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 if you need to reach out to me for any of your real estate needs just a reminder please like rate review subscribe to the show to make sure you don't miss future episodes just to support the show you can download episodes too I've heard some people say that unsubscribe and resubscribe just make sure you do the resubscribe part right or else you if you just unsubscribe you will miss future episodes so yeah that's all I ask if you guys do that and go to my contact info in the show notes and use me as your realtor today we're gonna be talking about as we close out 2025 this episode is coming out on New Year's Eve which by the way Happy New Year right for those of you regardless of whether it is the New Year when you're listening or not Happy New Year I hope your 2026 is wonderful and blessed I have some bold predictions for you guys and we need to jump right into again one of my favorite episodes of the year this was a hard one it was hard for me because there's so much uncertainty where like I felt like I've done this episode now for several years in a row and I felt like this was the hardest one I've ever had to do because it was so like what what's going on in the market what's going on in the economy are we gonna have a recession are we not gonna have a recession there's just and on top of everything else what I alluded to last week is that we're missing a lot of core data from the government right now due to the government shutdown and then on top of that it's gonna be questionable whether we can even trust all of the data that that the government is going to put out there which I didn't talk about last week but that's also something that's in the back of my head as well for a variety of reasons so I have to be careful with these bold predictions I don't tap into something that's gonna be like untrackable at the end of the day but I think I did a good job with these and I think that that you'll find this to be an entertaining episode and when we can track usually at the midpoint of the year I track how we're doing and then at the end of the year I recap it so let's just jump right in I want to go right into the main thing that everyone wants to know and that is where are mortgage rates going and here is my bold prediction on mortgage rates I believe and I actually I've got a couple mortgage rate predictions but I believe that the 30 year fixed rate mortgage will go into the fives at some point per Mortgage News Daily but won't go below 5.65% at any point this year in fact I would be surprised if it went anywhere near 5.65 I'm expecting it to be over 6 for most of the year but I do think that at some point we will see it go into the fives and it you know it's hard to know exactly how low it will go once it once it does go into the fives and so I do have to be careful with this prediction that I don't get too aggressive right and say well it's not gonna go below 5.8 you know all it takes is you know if we do have a couple of soft quarters of GDP unemployment goes up in into the high fours like you can see mortgage rates come down quite a bit really quick you can also see if the economy stabilizes you could see the spread between the 10 year yield and the 30 year fixed rate mortgage could go down and that would result in mortgage rates going down so there's a few scenarios where rates could go down pretty aggressively but I don't think that that we're going to see them go below 5.65 at any point this year so that's my prediction they will go into the fives not for the entire year just at some point in the year but at no point will we see them go below 5.65 and if you're watching on YouTube you see I've got up here Mortgage News Daily up we had a slight we just got today's rates I'm recording this on the 16thand again a little early here but that's what I'm doing so I don't have to record over the holidays we're at 6.27% per Mortgage News Daily and so that's a that that's something that again we've been in the sixes pretty much all year I do think in 2026 we'll finally plunge through the ceiling of the 6% ceiling and see it go down into the fives for the first time in a very long time but don't get too excited it's not gonna go down to 5% it'll probably be the high fives and if we're fortunate it'll get close to 5.65 number two on here I believe that the median sales price will rise 2 to 5% for the year in Greenville that's a bullish forecast okay that is a very bold prediction most people are not predicting that that the greater Greenville prices will be you know between 2 and 5% but I am bullish I you know we saw we saw greater appreciation this year based on the median sales price than we expected and I think that that's gonna happen again this upcoming year 2 to 5% which is gonna be a whole lot more than most of the country now the northeast there's a lot going on in the northeast prices are still going crazy there there's a few little pockets but in a lot of the country they're not seeing this level of appreciation I think Greenville will and we've seen some good momentum in in recent in recent months and I think that that's going to continue especially if we see mortgage rates start to trickle down a little bit I think that we'll really see prices start to increase more of a normal clip right 2 to 5% that's pretty normal numbers for Greenville that's not too crazy those are numbers that people can be comfortable with so that's what we're looking at here number three I believe that inventory will continue to increase but months supply won't go any higher than 4.7 months after revisions I don't see it going I don't see us having months supply of inventory going into the sixes and I put after revisions right because we talk about this a lot when G G A R comes out with their market stats the most recent month is always higher than it should be and it needs to get revised in the next month so 4.7 months after revisions and I think eventually part of this prediction as well we will see year on year decreases in total inventory okay so we're gonna see inventory increasing but at some point we will see a decrease finally alright we've had years and years of increases I do believe that 2026 is the year that stops and that we start to see that curve come down and like I said we'll see months supply probably rise a little bit but it's not gonna get too crazy it's probably around 4.1 right now I don't see it going above 4.7 at any point this year.

