Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of Selling Greenville your favorite real estate podcast here in Greenville South Carolina I'm your host as always Stan McCune Realtor right here in Greenville and you can find all of my contact information in the show notes if you need to reach out to me for any of your real estate needs and just a reminder as always please like the show okay if you're on YouTube hit the little like button just takes a second if you're on Spotify leave a rating or review Apple Podcast same thing but most importantly on all platforms please subscribe to make sure that you don't miss future episodes and also if you need to realtor my contact information as I already said it's in the show notes alright today I've got to be I've got to go through this quick because I have a bunch of stuff going on right now I've actually got a clothing that I've got to get to here in just a few minutes so that takes priority but I always come out with weekly content for you guys and I'm not gonna miss this week and so I'm in my office right now if you notice a slightly different background than normal if you notice I'm kind of looking more down at you versus being at eye level that's because I don't I'm not in my studio like I normally am but hopefully you guys can hear everything just fine and hopefully if you're actually watching on YouTube you can see me just fine as well and don't feel too intimidated by me looking down at you that's just the angle of my camera at the moment but I want to talk to you guys about what you need to know when moving to the Greenville Spartanburg Anderson metro area the upstate what we what we call the upstate of South Carolina what are some things that you need to know and I've got 15 different things I could have kept going but again we're short for time here so we got 15 different things that we're going to talk about for people moving to the upstate of South Carolina and I'm and this is going to be wide ranging dealing some things with real estate some things more with just broader just questions that I get or comments that I hear from people that move here so it'll just be a wide ranging kind of show but let's dive right in with No. 1 I have and this is something a lot of people don't realize you'll need a variety of clothes for roughly three to four seasons okay now a a bone that I have to pick with some of the people that are down here is there's an insistence that yes we do in fact have four distinct seasons in Greenville I would push back on that a little bit because the spring season here sometimes doesn't happen okay let's just be honest sometimes we skip straight from winter to summer and so and spring and fall here are very similar in terms of in terms of temperatures in terms of just how it feels even in terms of rain there's not like a substantially it's not like spring is really rainy and fall is really dry it's not like that but there are times when it gets very cold usually we have you know a week maybe two weeks when it goes down into the 20s or even colder and of course we have a stretch usually of a few weeks where it is 90 or above we've been several weeks now like that this summer usually the month of July is super duper hot usually the first half of August is super hot although actually last week we had a stretch that was pretty pretty cool but it it's gotten back up to being super hot again and then towards the end of July you start to feel that fall coolness start to settle back in and I'm looking forward to that but be prepared you will need clothing for three to four seasons it's not it's not Florida OK it's not Florida where you know you're gonna be wearing shorts eleven months out of the year in Greenville you will have to have jackets hoodies and the like for three four five months of the year and you just need to be prepared for that No. 2 on this list under no circumstances should you try to get by without pest control listen if you're living in a house if you if you own your house you're gonna have to get pest control and here's the thing termites you have to do termite treatments I recommend termite bonds highly highly recommend that you do that you don't want your house eaten by termites don't do that and similar you know there are other creatures like that like powder post beetles and the like make sure that you have a pest control company that is treating for wood destroying organisms like that but also we've got those palmetto bugs OK and people at from out of town think they're roaches yeah they're basically in the same family but these are a different a different creature all together they're humongous they're like an inch and a half long under very strange weather conditions they will fly which is very disturbing it's like the stuff of horror movies but mostly they just walk around like little terrorists thinking that they own the place and in addition to that we have a lot of ants as well and I'm not trying to make it sound like this is the Amazon rainforest this is just the reality of living in the south with bugs stink bugs as well now the stink bugs whatever they're easy to get rid of the palmetto bugs and the ants my understanding is they take basically the same sort of treatment to basically keep out and so that's what I recommend doing keep all of these different things out hire a pest control company don't skip on that okay that you might think that you can DIY it maybe you can I found that I can't I hire it out and I am totally good to go with that No. 3 on here older homes will likely have power lines that are above ground the newer homes they bury those utilities all utilities are buried but in the older homes you need to be prepared there's going to be above ground power that power is going to be connected probably to your roof gable and then down to your meter from there and that's