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
you can find all of my contact information in the show
notes need a realtor in this area
by the way
Greenville for for those of you that are out of town
understand that
the Greenville market is much more than Greenville
Greenville itself
not that big right
I get this question a lot
do I go to areas like Spartanburg
Pickens Anderson
et cetera et cetera
the answer is yes
realtors in this market we have
to be knowledgeable about all of those other areas
so I am educated on those areas as well
I call the show selling Greenville
because Greenville is the most noteworthy
sorry Spartanburgers
but
Greenville's the most noteworthy city county
in the upstate of South Carolina
but that doesn't mean I don't go elsewhere
in fact most of my closings this year have been
outside of Greenville
mostly Anderson and Spartanburg counties
got another one in Pickens County coming up so
so just be aware of that
all my contact information is in the show notes
if you like this content, please like, rate review
subscribe all of those good things
and yeah, so I've got
some coverage for you
guys from the local elections that we had I've
I've discovered over the years that
I am the media okay to
to quote Elon Musk whether you love him or hate him
good quote
I feel like
because it is true that the modern-day conventions of
of the media
and where you get news coverage has changed
in fact
I had
Tina Belge on the show
who was running for Greenville City Council
we'll talk about her in a second
and she asked to come on the show
that was a great interview
I told you guys that
I've never declined someone
that asked to come on the show
that was a that was running for
for a political office in this area
I've never done it
and I I'm not saying that I wouldn't ever do it
but I like to be able to get you guys
the information that you need and and
and sometimes the media is just not covering the stuff
and that was something that she shared
with me off the air was frustration that the
the local media just wasn't really focusing on
on these local elections in the way that they should
sometimes it's hard to get the information
from the media in fact
even as I was preparing for the show
it was hard for me to get some of the information
that I needed as
as part of my preparation so
so long story short
I want to tell you guys a little bit about
about what happened when we had these local elections
and so these local elections
there was a
it was just a hodgepodge of of things that happened
we had elections in Greenville
we had elections in TR in Greer in Easley
there there were tons of elections in Spartanburg
I'm I'm not gonna focus on Spartanburg
I'm not as knowledgeable about
all that happened out there
but I can speak directly to
some of the things that happened
in in Greenville and some of these other areas
and I just want to tell you guys
what my thoughts are on some of these things
as it relates to Greenville
in general right
cause that affects the Greenville real estate market
but I want to also discuss specifically
the potential effects it could have on real estate
so we're just going to start straight with the top
I just reference Tina Belge
she was running for an at large
seat with the Greenville City Council
she was running against Matt Alexander
that is a partisan that was a partisan race
oh
by the way I
I before I get into that I just want to say
I'm recording this on Veterans Day Happy Veterans Day
thank you to to
to all of those listening who serve or are spouses
for those that serve
and or have served all of that
I I just want to make sure that I get that out there
okay so Tina Belge versus Matt Alexander
partisan seat Matt Alexander was Republican
Tina Belge Democrat
she won handily and
and it had nothing to do with her being on my show
but
she she ran a
a a really impressive campaign
I I follow these
these local races very closely
I felt like her campaign
was as good as any that I have seen
on a on a local level
Alexander also ran a very good campaign for
for his part
it it just I
and I think that he's going to have a place
in our local politics on on some level
and I hope that he
perhaps considers county council or something like that
but for the time being
Tina Belge won Greenville City Council and
and in terms of like what that means
obviously one of her main platforms was
housing affordability and
so we'll have to to keep her honest on that right
you the listeners
you the voters this is your responsibility
to make sure that those who run on a certain platform
fulfill it
now she has a track record
she wasn't just saying that
she was running on affordable housing
that's been
a thing that she has
has actually done in real life and worked with
real issues related to that in the past
but I think that we can expect particularly
new developments in the city
that she's going to really push for
there to be some kind of an affordable component
to new developments
making sure the people at different area
median incomes can afford
units within those developments
and of course
she's got a lot of vision for
for transportation in the city and what not
that could directly affect a
a lot of things right
if we had better public transportation
that would really really affect
the city in a positive way
