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 local real estate needs just a reminder as always please like rate review subscribe anything like that that can help support the show and to make sure you don't miss future episodes those are the things I ask of you guys if you're on YouTube leave me a little comment next time I log in I will try to take note of that and respond to it and that's it that's all I ask from you guys so if you could do that I would greatly appreciate it today I want to discuss with you guys the best kept secrets in the upstate of South Carolina now I wanna clarify what kind of an episode this is gonna be okay first off I'm not saying that these are necessarily best kept secrets from locals okay some low some people that are if you're local to Greenville you're gonna be like I kind of already knew that for at least some of these if not all of these but if you're not local to Greenville some of these might come as a surprise to you basically I'm gonna be focusing on specific areas of Greenville and the upstate in general that I feel like people tend to forget about for one reason or the other and it's gonna be a wide range of areas a wide range of price points and personally I think that each of these areas has a different reason why people are just kind of forgetting about these areas why they're not generating the buzz that perhaps they should and some of these areas again you might disagree with me you might be like yeah I'm hearing about that area all the time but I have my own reasons for believing why these might be some of the best kept secret areas of the upstate of South Carolina so let's jump right in and I'm gonna go ahead just to make this interactive I'm going to screen share if you're looking on YouTube I just show you Google Maps here and so that way you know if you're not local to the area you can kind of get a sense of of what I'm talking about or at least where these areas are that I'm talking about and my number one and that I should I shouldn't say number one but the first in my list of the top 10 areas that I think are best kept secrets in the upstate of South Carolina this is not in any particular order so it's not number one or whatever we're not gonna build up to anything I'm just gonna talk about a bunch of different areas Landrum South Carolina okay right up there near the really near the North Carolina border in fact I recently I showed a fun little piece of land up here that was basically it was right on the North Carolina line and also straddled Greenville and Spartanburg counties in fact there was the old historical stone marker that used to be the Count County Line basically the stone that marked where the border was between counties right there on the property so that was pretty cool that was a cool experience we actually just walked right across from South Carolina into North Carolina without really there was no way to even know that you were walking across and it was all part of the same land but Landrum itself is just a very unique area not you know I just discussed a lot about borders where it borders that that's really not what makes it unique it's up there it's near the mountains it's near lake lore and some other little lakes that are around that area and it just it has an adorable main street if you're looking on YouTube you can see I pulled up just a very cute little main street mountain views all over the place just a lot of really unique features in Landrum as a whole pull up here a beautiful picture of like you know what looks like an old farmhouse with some clouds a crewing there's some fantastic little mom and pop restaurants up there and there's just a lot to like about Landrum now this is this is an area that you go if you typically you want acreage you want land you want horses a lot of people up here have horses in fact when I went on that property funny enough some people just kind of showed up on horses just all of a sudden on the property and I guess they had some kind of an agreement with the owner that they could basically ride their horses on the property as a cut through if they basically mode the property so really really just beautiful area spaced out cute downtown close to a lot of things you you've got you know you're not far from again the North Carolina border there's some stuff to do up there as well you're not far from multiple different lakes Campobello which is also a nice town if you want if you need like if you don't want the mom and pop thing you want like chain stuff you can go down to Campobello there's some you know fast food and chain restaurants down there not too far away and really Landrum is not particularly far from anywhere in the upstate you can you can get there I get there via Highway 14 if I'm going that way that's a that's a great drive you can also get up go through Campobello itself on 1 76 also Interstate 26 takes you through Landrum not through downtown Landrum but takes you through Landrum itself as well so very accessible very underrated a lot of people have never heard of Landrum a lot of people end up finding Landrum because they're looking for something around you know the Tryon area or near Hendersonville and they realize it's just all very expensive and if they just go a little bit a little bit further south into South Carolina it ends up getting a little bit cheaper and so and so that's how they land on Landrum I always enjoy going up there I've had a few closings there over the years and just a great little spot next on my list is the west side of Greer now if you're looking at Google Maps I'm going to kind of consider this to be if you if you see Brookhaven kind of west of the airport of the GSP airport this little pocket over here that includes Super Road Dillard Road Old Spartanburg Road Brushy Creek Devinjer it's kind of where Greer Taylor's and Greenville all kind of come together and this little pocket of Greer is underrated because it is technically a part of Greer but it's just super duper accessible to everywhere in the upstate and I mean there's a lot of there's a lot of track built neighborhoods in this area but