Forbes: "Affordable Places To Weather The Downturn" (Greenville: days on market, sales)

[ckeegan]

In a Forbes article yesterday, they ranked the most afforable areas in the US to weather the economic downturn. They based their analysis on affordability, property taxes, and job growth.

Greenville County, SC ranked #5! Not only that, but they used Main Street as the headline photo.

Just thought I would share that.

Source: Affordable Places To Weather The Downturn - Forbes.com

[exileinsc]

Yeah, given how well they forecasted the current recession (denied it through all of 2007), I really trust Steve Forbes and company on choosing the best place to weather the storm.

But....You could do a lot worse. Unlike the rest of the country. Real Estate in GSP seemed to peak about 3 years ago, so they have probably already reached bottom.

But given the lousy Unemployment comp of the state, and the fact that their current Governor and State assembly are a few crayons short of a box, you would be a lot better off looking elsewhere

[g-man430]

Good news OP. That major announcement yesterday definitely helped. Isn't that right exileinsc?

[ckeegan]

Originally Posted by exileinsc

Real Estate in GSP seemed to peak about 3 years ago, so they have probably already reached bottom.

You obviously have no idea what you're talking about, since prices are still rising in GSP.

Exisiting Single-Family Homes:
Average Sale Price in 2007 (1/1-10/31): $166,476
Average Sale Price in 2008 (1/1-10/31): $168,387

All Single-Family Homes/Condos:
Median Sale Price in 2007 (1/1-10/31): $152,000
Median Sale Price in 2007 (1/1-10/31): $154,500

* According to data obtained through the Greater Greenville MLS 1/1/2007-10/31/2008

[exileinsc]

1`. Giving away enourmous tax breaks to buy jobs doesn't make people better off. It means that now the state budget is even under more pressure. Try taking an economics class sometime. 320 projected jobs is not even a light drop in the bucket of the layoffs in the area.

2. You can't trust MLS information. In that the information is not subject to outside verification (name me one Realty Association that has outside audits of its MLS information). MLS data is often manipulated by withdrawing houses from existing sales data for all sorts of reasons (there are no standards for what is reported by local real estate firms)

3. I noticed that you were very selective about your data. it always easy to pick two points in a data series to substantiate any claim. A better way to gauge homesales is to ask: how long are realtors asking to have to show your home? The realtors I have talked to lately are now asking for a minimum of 10 months to have a house to show, up from just a few months in 2004.

4. If home sales are still rising, just how many new realtors have there been lately? If its still a rising in demand sort of profession, shouldn't all the unemployed people in the Upstate be jumping at the chance to become realtors?

5. You obviously don't know what you are talking about. I said the market peaked several years ago. Your data is a selective pull over the last year? Logically, since you are comparing apples to oranges, you don't know what you are talking about. If you are going to pull the lousy MLS data to try to prove me wrong, at least try to use the correct time frame.

[Skyliner]

Exile, it seems that you may not know as much about the local real estate industry as you thought.

[Mjames]

Originally Posted by ckeegan

You obviously have no idea what you're talking about, since prices are still rising in GSP.

Exisiting Single-Family Homes:
Average Sale Price in 2007 (1/1-10/31): $166,476
Average Sale Price in 2008 (1/1-10/31): $168,387

All Single-Family Homes/Condos:
Median Sale Price in 2007 (1/1-10/31): $152,000
Median Sale Price in 2007 (1/1-10/31): $154,500

* According to data obtained through the Greater Greenville MLS 1/1/2007-10/31/2008

ckeegan, you should know better than to argue against emotion with facts.

Shame on you!!

[g-vegas]

Originally Posted by g-man430

Good news OP. That major announcement yesterday definitely helped. Isn't that right exileinsc?

I thought you told everyone on the political forum, that Greenville was going to hell in a ham basket. Definitely not fair and balanced.

[ckeegan]

Originally Posted by exileinsc

1. Giving away enourmous tax breaks to buy jobs doesn't make people better off. It means that now the state budget is even under more pressure. Try taking an economics class sometime. 320 projected jobs is not even a light drop in the bucket of the layoffs in the area.

2. You can't trust MLS information. In that the information is not subject to outside verification (name me one Realty Association that has outside audits of its MLS information). MLS data is often manipulated by withdrawing houses from existing sales data for all sorts of reasons (there are no standards for what is reported by local real estate firms)

3. I noticed that you were very selective about your data. it always easy to pick two points in a data series to substantiate any claim. A better way to gauge homesales is to ask: how long are realtors asking to have to show your home? The realtors I have talked to lately are now asking for a minimum of 10 months to have a house to show, up from just a few months in 2004.