I don't know how realistic that is
but that's
obviously one of the deficiencies of Greenville City
is the is
the public transportation infrastructure that we have
is not great right
that's something that
people come down here and ask me about
and I have to be honest with them
there is not a great public transportation system
anywhere in the upstate
and so
we'll see if she's able to make headway with that
all right
there was also a District 2 election where Lillian
Brock Fleming incumbent
was going up against Mac
Mike Kilgore
Councilwoman Fleming
has been in Greenville City Council for like 30
30 years
and and she won handily
I mean it wasn't even close
she won it
there weren't a ton of voters for this one
she got 15 69 votes
Kilgore got 960 there were seven write ins
that that's not a
not a close election I'm
I'm personally
now I I don't know
miss
Fleming personally
but I'm personally disappointed by this because
I have reached out to her in the past
and have not gotten response
I've not gotten help from her
when I've needed it
and I feel like sometimes people
and this is just my personal opinion
this is not me speaking for any other groups or any
anything else that I'm I'm affiliated with
sometimes it's just time for people to
to relinquish their position of power that they've had
and if you're not responding to constituents
then I feel like that
that's the point at which you're
you're too busy or too preoccupied with other things
or whatever that's
that's literally the job of
of people on City Council
so I was disappointed by that
by that result but not surprised
alright moving right along
Greer had several
several city council elections as well
so the way they do it
they have
all these different districts
district 2 4 and 6 were
were were running for
had elections this year
we had Cory Booker and incumbent
he won
once again
Charles Lander beat incumbent Lee
Dumas I always pronounce his name wrong
Lee Dumas
quite handily that
that came as a bit as a bit of a surprise
and also Judy Alpert incumbent
lost by 28 votes to Paul Lam
that was a somewhat close one there
and so we had two incumbents knocked out in Greer City
and what I think that this is
is I think that this is
this is a referendum against the growth in Greer City
like let's just be honest
this is a referendum against
people wanted change they
they're I
you know we hear all the time people complaining
Greer doesn't need more apartments
Greer doesn't need more development
Greer doesn't need you know
they did this whole sports complex
a lot of people angry about that
a lot of really mixed opinions on
on the sports complex
and I'm not gonna get into all of that but
people showed up that weren't happy about those things
and voted out two of the incumbents
Corey Booker survived he beat
tahicha
Pearson 225 votes to 147
and and so I
I think that what this means
means for Greer
I think that this is going to mean less development
right
which depending on how you look at that
some people listening to this might be excited by that
some people might not
when we're talking about housing affordability
that's generally not
a good thing from a housing affordability standpoint
right fewer
less development means less supply means prices go up
and of course
we've been seeing that in Greece for some time already
I think we're going to continue to see that
Simpsonville had a
let's see here a Ward 6 election
by the way I'm
I'm not gonna go through every single election
I'm I'm just gonna hit
ones that are that are interesting to me
so Simpsonville Ward 6
Lou Hutchings incumbent
and Jerry Tuso both are going to a runoff
Lou Hutchings got 431 vote
votes
Jerry Tuso got 4 10 and then Jared Fielding got one 70
it was that one
70 that resulted in nobody having a majority
which then means that that goes to a runoff
and I believe the runoff is yeah
the runoff is the 18th November the 18th
so if you're in Simpsonville Ward 6
please vote that listen
these runoffs for things like this
I mean we might not see more than 2 to 300 votes total
your vote really really matters Simpsonville
show up check out
find out if you're in Ward 6 or not
if you don't know for sure
please look it up and make sure that you
that you show up for that
I feel like Lou Hutchings
is a is a good candidate
I feel like Jerry Toozzo would probably be fine as well
but in terms of
of what Hutchings has done
this is not an endorsement
this is just my personal opinion
I I feel like that there are
that there are some positives there to look into
but do your own research okay
I'm not gonna try to persuade you one way or the other
I don't live in Simpsonville
those are you know
all of the different
the the
I don't I don't live there
I have opinions on on a lot of things
but if you live there
you have specific issues that you're concerned about
and so vote based on how you feel
but just get out and vote please
alright let's see here what else is interesting
I yes
tr traveler's rest
we had two incumbents
Catherine James and Lisa Lane that both were reelected
Cheryl
Garniero and John Campbell
we're also
also elected
the the way they handle it in TR is just the top 4
just get into city council and that's it you
if everyone else just doesn't get in
and that's that
what's interesting to me you know
city of TR is great right