there's also a lot of I feel like I'm echoing a bit here let me readjust my mic there's a lot of track built homes in this area but there are also just a lot of established homes as well let me see if I can maybe do a Google Street View to kind of show you guys what I'm talking about let's see here where do I wanna go on here let's try up here yeah I did not pick the right area here to drop my pin let me go further down here alright this should this should get us what we need going down to Devonshire Road in Greer and so here you can kind of get to see you know get a sense of all right there is and Devonshire Road is a busy road but you can see you know here's a neighborhood right here with homes that are not cookie cutter looking homes you keep going down this road again another neighborhood that's like that as well over here and you keep going and there's just a lot to like about this area of Greer again you notice there's mature trees everywhere it you know a a lot of these neighborhoods don't have HOA a lot of them do but a lot of them don't you can you can tell usually by how dense the neighborhood is whether it has an HOA or not but this is an area that if you're looking for established neighborhoods mature trees things of that nature and then you just want accessibility right you want to be close you don't have to be near downtown Greenville per se but you want to be you know kind of close to everything you know this area is that right you've got BMW over here you've got Michelin which is not too far from this area as well you've got the mall over here you've got Costco over here Woodruff Road shopping and that vicinity as well and downtown Greer is just a little bit north Downtown Greenville a little bit west it it's really central to everything and just has a lot to offer and there's shopping not in this immediate vicinity but you've got some little shopping off of Old Spartanburg Road grocery stores and what not or you can go more towards Greer and there is there are some options over there as well and so it's just very accessible to a lot of different things this isn't an area that people typically target but eventually once they're looking at all of the options and they see just how affordable of a home that you can get in that area in comparison to some other parts of Greenville County and given that it's so central to everything it just makes sense for a lot of people so the west side of Greer No.3 on my list is Mauldin is interesting because Malden is kind of a non incorporated kind of area which I guess I found out recently that some people think that that non incorporated means that it's not that there's no law enforcement or anything like that that's completely not true in fact Malden does have their own police and there are you know other they have their own fire departments and all of that that's not what a non incorporated means but we're not going to get into all the details on that right now but Malden traditionally has been kind of a cut through kind of area as you can see 2 76 cut straight through it that's one of the main ways that you can get from this section of the upstate into or near downtown Greenville and that's basically the main street that cuts through Malden and then there's also West Butler Road which is a major cut through that cuts through Mauldin as well but because Mauldin doesn't really have this identity right there's not really a true downtown you know if we're looking on the map you know Mauldin does have where Main Street and Butler intersect there is stuff to do here right you've got you got chick fil a that the new Dutch Brothers coffee that they just put in you've got obviously Summer Moon Coffee is right there pickle yard which I have not yet been to which has a 4.9 out of 5 rating ace hardware you know there there are you can get a lot done in this little section of Malden in the downtown area but this isn't like a walkable downtown right there's no parks why I shouldn't say there's no parks there are some parks around here but again when you're comparing it to like downtown Greer which is very walkable downtown tr very walkable downtown Greenville very walkable even I would include Simpsonville Fountain in they're all very walkable Mauldin is not a walkable downtown you drive there you drive to where you want to go and then when you're done there when you're done in that area you drive to the next location even if it's within Malden that's just the way it is but that being said because of kind of the lack of identity and I've been telling you guys if you've been listening to this podcast for years you've been hearing me say this for years Malden has great value great bang for the buck because of all the things that I just described and there's more to it than just that I'm not gonna get into get into all the details but I'm just gonna say that when you're 15 minutes to downtown which depending on what part of Mauldin you're in might be even less than that but you're very close to downtown Greenville you're very close to downtown Simpsonville there's great shopping in this area you're very close to Lake Conestee Nature Preserve which is one of the best just like all natural parks that we have to walk around and walk your dog and it's got a great playground and baseball fields and all of that you've got Woodruff Road shopping right up here like it is one of the most central parts of Greenville County and yet it is also one of the most affordable parts of Greenville County as well that makes Mauldin to me still one of the best kept secrets in Greenville County and in the upstate as a whole even though I've been saying it's one of the best kept secrets now for years it's crazy moving on to No. 4 is Powdersville now I'm going to go ahead and pull that up on Google Maps here so you can see Powdersville is another one of these locations that's not really a location it it's kind of this non incorporated kind of concept as well but Powdersville has been an area that has been really criminally underrated in my opinion for a very very long time it's starting to get more on people's radar because some of the