
taking off way quicker and influencing the market
way more than it ever has before
and that's why it feels like a buyer's market right
that's one of the reasons
because people that are selling their homes
they're not selling new construction
they're selling resales
they're selling previously owned homes right
they're the ones that own it
and so this is what's happening in our market today
is that we're having
new construction is just taking up
so much more we're so much more of
of the inventory so much more of the market
let's look at homes currently on the market
let's see here homes for sale
it's gonna tell us a very very similar story here
so you can see
there were some weird things that happened
around the pandemic that was just
we just had no inventory at all right
around the pandemic basically toss out that data
let's just look at at again
August 2025 previously owned homes
we have 3,423 for sale according to this data
new construction 2,201 okay
so the gap between them is there's basically a
a 12 and change inventory gap between them
and how has that changed from previous years
well
basically the the
if you go back to when the market was like healthier
back in like 2017 back in 2016
the the ratio of again
resales to new construction
traditionally was way more than 2 to 1
when it came to active inventory
but right now where we're at
we're at again a 30
four hundred
compared to 22 resales to new construction
that's less than a 2 to 1 ratio
we have had a higher ratio for a long time
until things got really tight during the pandemic
and they are still really tight okay
in that regards the the ratio
the the percentage of homes
that are currently for sale on the market
it's one of the highest ratios of
of new construction versus previously owned homes
that we've ever seen and you know
here you can see the the chart is still going up
it still appears
perhaps that it's continued to go up in
the month of August into September for new construction
whereas it appears that we've already peaked
we already peaked in July for
for previously owned homes
so we could see this margin get even tighter
let's look at home sales close sales
alright now
this is a
this one is one of the most interesting ones to me
cause if you look at this you can see again
if you're if you're on YouTube
you can see very clearly that the existing homes
sales peaked in June 2021
and have basically been going down since then
now
2025 was better than the last two years in terms of
at least our peak
but it's nowhere near what we saw in June 2021
contrast that with new construction
which had their highest month
all time in terms of closed sales this year
in March 2025 and this entire year has been elevated
and the March we're we're seeing seasonality in
in the month of August both
both resales and new construction have come down a bit
in the month of August August has been
August was very slow if you're selling a home
that's the reality of the situation
but this is
this is crazy
new construction is setting records in terms of sales
whereas we are way
way below the peak when it comes to resale homes and
and and there is a really
really easy explanation for this alright
I'm gonna tie this all together with
with this one little chart
sales price
look at this baby we have a
a very rare thing happening right now in the market
and that is we have had an inversion from the standard
where new construction is always more expensive
than previously owned homes
and that chart has inverted
for the majority of this year
and it's currently inverted
new construction right now the median is 309,900
whereas the median
price for a previously owned home is 335,000
that is insane because again
we're not talking about that the ratio what
like most of these others
we're talking about that
the ratio of resales to new construction has
has shrunk in this case
the ratio has inverted whereas
new construction is always more expensive than resales
right we have one other time that that this inverted
and that was in June 2021
what did we just say that was a weird month right
that was a weird time of the year
that was the peak for for existing home sales
that was the peak of the
of the pandemic frenzy of home buying
that was when mortgage
rates were at their lowest point
that they pretty much ever went to okay
that was an odd time guess what now is an odd time
we have had basically inversion since may of 2024
for most months since may of 2024
new construction has been cheaper than previously owned
homes why would you buy a previously owned home
if you can buy new construction for $25,000 cheaper
well there
there could be some reasons right
maybe bigger lot sizes maybe like
the quality of construction with the older homes better
there there could be reasons
but I'm telling you
there are so many people right now that
that I am personally dealing with
and I'm dealing if I'm dealing with it
I know many others are
they start out looking at homes that are not
new construction
and they end on new construction because it just it
how can they not buy a brand new home that's cheaper
it just it and
and unless
the new construction
simply doesn't match what they're looking for
which is mostly people that want no HOA or that want
want more land
or that you know
are very picky about the the quality of construction or
or want a crawl space versus a slab
things like that
unless you're one of those
if you're looking to buy right now
you have to seriously consider
particularly if you're on a budget
you have to seriously consider new construction
because of this
this chart that I'm showing you guys right now that the
that is cheaper than resale
this is one of the craziest charts I've been
showing you guys charts for years upon years