but TR as a whole is a
is just a fascinating case study for a town
let's be honest
TR used to be like looked at as like
you know where
where the where the rednecks lived right
I'm I'm just I'm
I'm not saying that that was my opinion
I'm just saying that's what other people
you would hear other people say well
that's completely changed more recent years
TR is now one of the most expensive places to live
in the entire state of South Carolina right
regardless of of
you know any sort of demographic that that
like that's just statistical
so people need to to set aside
like I was even at a comedy show recently where
where they kind of made fun of
of TR like that like it was still redneck
and it's just like that's
that's maybe what people's perception is
but that's not a perception that
that I would as a real estate professional
first off
I don't get into whether areas are redneck or not
cause that's a fair housing violation
it's neither here nor there
but even as a joke
it's not really a funny joke anymore to me because I
I know that that even if that were true
it's at some point it's definitely not true anymore
so it's just interesting
it's also interesting to see these people campaign
so we had a Greenville City Council
two candidates
in terms of when
Belgian Alexander were running
both had huge budgets right
tons of tons of donors
they both were running 6 digit
six digit budgets for their campaign
that's very normal for Greenville City Council
we see that a lot just wait until the
until the mayor
seat becomes available
which allegedly is gonna be sooner than later
we'll see
but the budget for whoever becomes mayor
you know for the people running for mayor
for Greenville is going to be insane
well the budgets for TR City Council was not insane
I know
because I spoke to several of the candidates
some of them basically had no budgets
some of them their entire campaign was just putting
signs on Main Street in TR
and if you drove through TR
you would see
you would see some of those signs and like that was it
some of them did not do door knocking
it's just it's a very different
very different
area than any other area that we have in the upstate
and I I love it
I'm here for it
I've I've always been been a fan of CR and I like that
you know it's just an area where
where you can get on city council with these non
conventional campaigns I think it's
I think it's kind of
kind of amazing
so
in terms of what it means for
for housing I mean listen
I've already said TR's
one of the most expensive
places to live in the upstate
that's not changing it that is simply not changing
and
I however I am
so there are discussions about you know
TR being you know
imposing more impact fees and what not
things that would drive up the cost of
of housing
particularly for new construction
and I think that I
I think that there is going to be
some pushback from some of the members of this council
when it comes to that I'm hoping
because impact fees are just a really bad
a bad way to raise money right to
to take money essentially
from first time home buyers
in order to try to improve infrastructure
but it's never enough to do it right
so the department of transportation
recently said that they are going to try to pass
try to try to get approved for them to to
to do a 25 dollar impact fee across the
I believe it's 25 across the state of South Carolina
meaning every single new home that's built
would have to pay 25 dollars to the dot
well then that gets
that gets marked up
usually ends up being closer to $10,000
once it gets to the consumer
and that's just the DOT's
impact fee there all these municipalities are also
doing their own impact fees
so they all add up and once you add it all up
it could be it could be passed along as
tens of thousands of dollars
to the end user and
and to the to the person that ends up buying the home
and that's just it's just not good
but here's the thing dot gets 25
20 five hundred dollars per development
it cost roughly a million dollars a mile right
cause that's what they're saying they're saying
oh we're going to
we're gonna use this money towards roads
so let's say that 10,000 homes are built you know
if
let's say they get this 25 dollar impact fee approved
and then you know
the the next year 10,000 homes are are built right
a lot of homes okay like a huge community
is a community that has like a few hundred homes
that's only $25 million that's 25 miles of road
that does not do anything for the
the quote unquote
road situation that we have in South Carolina you
you think that that is going to put a dent in in
in what
in in the long list of things that they're behind on
no
it's not gonna do anything
but it it does impact the first time home buyer
and and
and so that's why generally speaking
I am against impact fees
because they don't raise very much money
in comparison to how much they hurt
first time home buyers alright
moving right along here
let's talk about easily for a second
some interesting things happening easily
so easily really swung hard in more recent years
as a result of a few squeaky wheels
they swung really hard
towards being really anti growth
anti development and again
you know understand these more rural areas they
they want to keep the area rural right
they want to they
they don't they don't want things to change