just a thing like they're not gonna come in and bury all these power lines at this point like so be prepared pay attention to the trees around you pay attention to critters that might be nesting around those power lines or might even be gnawing at them for whatever reason that that's pretty rare but it can happen and just pay attention you know all it takes is one bad storm to you know I discovered a few years ago that the that the main power connector at my house it was like really it was it was hanging on a piece of my gable that was really loose I had to resecure that and so that's something that you need to be aware of and I've since I've had to cut back limbs and what not just to make sure that something doesn't fall down and pull that power line off and result in me having no power cause I experienced what no power was like during Hurricane Helene and I don't like it I like having power No.4 homes might be on public water and public sewer okay obviously if you're in the city it's gonna be public water public sewer but you might also be on public water and septic or you might be on well water septic if you get out into more rural areas and sometimes very close to each other there are two homes that are on two very different things and here's the thing is are one of these things better than the other not inherently not inherently some people all they want is public utilities and some people all they want is to be off the grid in fact I just showed a house earlier today where a question came up of whether there might be a well water somewhere on the property because they wanted that in the event that you know there was some kind of a of a disruption in utilities they have that well water accessible I would say all of these different types of water and sewer options they all have upsides and downsides if you're not comfortable or familiar with one or the other that's okay I can work through that with you and I can help you to understand it the least common out of all these is the well water right that's typically in a really really rural area mountainous area whatever where they just don't have the ability to bring public water in but sewer and septic I mean you could be somewhere where you think it's gonna be sewer and septic or vice versa and you just need to be prepared for that and to understand the upsides and the downsides No. 5 foundations these this question comes up a lot what kind of foundations do you have well we have a few obviously most of the new construction right now is slab foundations but we also have crawl space foundations the nicer homes the older homes in more hilly areas they're going to have a cross bases and then we also have basement foundations as well although I would say that the vast majority of basement homes built the past 70 years are walkout basements so it's not like you know up north where you have that you know go down below ground you're just like completely below grade most of the basement homes that have been built the past 70 years are walkout style and that can confuse some people but especially if it's a finished basement it is almost certainly going to be a walkout style basement or maybe a basement that leads into the garage something like that and if you really want a basement home just be prepared if you're moving from another area you might not find the kind of basement homes that are in your area and you know as far as the types of to get away from the basement part we're talking about slabs versus crawl spaces which one of those is better I get that question all the time I personally don't have a preference it really depends on a lot of factors obviously if you're going to be renovating your home it's much better to be on a crawl space but a crawl space requires maintenance you have to have vapor barriers down there's more likely a greater likelihood the termites go get in there is more likelihood of mold getting in there so there's all sorts of things that a crawl space has that a slab is just simpler but there are some people that are anti slab people they think they're not structurally sound whatever the case may be I don't necessarily agree with all of that I've lived in all of these different types of homes and I've sold all of these different types of homes to different people so if you have a strong opinion that's fine but different people have different opinions on these things No.6 not real estate related but something you should know is that people carry guns around here okay we are an open carry state you can get a concealed weapons permit down here and that gives you so that gives you the ability to open carry I shouldn't have said we're an open carry state we're a state where you can carry without a permit I think I'm I might have used the wrong lingo there for a second but people do carry guns around here you can carry without a permit if it's concealed ironically if you get then a concealed weapons permit then you can open carry kind of backwards but whatever but just be prepared for that we are a this is a 2nd Amendment state Greenville and Spartanburg are 2nd Amendment cities and you're going to see that and you're either going to be very comfortable or very uncomfortable with it one or the other but for the most part people the gun owners around here are very responsible and I have not personally ever run into an issue where I felt threatened by anyone with any kind of firearms or anything like that number seven the drivers are bad and I am not going to stop talking about I've talked about a lot on this show drivers here are really bad okay and listen I talk to people from all around the country that moved to the Greenville area and they all agree the drivers are bad okay and I've had some people that love to say no it's all of the out of town folks coming in here they're the bad drivers listen I I've done a lot