this is perhaps when I pulled this up my mind exploded
I could not believe what I was looking at
because it's so rare to see this
I'm going back all the way to 2008
it's never happened in all of the data that we have
which goes back to 2008
we've never seen this happen before until 2021
it happened for like two months in 2021
and now it's basically the the new norm since may crazy
crazy time to be doing real estate all right
I'm not done yet though
we're gonna look at months supply of inventory
and this is another one that's pretty interesting okay
now you'll see here
this is the chart that was inverted for a time
but back back in the in the Great Recession
so it this chart inverted
now I'll explain the inversion here in a second
it inverted during the Great Recession
and then it un inverted right around 2014
so what it normally should show
normally months supply for new construction
is higher than previously owned homes
normally there's more
supply
in comparison to the demand for new construction
than there is for previously owned homes
the only time that wasn't the case
was during the global financial crisis
when there was greater supply versus the demand
for previously owned homes
and new construction
and there's a simple reason for that
builders can stop building
they can create their own supply and demand dynamics
by simply saying you know what
nobody's buying right now
we're gonna stop building
whereas people that need to move
still have to put their home on the market
and so this is a this is a dynamic that we see
is that
you know
during the the during the global financial crisis
new construction had fewer months of supply
than previously owned homes
but it it went back to normal
you know and the normal trend is that builders
you know
they build up their supply a little bit and then
and then let it sell out
and then they'll build up some more supply and
you know the standard that we had for a long time
was that previously owned homes had
around three months of inventory
and new construction
had around six months of inventory and
and that makes sense again
the rule of thumb traditionally
is that
six months of inventory is when you switch from a
seller's market to a buyer's market
so it makes sense
why builders would want around six months of inventory
that's like a neutral market
that's a good balance to find well
guess what we're at now we're now at
previously owned homes are at 3.6 months of inventory
new constructions at 4.3
now here's why that's really alarming
that's really alarming to me
because the last time that inverted
was the global financial crisis
and we are the closest basically
this year is the closest we've come to that
reinverting since 2,011
that's scary right
that is an indicator of a buyer's market
either being here or being right at the doorstep
and and again
for this to happen builders
they have their pulse on the market and
and so it's they
they might be scaling back if they stop building
we are going to see new construction
supply is going to get tighter
and we could very well see this invert
within the next few months
this is something I'm going to be tracking super
duper closely
and
this is what I keep telling you guys okay
I know that this has been an interesting
interesting time to do real estate
and there's a lot of conflicting
and competing opinions out there
but I'm telling you guys
we don't need to hit six months of inventory for it to
feel like and to actually be a buyer's market
because we don't measure
whether a market is a buyer or seller's market
based on months of new construction inventory
but based on resale inventory
that is really what determines
whether we're in a buyer or sellers market
at the end of the day
when you have a market that's going upside down
like this where new construction is cheaper
and at a similar level of months of supply as resales
then
the resale market is no longer competing with itself
but with new construction
that's really really important right
cause typically when you put your home on the market
what are you looking at
you're looking at what's my competition
who how many of my neighbors
have their homes on the market
how many people in the general area
in the school district have their homes on the market
no longer
is that the first thing you should be looking at
you actually need to be looking at
what are the new build communities in my neighborhood
because those are
the people that you're competing with
more than ever is the builders
and I keep hearing over and over again
like I already said
why buy a lived in home when I can get a new home
a brand new home
never lived in with a home warranty and all sorts of
of cool new things for free for
for cheaper for cheaper than the existing homes market
it doesn't make sense for a lot of people
and it doesn't make sense for the market right
this is why it's so hard to analyze what's happening in
in the market right now
but I'm telling you guys that we're
we're really close to buyers market
and it's because of this dynamic
we may already be there again
it's really hard to measure because the
the traditional metrics do not work anymore
if you have any questions about any of that
please let me know if you're looking to sell a home
be prepared I'm gonna have this discussion
with you we're not gonna have an easy time
if you're looking to buy a home
you've got more options than you've had in a long time
although a lot of them are new construction
so you might not be happy about that
but I'm happy to help you
my contact info is in the show notes
please
reach out to me for any of your real estate needs
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thank you guys for listening
we will talk again next time!