No. 4 I had one about Greenville County this this last year I'm gonna give you another one from Greenville County right and I kind of alluded to it in last week's episode but now I'm gonna double down on I believe the Greenville County will start discussing and maybe even impose within the year probably not but they'll at least start discussing and putting out there and putting in the media that they're gonna start putting restrictions and or taxes county level on short term rentals Airbnb's verbose all of that that is the direction this is going right any Greenville County has basically commissioned to do a study on short term rentals listen we know where that's going they're not gonna do a study on short term rentals then say huh short term rentals are fine we don't need to do anything about them we don't we're not losing any money on these things no no no no they're going to absolutely do a study that's going to tell them whatever it is they want to hear and then they're going to start either restricting Airbnb's or taxing them that is what's going to happen get ready for it now talk to your county council person now cause I would love to be wrong about this prediction cause this is it's a bad idea it's a bad idea but brace yourselves if you don't get on the horn with your county council person it's gonna happen it will happen prediction.

No. 5 I believe the spread between the 5 year arm and the 30 year fixed rate mortgage will go over a percentage point at some time this year I'm going to pull up and I forgot that I even I was still screen sharing here if you're on YouTube you can see this but I've got from bank rate a nice little a nice little graph that kind of shows the 30 year fixed rate mortgage which per their let me refresh this real quick to see if I can get this updated this is not my favorite website in the world but it shows it the most clearly out of the ones that I've seen at least so it's got the 30 year fixed rate mortgage it says on average is 6.29% again these are all averages you might be way higher you might be way lower talk to your talk to your banker about that talk to your mortgage lender about that so they have the 30 year fixed rate mortgage at 6.29% and they have the five 1 arm which is what we're talking about here at 5.54% what I am saying so currently they're apart by you know roughly what75 basis points I'm predicting that they will that the spread between them will balloon to over 100 basis points so let's say that the 30 year fixed rate mortgage is at 6.29% the 5 year arm will be no higher than 5.29% just to for illustrated purposes now we're not there yet right that's why it's a bold prediction we haven't had a spread like that in quite some time but I do think it's coming and the reason why it's coming is that the Federal Reserve Trump is going to get his own guy in there as the chairman he's gonna replace Powell although Powell was his guy at one time and he's gonna get someone else in there that's gonna want to aggressively lower rates but the thing is that if the Fed lowers their rates and the bond market doesn't agree with what the Fed's doing the 30 year fixed rate mortgage won't go down and it could even go up to be honest that's exactly what just happened a few weeks ago when the when the Federal Reserve lowered their Fed Funds rate mortgage rates actually went up however the Federal Reserve when they lower their rates that does cause the arm rates to come down it causes it also affects HELOC too if you if you are getting a home equity line of credit and so what we could see happen is we could see the arm those adjustable rate mortgages start to really go down quite a bit way way faster than the 30 year fixed rate mortgage and so I think that there is going to be a big gap at some point this year between those two could see it going all the way to 150 basis point difference now I'm not gonna make that sort of a prediction that's insane that's 'cause that's double what the spread is between them now but that would not shock me and if that happens you're gonna hear a lot of people talking about adjustable rate mortgages but I'm predicting at some point they're gonna the spread between them is going to be at least a full percentage point difference between the two of them and we will track it and I'll let you guys know.

No. 6 on here I'm predicting there's not gonna be any major uptick in foreclosures or short sales year to date okay right now as I'm as I'm pulling this pulling this data and I apologize I have to type something in here year to date there are 74 foreclosures and 50 short sales that have been in the Greater Greenville Multiple Listing Service now we aren't quite at the end of the year yet so let's assume those go up slightly to like 77 and 53 that gives us a nice round number of 130 total foreclosures plus short sales over the course of the entire year okay I would that that's not very many by the way right and I'll put that in context here in a second I'm not expecting next year to exceed those numbers by more than 10% so next year's foreclosures plus short sales I think will remain below roughly 145 for the entire year and so what does that all equate to put it all in context the roughly 130 40 130 for closures and short sales in 2025 equaled less than half a percent of inventory this past year it equaled point four two % of our inventory that's nothing that's nothing we had tens of thousands of units of housing come through in in in our multiple listing service and only 100 not even 130 of them were foreclosures or short sales it's basically none basically no foreclosures or short sales and so I'm saying that there's not going to be a meaningful uptick in those and that's why the median sales price why I don't see the median sales price coming down right I'm predicting it's gonna be 2 to 5% higher for this year for this upcoming year than it was in 2025 it's because we need foreclosures for that to meaningfully come down right the other way it could meaningfully come down is if builders really start to dramatically reduce their pricing but I feel like they're kind of where they need to be I don't feel like builders can come down too much more and so this is kind of some of what I'm looking at prediction.

