Real Estate Market in Greenville NC
Is Greenville NC a market no one is looking at?
Greenville NC is home to a population of about 88,000 people. Growing annually at about 0.34% nothing exciting there. In the past two years Greenville has seen some massive investment projects from Thermo Fischer Scientific, and Grover Gaming, investing a combined total of $665,000,000 creating 790 jobs in the last 2 years in the Greenville area. Those are good indicators of Greenville being a potential science/tech hub in NC.
Greenville is about 51% renters in the market, with roughly 31% of the housing in the market being MFHs. This signals a potential opportunity for MFH investors in NC. The poverty rate in Greenville is between 22-31%, which is quite high, meaning affordable housing is something that is needed in the area. There is also a large student base in Greenville due to ECU and other 2 year universities in the area.
Median Home Price is right under $300k, with most listings in the $275k area. Average homes are moving in about 12 days at ask, and hot homes are seeing a 4 day on market time, and getting around 3% over ask on average. The inventory is roughly a 3.3 month supply, which is up over last year. Still quite tight, so multiple offers are still be received. Sales are down about 25%, so there's inventory and not as much movement.
I think a lot of investors have walked away from Greenville. But why?
The Cost of Living (CoL) puts Greenville in the top 23% of most expensive cities to live, which comparatively in NC makes it 41/50 most expensive, meaning in NC, it's rather cheap. So the CoL is low, large companies are expanding locally, there is a steady stream of students, but a large impoverished population. The crime index is an 11 (out of 100, 100 being the safest) which is not a great look, but violent crimes aren't the cause, mostly property theft and damages. Which is a trend you typically see with more impoverished areas.
None of these are screaming "run".
I think Greenville has fallen off the map for a lot of people, it appears to me there is still a great opportunity in this area. Prices are cheap, there are tons of renters, lots of students, and jobs going to Greenville. Greenville NC, has a stigma due to ECU being considered the "Party" College of NC outside of App State, so this may deter some of the people who like renting to students, because they tend to be a bit more unruly than other schools in NC. This is something that can be overcome with good property management, and shouldn't be a make or break.
Greenville NC is East from Raleigh, on the way to the beach, and sports some of the more active night life of NC. There is a great opportunity for potential rental strategies. As always with STRs make sure to check local ordinances, AirDNA and I'd recommend trying to get an STR that can cash flow as effectively as an LTR, bit more of a challenge, but price points in the area can really make a difference. It's not a super active market at this time, and I think that could change with a group of savvy investors heading to Greenville.
The way I see it, it's currently pretty untapped, no one's really got it on their radar, and you can't even find other Market Data Posts on Greenville NC on BP, meaning this community isn't thinking about it as much either. Not to mention the bulk of other related forum posts to Greenville are months old in most cases.
Do your due diligence, but if you think there is an opportunity here, please give me some feedback, and I'd love to connect. As always looking for an additional feedback, and information that can be valuable to this post. It's impossible to know everything, so if someone has differing, or similar information to add please do!
Here's the links for extra reading and sources.
https://businessfacilities.com...
https://www.areadevelopment.co...
https://www.realtor.com/reales...
https://www.redfin.com/city/71...
http://www.homeinfogreenville....
https://worldpopulationreview....
https://www.census.gov/quickfa...
https://livingcost.org/cost/un...
https://www.neighborhoodscout....