there's a lot of nostalgia and
and I completely understand that
but I think the ship has kind of sailed
on some of that like
we can't create gated communities around like
entire cities entire counties
it's just not practical
and you're either growing or you're
shrinking right at the end of the day
and it's really really bad for everyone
if an area starts to shrink and starts to de
de grow
all those a lot of small businesses go out of business
you know
real estate
plummets in terms of value
and all sorts of negative things happened
so city of
Easley now swung to the other end of the spectrum right
so they had a city council that was really anti growth
anti development anti a lot of things
and it it became a very hostile
I'm not gonna get into the details
but an extremely hostile
city council just a lot of shenanigans
and seriousness going on over there
and
and the the
the
some of the key people that were responsible for that
were voted out in
in my again
in my personal opinion
and so we had let's see here we had
sorry I'm pulling this up here
April Cersei Bob Fettor and
I believe Chris Clark was the other yeah
but was the other person who won in
City Council Ward 2 4 and 6 that were up for
for election easily
and and for the most part they
they won like really handily
and so very interesting very interesting development
right people have chosen and
and it's not like these three are like
super duper pro growth or
or wanting oh
my phone is going off sorry about that rookie mistake
forgot to turn off my phone
I recently applied for for a loan
for a for a refinance
and if you don't know
if you've not applied for a loan recently
like the moment your credit is run for a mortgage
you start to get phone calls from mortgage companies
over and over and over again
and it's just it's incessant
and that's because of the credit bureau
selling your information
you can thank them should be illegal
but they do that
anyway that's what just happened to me
my phone has been blowing up with
with all of these different mortgage companies
trying to get me to cancel my refinance
with the company I'm using
and to use them instead which I'm not going to do
okay so where I was going with all of that is
is that people in the city of Easley
they're they're like
let's let's not pretend like
these three people that they elected are like ooh
we're we're gonna
you know bring tons of development in here and and
and really drive down the price of
of housing and and make it more affordable
they didn't run on those sorts of platforms
they knew that they couldn't
and they don't want to do that anyway
but they're not gonna be complete as anti growth
as the former council was
and so it's interesting that the
that this is like the first time in a long time
that we have had this sort of
a shift in a local election
where the the biggest anti growth
the nimbies you know
the not in my backyard don't build in my backyard crowd
got voted out for not a YMB
if you know these terms not a ymb
candidate
but for candidates that are not quite as NIMBY
not quite as anti growth not quite as anti development
this is the first time that we've seen that group
win over the the completely anti development group
and the reason is that so the
the anti development group
they tend to be anti like a lot of things
so the the development is like one thing
but then they they tend to like
be kind of conspiratorial and like
find all of these other things that like tie into it
and and ultimately it just
it becomes more often times
they become more about what they're against
rather than what they're for
and and then that comes with hostility
that comes with aggression
in in some cases following
you know other council people home and
and harassing them all sorts of stuff
this is very
very common tactics being used nationwide by NIMBY's
but it was specifically being used and easily
and and the electorate just got fed up
and they were just like no
like we need a a serious functioning city council
and good for them I'm
I'm happy for them I
I don't know how good these new candidates are gonna be
they're pretty green
don't have a ton of experience doing
you know city council work
so there might be some growing pains there
but from my personal experience
they are going to actually take the responsibility
seriously they're going to actually try to
make Easley City a better place
and and I'm happy for that
happy for Easley I think that
that's going to be good for those residents
and yeah just yeah I
I I think that there's
there's a lot of positives to take away there
alright
we had we had one
one other thing that I'm gonna mention here
and then I'm gonna wrap up
we had a state house runoff in District 21
district 21 is weird it's kind of like the West Greer
district right
it's kind of like if if you look at the
at the Greenville Spartanburg Airport
which straddles Greenville and Spartanburg counties
hence the name
District 21 is just to the west of that
and kind of comes down into
and down towards Five Forks
and it it might include some of yeah I
I think it includes Five Forks as well
but it's kind of like that West Greer ish area
east side Greenville some of that down towards
towards Five Forks
and I don't really know anything about Diane Mitchell
or Steve Nail they were the two that ran