of driving today I've been up to Landrum I've been down to Hickory Tavern okay that's a wide range of the upstate I basically saw from the North Carolina border all the way down to basically the edge of the upstate of South Carolina depending on how you think about the upstate of South Carolina so I traverse the entire area today I was behind some of the slowest drivers the whole the whole time I was driving they were all pickup trucks now are you gonna tell me that someone from New York City moved down here with a pickup truck I've driven in New York City there are very few pickup trucks in New York City it's not enough room for it and so all these all these tropes that it's all these people moving from New York and Chicago and what not that they're causing all of these bad driving and all the bad driving and what not I don't believe it because every time I see a bad driver there are some tales that they are locals OK I'll and I'll just leave it at that and one of the things I'll just say real quick drives me crazy can people just stop putting on their hazards when you know visibility is bad we get a really bad downpour rain and this isn't just specifically a South Carolina thing this is a south thing people put their hazards on in order to to make it more obvious more visible where they are to other people the problem is those hazards are the same lights that are your turn signals and so if those people ever want to turn you don't know that they have their turn signal on because their hazards are on I'd rather them not have their hazards on but be able to use their turn signals and that's just another pet peeve of mine but I digress just be prepared be very careful driving around here and don't even think about going out when the weather is bad I've already said those people with their hazards that's one thing if we get snow around here the city the county everything shuts down you don't want to be out there driving with Southerners in the snow trust me I've seen some awful things happen when people try to go out in the snow No.8 we have some major events like fall for Greenville which is a one of the largest food festivals in the US Euphoria another food festival artist Fair one of the largest art festivals in the US and they're all fantastic festivals they draw huge crowds to the area and in fact that would be my biggest complaint is that they're just there's so many crowds you have to really be strategic if you if you don't just want to get inundated by the crowds but on the flip side I'll just say just not everything in in this area is great Greenville's still a smaller metro area as a Spartanburg and as a result we're still in my opinion working to draw more talent for concerts comedy shows etcetera we do get good talent it's just not as consistent as like in a bigger city like Atlanta constantly has great concerts great comedy shows you know well known comedians and the like Greenville it's more of the exception than the rule but I do think that that's going to continue to improve I went last year Lincoln Park came to Greenville for the first time that's a band that I listen to a lot in high school still listen to them and so and they're a huge band to this day and so more and more I think Nate Bargatze came to Greenville recently he's been here a few times pretty well known comedian has several Netflix specials so we're getting more of that we need more but we do have some really really fantastic outdoor events like the ones I mentioned before walkability No. 9 here the walkable interesting parts of downtown Greenville I think and this actually might surprise you if you know Greenville you probably already think okay downtown Greenville super walkable actually it it's actually in the process of expanding dramatically we're about to have that the County Square project is going to be a humongous expansion to the walkability of the city the Gateway project look these up if you don't know what I'm talking about I don't have time to get into them today but the gateway project over there by the Bon Secours Wellness Arena is going to create an entirely new walkable area of downtown downtown is about to the walkable parts of downtown in the next 10 years are going to it probably gonna expand by about 50% and that's not a joke I've seen data on that that's insane okay and I just had some friends that that visited Greenville after having gone to college here years and years ago and they hadn't really seen downtown I think it's been seven years since they had last seen downtown and they were amazed they were just like this just feels like a big city now and I don't you know me I've just I've lived here for 22 years like you don't realize how much it's changed right it's just changing all the time but people that have gone away and come back many years later are just like yeah there's a lot of changes and I'm saying if you leave and come back in 10 years you will not recognize the city and I think it's gonna be for a good thing I know some people don't like that they don't like growth they don't like changes but these are good changes and I think that they will that these changes will spread the concentration of downtown as well so that there's more parking less crowded sidewalks all of that not that I mean for a city for downtown Greenville is very has great parking ability and usually the sidewalks are not crazy unless it's you know one of those major events but I think it's gonna get even better here in the in the upcoming years I kind of reference this before but No. 10 here you should be aware of people are very uptight about growth right now housing developments data centers land sales etcetera you just need to be aware of that particularly if you're looking for land okay if you're looking to purchase land understand that the locals are going to be all up in your business if