No. 7my bold prediction I believe the housing affordability index will return to 100 at some point this year if you've listened to any episodes I've done in the past we talk about housing affordability index a good bit we want it to be 100 100 means that the median household income can afford the median priced home and I and it's been below 100 for a long time now I believe that it will actually go above at 2 or above 100 at some point in 2026 I'm not saying for the entire year I'm just saying that we'll have at least a month or two where it does that I think that we're going to mainly see that as a byproduct of incomes going up and and mortgage rates slightly coming down even if they just come down just a little bit right if we saw mortgage rates come down to 6% from 6.27 where they are right now that would probably get us to 100 right now so it's not that we're not that far away we're really close and we need to get there.

No. 8 new construction will remain cheaper than existing homes for the majority of 2026 I'm going to turn to Info Sparks here and I apologize I've been screen sharing this whole time I didn't I didn't mean to do that for those on YouTube maybe you find that interesting maybe not but I'm going to show you what has been happening with prices with new construction so here we have the median sales prices which you can see if you're watching on YouTube and you can see the purple or magenta whatever that is new construction price and then the blue existing home sale price historically new construction has always been more expensive than existing home sales well that trend reversed in went very briefly in 2021 kind of went back to normal and then in 2024 it reversed again and it's basically been reversed ever since then so we've got new construction is cheaper than resale homes right now and I believe that they will remain cheaper than resales for the majority of 2026 we're gonna continue to see you know there's so much new construction right now they're competing they're competing with each other they're competing with the market one of their main value propositions cause people most people are not wanting new construction right now for a variety of reasons and so what the builders have to do is they have to lower their prices and so they've done that you can see that prices you know you look at the magenta it topped out in 2022 and prices have come down since then that's not the case for existing home sales existing home sales have continued to go up since 2022 even in this environment and so I think new construction is going to continue to be the more affordable option between the two for the majority of 2026 let's look at showings to pending and I'm going to modify this a little bit I don't really like how it's showing this if you look on YouTube but regardless this this will let's see okay we'll just stick with this I believe that the number of showings until a home is under contract will increase to an average of 8+ showings for the year okay right now we're at seven and we've been at seven for most months in the year we did have you know January was nine showings February was eight March was eight but then most of the rest of the year we've been at seven showings until a home goes under contract here's the thing in a seller's market there's more showings in a buyer's market there's fewer showings and so the more of us the more it flips towards the seller the more showings we end up having and so this is a good metric of where the market is I do think you know 7 and below is where it starts to get that's kind of the line for a buyer's market is what it feels like I think we're going to see this hop up to eight and above for the upcoming year so your homes that you sell in 2026 I'm predicting they're going to have more showings than they had in 2025 last but not least I believe that two bedroom homes will lose value and I need to switch this back over to sales price I believe that two bedroom homes are going to lose value over the course of this year and four bedroom homes will see greater than 4% increase in the median sales price all right here's the thing two bedroom homes you look at you know if you're if you're looking on YouTube I've got a chart up here in Info Sparks you can see two bedroom three bedroom four bedroom two bedroom homes have really they have continued to go up in value but they've really stalled out in in recent years and three bedroom has a bit as well if we're gonna be honest really a lot of what we've seen pushing home prices up is four bedroom homes and I think that that's going to continue I think two bedroom homes are going to actually see their median sales price go down in 2026 and four bedroom homes are going to see the median sales price go up by a lot by 4%and I think that that's going to drive much of the market in Greenville and then you know three bedroom homes will continue to go up as well so currently four bedroom homes the past 12 months have gone up 3.4% two bedroom homes have not gone up in value at all the past 12 months I'm saying that next year they're gonna go down in value if you're curious three bed if you're just listening and you and you can't see it three bedroom homes went up 2.2% the past 12 months and so I'm not gonna make any predictions on three bedrooms that's hard to predict but I am gonna make predictions on the twos and the fours and we'll see it'll be exciting to track all of this and to see what exactly happens there there's a lot to consider but those are my bold predictions for 2026 I want to get 10 out of 10 correct actually I want to get 9 out of 10 correct I don't want that Greenville County Airbnb one to be true I think it will be true but I don't want it to be true so hopefully I'll get 9 out of 10 you guys can look back and be like wow he's a wizard he was just wrong about Greenville County cause Greenville County actually did the right thing for once that would be great and I hope that that's what happens thank you guys so much for watching listening thank you for watching and listening for this entire year if you're one of those that have been listening the entire year thank you really really appreciate all of you listeners you guys are always fantastic I get so many messages and comments on social media and what not and it warms my heart and it's been a great year of podcasting for all of you guys we got much more planned for 2026 It's gonna be a busy year I'm gonna be traveling a good bit I'm on the South Carolina Association of Realtors Leadership Academy this year that's gonna involve monthly travel and just kind of preparing people for leadership within the Realtor Association and in addition to that, I've got other things going on it's gonna be a busy year but I am going to continue to produce weekly episodes for you guys and I hope that you guys enjoy it and I hope that you have a blessed and incredible 2026 thank you so much again for watching and listening please like, rate, review subscribe look in the contact in look for my contact information in the show notes if you need a realtor in this area in the Greenville area and we will talk again in 2026 see you guys next year!