they were both Republican interestingly
I guess oh the
because that it was a runoff
sorry I was confused for a second there
so you know when
when you have a runoff
usually runoffs end up not being close
this one was insanely close
Diane Mitchell won by 20 votes okay
1,536 votes to 1,516 for Steve Nail
20 vote difference guys
you get out to vote for these small elections
these small elections are consequential
that's your state house
rep right
if you live in that area I used to live in that area
that's that's extremely important
that's a person representing you in Columbia
and 20
basically 11 people
depending on how you look at it right if
if 11 people had flipped the vote would have
would have been different
11 people decided that election
or 20 people decided that election
depending on how you how you want to think about it
if you're if you're doing my sort of math
or you're doing some other sort of math
but
but I I just want to highlight that
I don't really have any opinions
I don't know those candidates
I haven't done my my research on them
but it just stood out to me
that such an important election
could be decided by 20 votes
get out to vote for these little elections
don't just wait every four years right
the exciting ones are every four years
but these elections are the ones
that can that can really determine how
what happens in your area right
and
I want to we
we need to we need to bring more accountability to our
to our local politicians
and you don't do that if you don't vote
so
that's one of the ways that you keep them accountable
is by voting
so please please make sure that you do that
I think that that's all I have today
I I think for the most part
I'll just kind of put a bow on it
got some something floating in front of me
here sorry about that
I think I'm gonna put a bow on it this way
I think that I think that
you know we went through a
a period of time the past few years
where people were just freaking out about the growth
and everything in
in Greenville and
and in some of the surrounding areas and some of that
is intensifying for instance
in Greer I think in Greer again
a lot of it was the sports complex thing
like some people got really angry about that
if you wanna look that up
you know just look it up
I'm not gonna get into the weeds on that
I I think if the sports complex had not been like a
a part of all of that
if that had not been a major thing
that was kind of confounding these elections
I think that I
I think that the outcome would have been different
I think that that
I think that that
the vote in Greer
was more of a referendum on that sports complex
than it was on
like growth in general OK
because you look at these other elections and the
these other elections were not referendums on
on growth which is interesting
so we might be kind of swinging
I'm not gonna say we're swinging back to a
a pro growth upstate of South Carolina
there's still a lot of a lot of
nobody move here we're full
stay out we don't want
any new visitors
we don't want any new residents
we don't want any outsiders
we want we are
we want to stay the way they are
that's what people keep saying
but and I don't think that that's generally a good thing
at least not to that sentiment
usually where it goes is a very bad place
but that being said
the way people voted
they didn't vote scared this time right
and in the past we've seen people vote scared about
about growth and what not and
and people seem to be like okay
the growth situation maybe they're not crazy about it
but now they're starting to be concerned
about some other things for instance
the Greer Sports Complex
and I think that that
I think that that's good because we
there are so many bigger issues facing the upstate than
oh we've got a growth problem
we've got too many people moving here
I'm not saying that
that that there aren't issues related to that
but we can sometimes create a
a boogeyman out of something that
that doesn't exist when
or we might focus on one boogeyman
and ignore a lot of other important issues
and I feel like that that's
been the case
with a lot of these arguments when it comes to
you know the anti growth crowd in recent years so
glad to see that some of that has quieted
hopefully that will continue
and hopefully this update
has been helpful for you guys to kind of understand
some of the some of the local happenings
I know it's not the most exciting thing in the world
but again
you might not be able to get this news elsewhere
you might not even know where to get it
if you could get it elsewhere
and so
here I am I'm here for you guys
we didn't have the market stats published yet right
GGR office is closed
usually we have them around this time
GGR office
closed for Veterans Day
so I'll probably get it tomorrow right
but tomorrow the podcast publishes
so we'll have to talk about that next week
but this is perfect right
talk about the elections
and hopefully it benefited some of you guys
so thank you guys for listening
really appreciate or watching
really appreciate you guys
please like rate review subscribe
comment on YouTube whatever
however you wanna do it
and
if if you
need a realtor in the area Greenville Spartanburg
Anderson etcetera
let me know I'm your guy
my contact info is in the show notes
we will talk to you guys next time!