4. If home sales are still rising, just how many new realtors have there been lately? If its still a rising in demand sort of profession, shouldn't all the unemployed people in the Upstate be jumping at the chance to become realtors?

5. You obviously don't know what you are talking about. I said the market peaked several years ago. Your data is a selective pull over the last year? Logically, since you are comparing apples to oranges, you don't know what you are talking about. If you are going to pull the lousy MLS data to try to prove me wrong, at least try to use the correct time frame.

1. South Carolina is the only state that gives tax breaks to employers as a method of attracting companies? As of March 2008, the Greenville-Mauldin-Easley MSA had the 7th best job growth rate of the top 200 MSAs in the US when comparing March 2007 to March 2008. We all know the state budget is a little out of whack, but no more so than certain places in New England where job growth is much lower (if not declining), and residential property taxes play a major role in a person's ability to become a homeowner.




2. I don't really care if you trust MLS data, but I was comparing two sets of data from the same MLS. Even if the data was flawed, it was still being compared to data from the same source from the year before. Pick another index then:

• October 1st, 2008 - The Housing Price Risk Index from the PMI Group Inc. shows that Greenville, SC has a less than 1% risk of decline in average home price over the next two years.
• August 26th, 2008 - OFHEO House Price Index shows the Greenville-Mauldin-Easley MSA as having the 4th highest appreciation rate (5.78%) of 291 metropolitan statistical areas in the US.
• August 14th, 2008 - National Association of Realtors Housing Price Index indicates that Greenville, SC had the 9th highest appreciation rate (5.1%) in the US.

3. Well, I was talking about price trends, since you mentioned a "peak" in your first post. As for time on the market, you can't base anything on average days on market, but you should look at absorption rate. Do you talk to a lot of Realtors in the course of your weekly life? If so, ask them why they would need 10 months, when the absorption rate in Greater Greenville is still 6.49 months (far lower than the 11 month national average). I never said all Realtors were good at what they do. I've personally had three homes go under contract in the last 30 days, all of which were on the market for less than 21 days, and no, these homes were not even remotely underpriced.

4. At what point did I say home sales were rising? The number of homes sold in Greater Greenville has decreased by approximately 19% compared to last year. What do you expect when people hoping to relocate to Greenville, can't sell their home in their current market. Or, when the guy with a 480 credit score can no longer find 100% financing. Or, when public perception of real estate is down due to the media creating a national real estate market that doesn't exist. Of course sales are going to go down. Fortunately this will weed out some of those who are less serious about a career selling real estate.

5. OK, first of all, I don't think I was comparing apples to oranges. You said the market peaked 3 years ago, how so? Median price, days on market, number of homes sold?

2004 - 6,902 (# sold) / $132,500 (median sale price) / 98 (days on market)
2005 - 7,954 (# sold) / $140,000 (median sale price) / 96 (days on market)
2006 - 8,923 (# sold) / $149,000 (median sale price) / 85 (days on market)
2007 - 8,780 (# sold) / $152,000 (median sale price) / 85 (days on market)
2008 - 7,057 (# sold) / $154,500 (median sale price) / 92 (days on market)

* Data taken from the Greater Greenville MLS for periods 1/1/04-10/31/04, 1/1/05-10/31/05, 1/1/06-10/31/06, 1/1/07-10/31/07, 1/1/08-10/31/08.

I guess it doesn't matter though, since "you can't trust MLS information."

All of the sales data and statistics from the last 69 months (broken down by quarter) are available on my website, go look for yourself.

- Cameron Keegan

[newexile]

1. All of the other data sources you cited have similiar problems. Check out Shillers website at yale to see why S&P wanted him and Case to create a more reliable set of home price indices.

2. Nope, it doesn't matter if all of the unreliable data are showing the same trend. Since they are all based upon the same underlying data (MLS) they will have the same problems.

3. All of the data is based on realator reports. Again, name me one (1) realty association that has an outside audit of the informnation on the MLS. The reason why Case-Shiller indices abandoned this and went to actual property records was because of the huge discrepanses in the MLS and OFHEO data and realty

4. Days on the market datas is meaningless. If a home isn't selling, realtors and sellers just pull the home from the MLS and re-list it later. So days on the market figures have no actual bearing on the average time to sell a house in a market.

5. Number of homes is also is also untrustoworthy. It contains re-financings, just like price data does.

6. I'm not selling a house, but thanks for assuming so.

7. And just how many new realtors are there out there again? The number entering realty peaked some time ago in GSP.

8. I was hired once by a realtor to check just how accurate the MLS data they entered was. We found that 76% of the listings had inaccuracies that would have affected the valuation of the home (sewer when no sewer for 5 miles, etc.). In doing spot inspections of the actual homes, those figures jumped to about 90%.

If they can't get that right, how can trust any of the other data on there?