Supply Is Up, Demand Is Down. But Is Anything Actually Changing?

The latest episode of Selling Greenville dives into July market stats from the Greater Greenville Association of REALTORS® and unpacks a set of numbers that point in different directions at once. Supply is climbing. Demand is cooling. Yet prices and speed-to-contract remain—surprisingly—near peak levels. The result is a market that looks like it should be slowing, but still behaves like a fast-moving seller’s arena.

Below is a clear, story-first breakdown—drawn solely from the episode—of what shifted, what stubbornly hasn’t, and how buyers and sellers can read the crosscurrents.

Greenville Real Estate Supply Is Up, Demand Is Down

The headline thread in the show is simple to say and slippery to interpret: Greenville real estate supply up, demand down. Inventory has been rising for months, while pending and closed sales show year-over-year declines. But the usual downstream consequences—longer time on market and easing prices—haven’t fully arrived. Instead, the data reveal a market that’s bifurcating: well-positioned homes still sell fast and high; the rest linger.

Let’s walk through the stats the host reviewed—and the lived reality they support.

New listings: a summer surge, then a July slide

• After months of year-over-year gains in new listings (with June spiking roughly 18% YoY), July flipped negative—down 3.3% YoY—and fell sharply from June’s count.

• June posted 2,318 new listings; July tumbled to 1,999; July of the prior year sat around 2,067.

What that signals: sellers and builders pumped supply through spring and early summer, then pulled back as higher mortgage rates cooled buyer traffic. In short, the market responded—as it should—when demand eased.

Demand: pending and closed sales confirm the cool-down

• Pending sales (offers accepted) have been trailing last year’s torrid pace. Because the most recent month is often revised, the episode focuses on June, which was down 13.7% YoY (nearly identical to May’s -13.9%).

• Closed sales finally showed the downstream effect: July closed sales fell 11.1% YoY—the first double-digit year-over-year decline since April/May 2020 during the initial pandemic shock.

What that signals: buyer activity has stepped down to something resembling 2019 levels in spots (especially on pendings), even if not uniformly across all metrics.

Inventory: way up by counts, not yet by months

Two inventory views matter:

1. Raw inventory counts jumped hard:

   • May: +19% YoY

   • June: +46.3% YoY

   • July: +70.3% YoY The host notes that those counts sit just below 2019 levels.

2. Months’ supply of inventory (MSI), pegged to pendings, hasn’t caught up as dramatically:

   • June: 1.9 months (just shy of cracking “the twos”).

   • The expectation: July should land in the twos, still far below the ~4–4.5 months common in 2019.

What that signals: yes, there are many more homes on the market than a year ago, but demand is still stronger than in 2019, keeping months’ supply lower than pre-pandemic “normal.”

Speed and price: record-tight days, record-high median

Two of the most eye-catching numbers haven’t budged the way many expected:

• Days on Market until sale (list to accepted offer) in July: 19 days—the second-lowest on record, just behind June’s 18.

• Median sales price hit a new high of around $317,000, up 19.8% YoY in July. June’s YoY gain had dipped to 16.7%, but July snapped back toward ~20% territory.

Percent of list price received remains elevated as well: roughly 100.7% for July, down from about 101.2% last year—but still above pre-pandemic norms (then closer to 98%).

What that signals: despite more choices on paper and fewer buyers in motion, desirable listings still command bidding behavior, pushing prices above list and moving quickly.

Why don’t the numbers all point the same way

The episode offers several on-the-ground explanations for the push-pull:

1) New construction is inflating the “active” pile

When the host pulled actives in the MLS, he found ~2,600 residential active listings; of those, 1,199 were new construction or to-be-built—about 46% of the active market. Builders plan months (or years) ahead, and many source materials at peak costs. As rates jumped and buyers shifted back to resale, builders were left with lots of inventory in various stages.

The upshot: the raw inventory count looks sky-high, but much of it sits in new-build pipelines, while the resale homes buyers most want still move quickly.

(The host also noted reading national reports of record-high builder contract cancellations—not Greenville-specific—which fits the same dynamic: some buyers can’t or won’t proceed as rates rise and resale options re-open.)

2) A bifurcated market replaced the “middle”

The host describes an either-or reality:

• Either a home launches and goes under contract fast (often above list),

• Or it doesn’t—and just sits.

That missing “middle” (no bidding war, but a solid offer in week two) helps explain why median price and speed remain hot even as inventory stacks up and pendings ease. The quick sales are still very quick and very strong; the slow listings haven’t yet closed to drag the averages up in days or down in price.

3) Buyer behavior is still “programmed” for speed

After two years of scarcity-driven urgency, many buyers remain conditioned to move fast and bid high when the right home appears. That keeps competition alive where fit and finish align—even while other listings accumulate days.

Reading the road ahead (using only the episode’s insight)

• Months’ supply is creeping toward a calmer seller’s market (the “twos”), but we’re nowhere near a buyer’s market.

• If and when today’s lingering listings finally sell, expect Days on Market to jump, percent-of-list to cool, and YoY price gains to moderate.

• Until then, two markets are operating in parallel: one blisteringly fast for the best-positioned properties, and one slow for homes that miss on condition, price, or presentation.

Practical takeaways for buyers and sellers

For buyers

• If you’re flexible, you may not have to fight. The host suggests one approach: let a listing ride through opening weekend; if no offers materialize by Monday or Tuesday, step in and avoid the bidding war altogether.

• If you aren’t flexible and a “just-right” listing hits, be prepared to act like it’s still 2021—because on those homes, it often is.

For sellers

• Pricing matters. Overpricing is still a bad bet—the prior episode’s benchmark was $12/sq. ft. penalty for homes that start high and chase the market down. In today’s split market, mispricing pushes you into the “sits and waits” category.

• Presentation matters too. The quickest path to “fast and high” is a listing that meets the moment on condition and value; those are the homes producing July’s sub-20-day averages and >100% list-to-sale ratios.

Why “Greenville real estate supply up demand down” doesn’t equal “buyer’s market”

Even with supply up and demand down, relative strength still favors sellers:

• Counts of homes have rebounded toward 2019,

• But months’ supply remains well below 2019, because demand—while cooler than 2021—still runs hotter than pre-pandemic.

• Median price set a new high, and days to contract remain at record lows for now.

That’s why the market feels contradictory: the conditions for change are building, yet behavioral momentum (on the best listings) keeps outcomes hotter than the macro signals suggest.

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Bottom Line

Supply is rising, demand is easing, and some indicators (like pending and closed sales) finally show it. But two numbers haven’t cracked: speed and price. July’s 19-day average to contract is still near the floor, and the median price hit a new high around $317,000 with a ~19.8% YoY jump. Much of the inventory build is tied to new construction, while the most desirable resale homes continue to sell fast and over list. Until the “sitters” close and pull the averages toward normal, Greenville will keep behaving like a split market—blazing for standouts, unforgiving for the rest.

Ien Araneta

Journal & Podcast Editor | Selling Greenville