schools in that area I'm telling you people are really clamoring to get into but additionally look again how central you are you've got downtown Greenville right there you've got downtown easily right over here by the way downtown easily there's a lot like you don't hear people talk much about downtown easily there's some great stuff to do in downtown easily now I you know the little silos little food hall outdoor food hall that they have over there is really cool there there's a lot of I'm just gonna reference that one thing and then move on but there's a lot more going on in downtown Easley and I'm very optimistic about that but then you know you've also got Interstate 85 right here right by Powdersville can get you know whether you're wanting to go down towards like Hartwell towards Anderson whether you're wanting to go north up towards BMW towards Michelin or Spartanburg whatever the case may be Pattersonville you can get anywhere you want quickly now here's the complaint about Powdersville is this little section where Anderson Road kind of meets the main drag that goes through here 1:53 this is a rough area to navigate like let's just be honest additionally most of these places around here are more chain oriented kind of places now that has gotten a lot better there are you know not just all chain places to eat at now in Powdersville that it wasn't that way 10 years ago now you're starting to see some more interesting and better places to eat at but you've got some you've got the Walmart Supercenter you've got angles to shop at everything is right there super duper central and this is an area that you know when I first got into the business I wasn't hearing 10 years ago 10 over 10 years ago I wasn't hearing many people clamoring about Powdersville it was still very under the radar now you start to hear people clamor about it but it's only the people that have been here for the most part for a while and so it's still a really well kept secret in comparison to many things alright No. 5 on my list this one might surprise some people but I wanted to mix it up a little bit Boiling Springs Boiling Springs in Spartanburg County in my opinion is one of the best kept secrets in the upstate and from this very specific perspective and I'm trying to see if there are any yeah OK there are some I'm curious what pictures there are on Google about Boiling Springs there's a there's a few interesting pictures on here if you click on Google Maps but what's interesting to me about Boiling Springs and you can kind of already see you know there's a Publix a Walmart an ace other shopping right there but what's really standing out to me about Boiling Springs is affordability for a lot of people that are needing you know their first home or whatever and just really constrained on a budget it's been a lot of new construction in this area which maybe you're trying to avoid a lot of people are but if you're a first time home buyer that can be a great opportunity for you and again they're shopping all in that area you're not far from downtown Spartanburg which by the way if you've not been to downtown Spartanburg check it out it's definitely worth seeing the new baseball field there that they have is incredible and there's tons of great food in downtown Spartanburg as well it's a very walkable downtown too and that's very close to Boiling Springs but also it's Boiling Springs is not far from again 85 as well so wherever you wanna go you can get there quite quickly and then you know you've got a Lake Bowen just to the north if you're into lakes you got Lake Blaylock just to the east and then again I've already mentioned Landrum Campobello it's really not that far from getting up there and then you're into the mountains so a lot to like about that Bowling Springs area particularly if you're looking for an affordable price point sort of home and you're OK with there being a lot of development which there is currently in that area No.6 on my list is the fountain in Gray Court area it's funny I someone asked me recently cause I was talking about Gray Court they were like what is what is Gray Court like what is it and I was just like well it's a town but it's a very very rural part of Lawrence County so somewhere in here Greenville County becomes Lawrence County let's actually let's just look that up real quick Lawrence County there we go so basically half of Fountain Inn is in Greenville County half of it's in Lawrence County all of Gray Court is in Lawrence County although Gray Court is kind of more the kind of pushing the some of the more the northern most part of Lawrence County but if you're looking for land looking to be a little bit off the beaten path looking for a little bit more affordable price point but also still want to be able to get somewhere fast want to be able to get to Greenville or Simpsonville or Mauldin or wherever north of here very quickly this is the area to go cause look 3 85 goes right through this area Interstate 3 85 which is the highway that goes right into downtown Greenville it also connects to 1 85 which takes you around the other way it also connects to 85 and so there is nowhere that you can't get to quickly if you live in fountain or Gray Court just by virtue of those highways that that are right there those interstate highways they get you everywhere and yet you can feel like you are out in the middle of nowhere owning property out there it's really it's really a special and definitely underrated part of the upstate and more and more I find people wanting to move down here maybe not even targeting it but when they describe to me what it is that they're looking for it's like we may end up in that fountain in Gray Court area increasingly I'm finding more and more people moving down there and just getting a property with acreage and all of that or maybe they just need an affordable price point there are options there too Fountain Inn Downtown Fountain Inn super cute not it is walkable it's small you know we're not talking about a particularly large downtown but they've got some cute little restaurants I've heard the farmers market there is quite