you talk to a neighbor they're gonna be like what are you gonna use this land for and if you're like oh I'm gonna build a few houses on it you you've already said too much don't say that people don't want to hear that there there's an anti growth sentiment right now throughout the upstate because of all the changes which I've already alluded to here unfortunately you can't stop the train of growth and if you do the what you get is much worse than growth so it's gonna keep happening people are gonna keep moving down here it's a beautiful city great climate great restaurants great things to do everything so just be prepared like you know what I what I don't like to hear is I don't like to hear people move here and then say we need to stop the growth I heard that from someone that moved here from Marietta Georgia a few years ago and like right after he moved here he was like we need to stop the growth just like I'm sorry but if this is the problem you're a part of that problem right so it's kind of an absurd thing and unfortunately it's sentiment that is pretty widespread right now among a lot of people number eleven to go back to downtown Greenville Downtown Spartanburg it's really not easy to buy a house in a walkable part of either of those cities Downtown Greenville Downtown Spartanburg there's just not a whole lot of houses right there's townhomes there's condos there's apartments but most of the detached houses are on the outskirts of these downtowns and they might be bikeable but there's not a ton of walkable detached houses there are exceptions right there are a few exceptions but for the most part if you're looking to move down here and you're like I want to buy a house in downtown Greenville how many like big downtowns do you know where you can just like buy a house right the ship has already sailed in Greenville it's condos townhomes apartments with just a handful of exceptions it's not that we don't have houses in downtown they just mostly been converted to commercial real estate at this point so again that's just something you need to be prepared for cater your expectations if you're really hoping to be downtown have a realistic viewpoint on what sort of home you will end up in in downtown number twelve Greenville is a big cycling town okay and this is I think kind of the word is out on this I don't think this is gonna be a shock to most people but it's a big cycling town if you like to cycle if you like to bike Greenville's a great place to do it we've got mountains and northern parts of the counties Greenville County Spartanburg County Pickens County all up there great hilly mountainous areas if you like that we've got various bike trails throughout the area that are fantastic they're nice and level and they the Greenville has in particular but also some of the other towns Spartanburg and some of the other ones as well have been good about putting in bike lanes as well that then become more and more increasingly common and you may not know this but one of the best cyclists in US history owns a hotel here not ironically called Hotel Domestique very intentionally called Hotel Domestique that's a cycling reference and it's owned by George Hink I can never pronounce the name right hankappy I believe is how it's pronounced I always pronounce it wrong but he co owns the Hotel Domestique great little boutique hotel in Travelers Rest right up near the North Carolina border and it's themed kind of it has a few different themes but cycling is one of the themes there they have a bicycle concierge and just a really cool spot if you like to cycle this this might be the town for you number thirteen traffic okay we already talked about the bad driving let's talk about traffic for a second if you come from a small town area you will think the traffic is bad you will that's just the reality of the situation my wife is from Dothan Alabama traffic here is way worse than Dothan Alabama but if you come from a large city you'll think traffic here is awesome if you come here from Atlanta you're gonna be amazed you'll be like there is no traffic here you come here from Chicago there is no traffic New York forget it no traffic in Greenville okay and so the reality is that most traffic it is it's really not bad in in my opinion as someone who I grew up as a kid in New Jersey I've lived here my entire adult life traffic in New Jersey was 100 times worse okay it took me an hour to go like 10 miles to school every morning I went to a private school you don't you just don't have that here you don't have anywhere unless there's some kind of an accident or something where it takes 10 miles or it takes an hour to go 10 miles however there are a few little arteries where traffic is bad you know the Wade Hampton all the traffic lights on Wade Hampton you know there's a little stretch of I eighty five that you know basically around exits 56 to 60 on Interstate 85 traffic is frequently bad one direction the other direction whatever going into downtown at five PM or out of downtown at five PM that's another one you know there's just there's very strategic things like that but nothing like the big cities so just be aware of that as well and again where you come from will make a difference in how you perceive that No.14 this comes up a lot people don't understand that home renovations down here can really be fast and loose and the reality is that most people that are flipping houses or maybe even living in their home and doing a renovation they don't pull permits and the county kind of turns a blind eye to that appraisers don't care they don't factor in whether permits were pulled and you don't have to bring a home up to code in order to sell it and so when people go into a renovated home sometimes they have expectations of all sorts of documentation and whatnot and oh well all of this needed to be brought up