Which Real Estate Is Safest for a Recession?

When headlines get jittery and dinner-table talk drifts toward “what if,” buyers in the Upstate ask a fair question: how do you choose property that holds up if the economy stumbles? In a recent Selling Greenville episode, the host laid out a practical, Greenville-grounded way to think about resilience—what to watch, why certain homes weather downturns better than others, and five specific property types that tend to keep their footing when markets turn choppy.

The framing isn’t doom-and-gloom. It’s context. The last big housing shock built from 2006 excesses and broke in 2008; Greenville wasn’t hit as hard as some major metros, but it wasn’t spared. There are still reminders: a home that sold for $300,000 in 2006 came back years later at $375,000—and even after a price drop, it wasn’t moving. On the flip side, today’s Upstate market has been posting month-over-month appreciation (often 1% or more), and there’s no carbon-copy repeat of 2006 in sight. If mortgage rates tick up as the Fed tightens, a natural cooldown is more likely than a freefall. Still, uncertainty is uncertainty. So which choices line up best for durability?

Identifying Which Real Estate Is Safest for a Recession?

Which Real Estate Is Safest for a Recession? This is the question animating the entire episode, and the guideposts below answer it plainly for Greenville and the broader Upstate.

Start with the storm metaphor—and the supply lens

Think of a recession like a hurricane. No building is immune, but some are constructed and situated to take the hit better. In housing, two things matter immediately:

1. Enduring demand. Properties tied to needs that don’t go away—shelter near jobs, school access, livability—keep more buyers in the funnel, even when budgets tighten.

2. Constrained supply. When there simply aren’t many of a thing, price floors appear. Even if demand softens, scarcity props up value.

Those two ideas run through every pick on this list.

1) Homes with acreage

Over the past two years, interest in homes with land has surged. Part of that is lifestyle: some folks are over close-set suburban lots but can’t buy a detached house near downtown because large swaths of central Greenville’s single-family stock long ago flipped to commercial use (whole historic districts are now mostly law offices). The alternative is obvious—space.

Acreage scratches multiple itches at once: elbow room, privacy, room for a mini-farm, and more autonomy when supply chains or store policies get weird. The clincher is supply. Every week, suburban sprawl chews through another edge. You can’t “undevelop” a subdivision. That’s why houses on land—even in places many buyers wouldn’t have considered a few years back—now snap up quickly if they’re reasonably priced. In any economic weather, there will always be a buyer who wants land; there will not always be another parcel like it.

Why it’s among the safest real estate for a recession: persistent, varied demand + permanently limited supply.

2) Multifamily (from duplexes to small apartment buildings)

Multifamily sits at the intersection of two durable currents: the need for rentals and the rise of creative occupancy. When the economy falters, foreclosures and tighter budgets tend to push more households toward renting, which supports the asset class. On top of that, “house hacking” has entered the mainstream—a buyer lives in one unit of a duplex, triplex, or quad and rents the others to cover the mortgage (sometimes with cash flow left over). That’s become a particularly attractive path in recent years.

The supply story here is stark. When the episode was recorded (mid-November), Greenville’s MLS showed just 10 active multifamily listings in the county. That’s vanishingly small. With inventory that thin, the usual cycles behave differently: listings can sit for weeks while would-be buyers do pre-due diligence with lenders, then attract multiple offers at once. Scarcity drives that.

Why it’s among the safest real estate for a recession: rental demand is counter-cyclical, and inventory in the Upstate is chronically low.

3) Homes near major, funded developments

Follow the bulldozers—and the budgets. Big, visible projects reshape their surroundings and tend to carry nearby values along for the ride, recession or not. In Greenville, there are a few obvious anchors:

• Unity Park and the nearby Swamp Rabbit corridor are already ringed with destinations like Southernside Brewing and The Commons.

• County Square / University Ridge, a sweeping makeover that’s changing how that whole district reads and functions.

• Reimagined mill properties (think of the catalytic impact of The Lofts at Mills Mill), with adjacent blocks often ripe for a second wave of improvement.

A caution the host flagged: developers can run out of money. That’s why proximity to government-backed or government-partnered work matters. Projects where the city/county has genuine skin in the game are more likely to get finished on schedule, even if the broader economy hiccups. Homes that ring these sites benefit from the “gravity” of the investment.

Why it’s among the safest real estate for a recession: public-anchored projects tend to deliver, and finished public realm upgrades keep drawing people—supporting nearby values.

4) Homes near award-winning schools

Families plan moves around schools. That doesn't change in a downturn; if anything, it sharpens the lens. District accolades and school-quality signals funnel attention—and offer a shorthand for value. Investors notice, too, which adds another layer of demand.

There’s a compliance note here: Realtors don’t steer and don’t make guarantees about appreciation. The point is simpler and entirely observable—homes zoned to well-known, award-winning schools tend to have more eyes on them and stay higher on shortlists. In a recession, when fewer buyers are moving, that relative demand can matter.

Why it’s among the safest real estate for a recession: sticky, life-stage-driven demand that persists even when budgets tighten.

5) Homes not in HOAs

Nearly every new subdivision lands under an HOA—developers set them up from the start. That means the non-HOA home is a rarity, and the flavor of the rarity matters. Many older mill houses sit outside associations. But when a non-HOA property is also not a small mill cottage—say, a larger, move-in-ready home—the supply gets even thinner, and the buyer pool gets more motivated.

Do HOAs have their fans? Absolutely—amenities and standards appeal to many, and there’s no shortage of HOA neighborhoods to choose from. That’s precisely the point. In an economy where only some households will be able to chase preferences, the ones with the means who value “no HOA” will zero in on a small slice of options and compete for them.

Why it’s among the safest real estate for a recession: niche buyer demand meets limited, non-reproducible supply.

A note about downtown single-family and the “why not there?” question

If a buyer is thinking, “Great, I’ll just get a single-family house near downtown and hedge my bets,” the episode offered a reality check. Much of the single-family stock within walking distance of the city center has been converted to commercial over time. Whole historic districts operate more like legal campuses now. For buyers who want a detached home and proximity, that mismatch pushes the search toward land, multifamily with a live-in unit, or established neighborhoods near momentum projects.

“Which real estate is safest for a recession?” depends on the overlap

These five categories are not mutually exclusive. Stack them and the protective effect compounds. A non-HOA home on acreage near a major public project, zoned to award-winning schools, that could be partially rented? That’s a unicorn—but even checking two or three boxes meaningfully improves the resilience profile.

Two reminders from the episode:

• Nothing is “recession-proof.” Even the best-positioned properties can dip during a severe contraction. The goal is to choose homes that lose less, recover faster, or keep appreciating—just at a slower pace.

• Appreciation justifies the work. Ownership carries costs (maintenance, taxes, sweat equity). Over a 15-year span, a home that barely beats its 2006 price—like the $300,000 example—doesn’t pencil as well as renting and investing the difference. The categories above help tilt the math back in the owner’s favor.

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Bottom Line

If the question is, "Which real estate is safest for a recession?" , the answer in Greenville leans toward scarcity and staying power: homes with acreage, multifamily addresses in the pull of major, funded projects, properties near award-winning schools, and well-kept homes outside HOAs. None of these are guarantees, but together they offer a practical way to buy with both today’s lifestyle and tomorrow’s resilience in mind.

Ien Araneta

Journal & Podcast Editor | Selling Greenville