good and they have you know a lot of good events throughout the year here you can see if you're on Google Maps you can see they've got a very cute little main street and so I'm very bullish for that area and then you know you're very close to Simpsonville which has tons of shopping tons of options and also a lot of restaurants as well so you really can't go wrong in that area number seven this one's a lot different than the others that we've talked about I'm gonna talk about the North Main area now I can imagine that some people are gonna be like okay North Maine is not one of the best kept secrets in the upstate here's what I'm gonna say about that okay so North Maine is one of the most established parts of Greenville both Greenville County and Greenville City it's very close to downtown some would argue is downtown I would argue it's just outside of downtown but there are obviously some very very expensive multi million dollar homes in this area and for that reason I think some people would say you know North Main surely you don't consider North Main to be a best kept secret and I say actually yes I do and the reason is I believe it has actually become underrated I think that there's so much people are looking for the next best thing in Greenville and so many people are wanting to be right downtown that they have forgotten and I'm just if you're on Google Maps I'm just going down North Main proper but the North Main neighborhood goes throughout all of these different areas all these all these little streets that connect to North Main proper if you're looking on Google Maps just look for where it says North Main and then basically everything south of there is kind of that North Main neighborhood I love to go through here you know with my family if we if we do the driving around looking at Christmas lights kind of thing every year this is a great Christmas lights kind of neighborhood again just a lot of it's just a very established area with old mature trees very walkable a a mix of old homes mixed in with some new homes but it's just an area that once you once you see it you get it it's like okay this is this is like the classic like upscale suburbia but within arguably walkable to downtown Greenville some people would say that it's not really walkable for them it's walkable for me in fact I have walked just to give you a reference point I have walked down Rutherford Road from where you see on Google Maps where it says Willow Heights I have walked down Rutherford Road and down North Main all the way into Greenville before just to see what that walk was like it's about I think about 5ish miles something like that and the Rutherford Road stretch was awful but then once I got to North Main cause that's a very busy road once I got to North Main it's great just very peaceful you know a lot of people out there mowing their lawn just having a good time and well I I guess some of them that were mowing their lawn were having a good time but if you're looking for an area of Greenville that is more upscale that has more of you know those established homes whether newer or whether maybe even you know 100ish years old this is an area that I feel like has been forgotten as all of these other trendy areas have become more and more popular and I think again North Maine is becoming underrated and as such I'm considering it one of the best kept secrets and I'm not just saying that because I think that I have had people come to me looking for parts of Greenville County that when they say what they're looking for I'm like you're looking for North Main and they have no idea what I'm talking about how did that happen in some way shape or form you know it's not that they hadn't heard of other neighborhoods just for whatever reason they hadn't heard of North Main specifically and so something has happened over the past few years that has made this area underrated and as such I feel like it deserves our attention No. 8 we're gonna go over to the Reedville slash Moore area of Spartanburg County this is so Reedville is an is an interesting little town historic little town there's really not a whole lot of homes in Reedville proper just the way it is it is subdivided it it's not a large area at all but this is an area that more and more people are starting to realize okay actually I would like to I would like to live in this area again we keep talking about centrality very central this is the west side of Spartanburg County not too far west and you're in Greenville County you've got BMW right there you've got the airport GSP right there downtown Spartanburg right up here downtown Greenville right over here Woodruff Ridge shopping right over here like everything is right there now Reidville proper and more proper over here but more continues out you know all the way over here as well not a whole lot of shopping in this specific area but with that comes a lot of times these homes are I there you know there was a neighborhood last year and more that I sold a home for that if it I sold in the low two hundreds if it had been in Greenville that exact same home would have been probably in the high fours low five hundreds like the value for this area is just tremendous and you know a lot of people are you know are really thrilled with the schools in this area it's a well run school district and as well there's quite a few and this isn't the case for everything because there's a lot of developers that have come into this area but there's still a lot of homes in this area that have nice yards big lot sizes all of that the sort of things that people are looking for right now and so that section of Spartanburg County extremely underrated No.9 on my list this one might feel like it's gonna come out of nowhere but I'm gonna reference pumpkin town alright pumpkin town listen if you're looking for a rural area that is up there in the mountains and you're just you're away from everything away from you don't need a lot of great shopping you don't need to you know to have a grocery store two minutes away Pumpkin Town is simply an amazing area and there's a couple of pictures on Google Maps that