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John Murphy
The Greenville, Simpsonville, Mauldin area experienced about 5-6″ of rain today. Most of it fell very quickly this morning from about 9am to noon with a little let up at lunchtime. The rains then came back. There were lots of news stories about damage and flooded out roads throughout the Upstate. We saw images all over Facebook of various creeks that had risen significantly. The images below are from the River Walk neighborhood where Gilder Creek runs through it.
I had a chance to chat with a neighbor who said he’s lived here 20 years and never seen it quite like this. As I understand it, there have been a couple of rain events over the past 20 years where they have had an overflowing creek that has taken out a walking bridge or two. I’m not aware of any flooding that has happened to anyone’s home in the neighborhood. The good news is the water has finally started to recede.
This is an exciting development coming to Greenville’s Historic West End District. It was just announced that Kimpton Hotels will be building a 170 room hotel at the corner of Markley and Rhett Streets. I’ve stayed in Kimpton Hotels before. They have always been gorgeous with great service.
The new project is Greenville is is just one block off of Main Street. It’s on the other side of Main opposite Flour Field. It’s a great sign that development is moving off of Main Street. That’s a big deal and should lead to additional development.
The Upstate Business Journal has an excellent article about the new to-be-built Greenville Kimpton Hotel along with HospitalityNet has an article as well.
This week I had a chance to attend an event at the Greenville Convention Center for the Home Builders Association of Greenville. It’s located in a warehouse district area close to the downtown airport in Greenville. The building itself is fine, however, the location is not particularly appealing for the kinds of bigtime events that I think could be attracted to Greenville. There are no other venues near by such as bars or restaurants. Greenville is evaluating building a new convention center in downtown Greenville along the Reedy River. This is something that we need to do. We need to work with the state and find the money.
What to do then about the existing space? I’m not sure. Maybe it becomes a big warehouse. I don’t know. But when you think about how cool downtown Greenville is and how beautiful Greenville-Spartanburg International (GSP) is, I think it’s time they build a gorgeous new convention center.
There’s a wonderful surprise that awaits you at the Greenville Municipal Airport – GMU. There is a children’s park at the Greenville airport called Runway Park at GMU. It’s terrific! It’s tucked away in an old warehouse park but don’t let that discourage you. It looks like there’s lots of redevelopment going on in that area and you go by the very modern looking Humane Society building.
We went there for a visit as our daughter and granddaughter were in town. It was a cold Saturday morning in Greenville but the sun was starting to poke through after a couple of days of rain. We were there about 9:30am on Saturday so the plane traffic was quite. A good sized private jet had just landed and we saw 5 or 6 other Cessnas take off and land. Our granddaughter is 20 months so a little on the young side for the planes to capture too much of her attention. I would think kids 3-8 or 9 years old would absolutely love it!
There are a few climbing gyms for kids, plus a swing set that has some swings for bigger kids plus a swinging bucket for toddlers. There is also a pavilion available for various parties. Reservations are required I believe. As you walk in to the park from the gated entrance there is a very cut runway complete with strips and numbers to make it look like a real run way. According to the official web page for the park, it’s about 1.3 acres and there is a nice paved path that runs along the perimeter of the park. There are nice comfortable benches along the way as well. But the thing I liked the best was the many stations along the way with colorful boards designed to educate children and adults about aviation and the history and importance of GMU. It was really well done.
We will certainly come back again especially once the weather improves. I’d like to also make a point to come back when the Runway Cafe is open.
The Greenville area continues to see healthy increases in home values and the area continues to see growth in population and jobs. 2019 ended the year with the median home price up 5.7% to $216,745. The average home price is up 5.1% to $251,673 according to the latest home sales statistics published by the Greater Greenville Association of REALTORS®.
Closed sales we believe is a better measure of the overall housing market than is home price appreciation. Price is a lagging indicator. So if sales fall, normally we would expect to see a softening in home prices. However, we are in a somewhat unique market, especially in certain areas of the Greenville area, where we have a real shortage of property. Anyway, 2019 was yet another strong year for the Greenville Area as 14,574 units sold up 6.5% from the previous year.
Some other key data points to consider:
- Days on Market until Sale saw a slight uptick to 53 days up from 51
- Inventory of homes for sale was up 14.2% overall
- Months supply of inventory also moved up from 3.3 to 3.6 months. This is still a sellers market but it it moving toward a more neutral market. Neutral is typically between 4-6 months of inventory. That said, the Greenville area has many micro markets so be sure to check with your professional REALTOR® when trying to understand a particular property in a specific part of town.
The Greenville Journal also published some great information recently that gives a lot of perspective on the Greenville County real estate market.
Image prepared for the City of Greenville by the developer RocaPoint Partners
After some early contention between the Greenville City Council, local citizens and Greenville County, the city of Greenville has stepped forward and approved the massive $1 Billion redevelopment plan for County Square. The quality and scale of this project will forever change the city.
According to the Greenville News story, the Hayne-Sirrine neighborhood has come around and has endorsed the project. It seems the city, county and developer has made concessions but also has done a better job of late in listening to their concerns. One of the biggest concessions was the agreement that buildings would be capped at 12 stories. The developers had originally requested 20 stories.
The project will include a new $65 million Greenville County office building that appears will be state-of-the-art. Office, retail, and housing will comprise the rest of the project. Here’s the site Greenville County has set up for the County Square redevelopment. They call it University Ridge Redevelopment.
The developer is Atlanta-based RocaPoint Partners.
This is a much belated post but I would be remiss not to comment on the incredible Greenville Poinsettia Christmas Parade in downtown Greenville on Main Street.
Thousands showed up for this year’s event. The weather was phenomenal – about 55 degrees and no rain. Last year was not so nice as it rained the entire time. But this year was one of the record books! It was wonderful to hear from so many of the high school marching bands as well as see floats from many businesses, service providers, news media and local politicians…of course Santa brought up the rear.
The crowds were huge and it’s always amazing how friendly and calm the crowds are in downtown Greenville at events like this. The other thing to note about heading to events like this in Greenville is that there always seems to be ample parking. There are many large, public parking ramps scattered throughout downtown. We had no problem finding a ramp within easy walking distance to main street.
Enjoy the photos!
The Greenville area continues to see a steady increase in home prices as the latest data from the Greater Greenville Association of REALTORS® shows that the median price of a home sold in the area is up 5.9% so far year-to-date through October, 2019.
The Greenville area continues to post strong homes sales number with October up nearly 12% compared to last October. In October 2019, 1127 units closed compared to 1,097 in 2018. The median sales price is up 5.6% from $206,500 in 2018 to $218,000 in 2019.
Other key data points for the Greenville area housing market are below in the various images. (Data is from the Greater Greenville Association of Realtors). Areas included in the general roll up of the data include: Greenville, Simpsonville, Five Forks, and Mauldin amongst many others.
What is interesting to see is that the overall inventory is starting to grow in the overall area – up 20% compared to a year ago. We’ll dig in further to see specifically if that inventory is growing in Greenville and Simpsonville.
