Selling Greenville

Most people would rather not live in a community governed by a homeowner's association (HOA), but the vast majority of residential development in Greenville the past 20-30 years has been HOA communities. So what are the pros and cons of living in an HOA, and if you want to avoid HOAs, what do you need to do?  As always, if you have any questions or comments (or, of course, need a realtor), feel fr...

In June the SC Association of Realtors made major changes to the SCR310 - the most commonly used residential real estate contract form in the South Carolina (and Greenville). The inspection and repair section of the contract changed to "due diligence," and we covered those changes in detail in previous episodes of Selling Greenville, prior to it going into use. But now that it's been in use for se...

In early 2021, we looked at what happens when a home is listed for sale well below what it's worth. Well, a lot has happened since then, and in light of the shifting market, it's worth analyzing further whether underpricing a listing is a strategy worth exploring or not. Does the real estate market automatically correct for a house listed for less than it's worth, or do buyers risk losing money by...

The Greater Greenville Association of REALTORS® published July's market stats the past week, and the numbers take us for a wild ride. Supply is up and demand is down, which usually indicates the market shifting in a buyer's direction. But the median sales price still soared to the highest it's ever been - a 19.8% year-on-year increase! What will it take for the market to actually see a cool down?...

Figuring out what will happen in the future of real estate often involves reading the tea leaves of some of the reports released by the government, including those about how many jobs were added (or lost) in the past month, quarter, etc. This past week, July's jobs report was released, and, shockingly, a substantial number of jobs were added to the economy, further complicating the picture on what...

The past two years we've seen a large influx of activity by corporations, whom some refer to as "iBuyers," buying and flipping houses in the Greenville area. Opendoor, Offer Pad, Zillow, etc. are just a few that have attempted or are still attempting to flip houses in Greenville. But how do they work, and what is it like dealing with them? And didn't one of them just get fined $62,000,000 by the F...

There are a lot of misconceptions about real estate investing and the impact it has on the market. Some people complain that investors are basically solely responsible for home prices skyrocketing in recent years, and others think they haven't made that big of an impact, with a lot of opinions in between. Core Logic produced some great data (which you can see here : https://www.corelogic.com/intel...

Greenville real estate supply is going up, and demand is going down. But it is still very much a seller's market, as prices continue to soar, homes are selling above list price, and average days on market is at record lows. But there are plenty of indicators that tell us the market is cooling, and we should see the impact of that in the coming months.  As always, if you have any questions or comme...

Almost any mortgage in which the buyer doesn't pay a minimum 20% down payment has "mortgage insurance," typically referred to as PMI (or MIP). This is simply an additional fee that the lender requires you to pay until you reach 20% equity in your house. But the 20% equity is calculated based on what your home was worth when you obtained your mortgage. Guess what? The market has appreciated by 20%...

People frequently ask how they can invest in real estate when they don't have enough money for a down payment to purchase any available properties. The answer is to think creatively and focus on other ways of "investing" in real estate that you either already own, that you own a very small piece of, or that other people own.  As always, if you have any questions or comments (or, of course, need a...

As we brace for the real estate market to shift over the upcoming months (and years), there are always lessons to be learned from the past. The past 15 years, we've really seen four dominant markets: the Great Recession market (2008-2011), the post-recession market (2012-2015), the pre-pandemic market (2016-mid-2020), and the pandemic market (mid-2020-now). What happens to the future real estate m...

This past week, SC had primary elections, which take on special significance for local elections, since those are often decided at the primary level. Specifically, there were four Greenville County Council elections, and each of them yielded a result that seemed to unequivocally point to Greenville residents being "done" with real estate development in the Upstate. With Greenville County set to in...

The Greater Greenville Association of Realtors just published its monthly "Market Stats" for June 2022, and even though there are signs of the market rebalancing, the month of May still had record highs for sales price, percent of list price received, and days on market. And this trend looks like it will continue throughout the summer as well. No cool down in sight (yet), no relief for buyers (yet...

In March 2020, the COVID pandemic hit the US and shut down the world economy, and we had no idea what it would do to the real estate market. Many thought it would cause housing to collapse, but the opposite ended up happening. In hindsight, what happened made sense, but in the moment, nobody had any clue that a pandemic would fuel the craziest real estate frenzy of our lifetime. Fast forward 2 yea...

Real estate investors are constantly making mistakes. We never get everything 100% right. Some deals will be bad, some contractors we use will make mistakes, some partners we work with will try to undercut us, etc. But there are some mistakes that can be avoided by shifting your mindset to better understand the market, by avoiding the temptation to have a scarcity mindset when it comes to building...

The contract/purchase agreement that the vast majority of buyers in Greenville use is about to change. The "Repair Procedure" of SCR Form 310 will soon be no more, and in June (2022), buyers will only have the option of inspecting a home under a "due diligence" period. That would sound like a buyer-friendly option because during a due diligence period, a buyer can back out for any reason without i...

The market is shifting, with more homes coming on the market but fewer going under contract and fewer closings. Is it shifting to a buyer's market? No, not yet at least. In fact, looking at the numbers for April (which the Greater Greenville Association of Realtors just released), some of the numbers are more seller friendly than we've ever seen! But there are indicators that that won't continue,...

There's always a new home improvement project waiting to be done, and as we all know, they can be expensive. Unfortunately, many people end up getting ripped off when making home improvements, spending even more money than they need to and often paying for things they don't need and/or that will hurt the value of their home. There are a ton of scams and rip-offs that companies involved with very s...

There is a common refrain about mobile homes that they "depreciate in value" due to the fact that they start out classified as motor vehicles before being affixed to land, and there's an element of truth to this when we're talking about mobile home parks. But what many forget when it comes to a single mobile home (as opposed to MH parks) is that even if it were to depreciate in value, the land it...

Every year the real estate market heats up in the Spring, with more people listing their homes, more people buying homes, prices going up faster than normal, etc. In Greenville, we've had a gradual build up the past few months that really has picked up dramatically the past week, with substantially more homes coming onto the market than previous weeks. In 2021, it was around this time that the rea...

We ended last year with an episode about "the cost of waiting" that discussed how much more expensive real estate would likely be for those who waited until 2023 to purchase housing vs. purchasing at the beginning of 2022. My prediction was right - real estate, between price increases and mortgage rate increases - is getting more expensive. What I didn't anticipate, however, was that it would only...

This year is a big one for state and local elections, and many of the candidates have real estate concerns front and center. Infrastructure, growth, housing affordability, gentrification, and property tax concerns make up just a handful of the topics that are being fiercely debated within Greenville and within the state of SC, and this is reflected in the campaigns of many of those who are running...

When purchasing real estate, there are no "dumb questions" per se, but there are a lot of questions buyers like to ask that aren't usually going to reveal helpful answers. Some of these questions are an attempt to shortcut the due diligence process. Some are questions that have obvious answers. And some are questions that sellers or agents won't or can't fully answer. Let's talk about 10 of the le...

With mortgage rates going up, record inflation, threats of war, etc. people are openly asking: what needs to happen for the housing market to experience a crash like it did in 2008? We've discussed some of that in other episodes, but in this episode, we compare the current housing climate to what the housing climate was in 2007, to try to determine how similar or different the markets are and what...

In a normal real estate market, you can generally predict whether sales will go up or down based on the number of homes under contract. December 2021 and January 2022, fewer homes went under contract than did in December 2020 and January 2021. So logically, we had fewer closings in January/February 2022 vs. January/February 2021, right? Wrong. Substantially more homes sold in January/February 2022...