to code and it wasn't and it's just like technically it didn't need to happen now does that mean the county likes it that way no not necessarily but the county is not cracking down in a way that would be required in order to force everyone to pull permits and to bring things up to code and all of that and so for the time being it does feel for a lot of people like it's a little bit fast and loose when home renovations are done that doesn't mean it's done poorly that's where inspectors come into play and all of that that's where you know I have an eye for because I flip houses I have an eye for okay where corners cut does this look like they've done a good job etcetera and so you can't just rule out a house on the basis that there's not documentation on the on the renovation that was done or else you're gonna be ruling out every single house that's been updated alright No. 15 last but not least there are a few different types of houses and this is helpful for you to understand the area from a real estate standpoint so there's mill houses right Greenville Spartanburg were a huge textile hub for a long time and so there's little Mills all over the place that are no longer functioning a lot of them have been converted into like co work spaces or like condos lofts etcetera but around those they built these mill villages and that's one of the core I identifying features of real estate around here these mill houses all over the place some areas they've been extensively renovated other areas they're not renovated at all maybe doing not so well but that's one of the types of house that you see a lot another one that you see a lot just the custom home style suburbs of the 60s 70s and 80s these are you know you go into a nice area with mature trees you've got the brick ranches there might be some split levels there might be some other styles of homes two story and all the homes look different maybe there's there will be okay that home on that side of the neighborhood is basically the same style as this home on the other side of the neighborhood but it's not like in the old days when or sorry in it's not like now where they do all the homes they look just about exactly the same those suburbs in the 60s 70s and 80s tended to be more custom in fact a lot of times the homes were built by different builders and so that's another style that you see that's very popular right now people love those because it tends to be bigger yards mature trees mature neighborhoods well built homes all of that the third one that we that we have here is the cookie cutter suburbs but the ones that have the larger yards that were built in the 90s and the odds as they say the zeros the odds the 2 those are those can be great options as well for a lot of people like there's a lot of really really nice neighborhoods that fit that fit that category that that were built in the 90s and the ought's and so you'll see those all over the places tend to also be you know neighborhoods that have more mature trees there you'll start to see more like vinyl siding and things of that nature versus brick with the older homes but a lot a lot of great options to choose from there then as you get into the 20 those were built in the 20 and 2020s now you're dealing with the cookie cutter small yard houses right the the homes that are making everyone angry right now all the developments where you know postage stamp lots with cookie cutter houses but they're necessary in my opinion for housing affordability right I mean how many people would not be able to own a home if it wasn't for those neighborhoods so while they don't look very aesthetic are they necessary for the general public I would argue that they are the fifth type of house that you'll often times see is the Old Wealth House okay these are the homes that that were built for the wealthy years and years ago in some cases many years ago and some cases maybe more like 40 50 60 years ago right these tend to be have tons and tons of character maybe are updated if it's a really old home it probably has been updated if it's like a 30 to 40 year old home it probably it might have some updating needed some of that old some of that ugly you know bright red wallpaper and things like that bright yellow gold wallpaper you see that sometimes but that was a display of wealth back 40 years ago now not so much but you'll see those homes as well and then of course last but not least the new wealth houses and I'm not getting into every single house category and I'm kind of creating these categories myself but the new wealth the homes that have been built in more recent years that are more trendy more more sleek more minimal if that's if you can say more minimal more minimalistic and you see these popping up all over the place now very very very very nice but stylistically might not be for everyone you know they don't have the kind of character of the of the old wealth homes but they have that pizazz you know that very HGTV pizazz of the you know right now they're making all those homes you know white within white and black right the black gutters the black roof the black gable and then the black door and then white siding you know white hardy siding all of that or maybe white brick all of that and so those are loosely speaking very loosely speaking the different styles of houses that you will find in this area there's a lot more than just that but that gives you kind of a sense of kind of what to expect if you're looking at houses in this area so that's it I was able to knock this out in about a half hour so I'm pretty happy with that 15 things in a half hour hope you guys enjoyed it please contact me if you need a realtor in this area my contact info is in the show notes please like rate review subscribe to the show if you don't want to miss any future content and I'll talk to you guys again next time!