that kind of you know give you a sense of what you're talking about but you can see just by looking on here you know Google Maps has horseback waterfall tours just a it's just a hop skip and a jump away from quote unquote downtown Pumpkin Town it's really not a downtown but you got Table Rock State Park right there Caesars Head Park just north of there and it is like this is not an area that I get to go to every day in in terms of my job cause there's not a ton of housing around here a lot of the homes in this area again are on acreage right this is an area that people go out they do their the you know they have their mini farms and they have or maybe their legit farms and or they just have hunting land or just a home on a lot of acreage like you can just see you put it on the what layer is it the satellite layer you can see there's not a whole lot of homes out here so I don't end up getting out here super often but when I do I love the drive it's just beautiful it's a it's a wonderful place to go to and I've never seen any pumpkins out there so I don't know why it's called Pumpkin Town perhaps there's someone that grows them that I don't know about but regardless this section of the upstate is truly truly phenomenal and you know you could include sunset in there you could include Cleveland you know just kind of this this whole this whole area over here is just a tremendous area if you want to be out in the country more up there towards the mountains less light pollution less noise less everything Pumpkin Town and the surrounding area is where it's at No.10 last but not least I have southern Greenville County and by that I'm defining south of 1 85 Interstate 1 85 this is an area that I almost never hear people ask to go to but I'm telling you this area has the things I've been harping on right are often times for these underrated or best kept secret areas are accessibility feels like you're in the middle of nowhere but you're really not you're close to everything for most of them not Pumpkin Town you genuinely are in the middle of nowhere in Pumpkin Town but you get that rural feel the often times large lot sizes some of these had an affordability component there's some affordable housing down here too but there's also luxury housing down here there's a great mix of homes in this area and I'm telling you if you're if you're willing to if you don't need to be right near a a particular thing this area of Greenville County is phenomenal like it is a great area let me see if I can show you guys if there's anything on Street View that I can kind of point out to you so you can see right now like I just dropped the pin and it's immediately a super rural area and that's the case with a lot of this area so you know I'm passing by a brick ranch nothing super crazy but it's a brick ranch with that's most likely on a ton of land this is you know probably over here next across the street from it looks like probably what would have been a nicer home although I can't even see the home it's so offset from the road and just a mix again this is like an area that feels super duper rural but you are right there by Interstate 1 85 that can take you boom within just a few minutes to Greenville or you can if you want to avoid paying tolls which 1 85 is a toll road you can hit up 25 and then 29 straight into Greenville there there's all sorts of different options or you can go this way and go towards Simpsonville again it's just super convenient to a lot of areas and it's just it's beautiful down there there's no mountains there can be some hills in in some areas but it's there's no mountains like we have in some of the other areas there's no like true lakes like you know you get this watershed for reservoir you know you're not going there for boating or anything like that so it's a little bit different than some of these other areas that I've mentioned but if you're okay with that if you're just wanting larger lot sizes a little bit more rural but super convenient to everything that little portion of Greenville County beneath south of 1 85 has a lot to offer and has affordable homes and luxury homes sometimes right next to each other it kind of depends on the area that that you're talking about specifically because it can change very quickly in this from one street to the next right because there's not a lot of you know this really wasn't zoned a whole lot back in the day so people were just building homes however they wanted to this is before we had all these developers coming in and putting in these humongous developments I mean I'm gonna pull up satellite view here and you can see you know here's a little development nothing too huge another one over here another one down here but it's not like some parts you know when you go over here to this section and I'm looking more towards Simpsonville like you can see how dramatic of a difference it is there's developments everywhere it's like insane but this little pocket just beneath 1 85 a lot more a lot calmer a lot less going on and for some people that's a really big deal so I hope that that was interesting and helpful for everyone I need to figure out how now to turn off oh here we go trying to turn off screen sharing this has been an issue lately with zoom that it makes it like excessively difficult for me to turn off the screen sharing I don't I don't know what's happening now who knows but I'm just gonna end it with that you guys are just gonna have to continue to see me screen sharing here because my zoom is not cooperating for me but hopefully that was helpful for you guys if you have any questions about any of those specific areas my contact information is in the show notes feel free to reach out to me with any of those questions if you need a realtor in this area please reach out to me for that as well again my phone number's right in there you can shoot me a text if I've never heard from you before shoot me a text be happy to chat with you and if you like this content I've got a lot more interesting content coming up please like rate review subscribe all of those good things we will talk to you guys again next time!