The following transcript was taken from a Facebook live video on 5/13/22 at 10:30am

Here we are guys. It's Friday again, and I'm excited. Wow. What a whirlwind of a week. I'll give a few minutes for those that want to tap on and hear about a market update. But just for a moment, I'll tell you why I'm here in front of the Piggly Wiggly. So a little bit of trivia for you, for anybody that's watching outside of the Charleston area, the Piggly Wiggly started right in downtown Charleston is where the first one was. We don't have a whole lot of Piggly Wigglys anymore in the area, but the one that's behind me here is in downtown Summerville. And my friend David Smith owns it, operates it, has multiple Piggly Wigglys in the area. He too is a giver to back to the community. And so last year, we had a box here for donations and partnered up with the Piggly Wiggly. And in fact, David and we were able to give big donations over to Hope's House.

Well, this year we were going to be giving donations into the local blessing boxes within our Summerville community. So we'll show you more about it inside, but we are going to be collecting those, but we just love to give back to the community that serves us so well. Yesterday was a big day for Keller Williams agents. And so come on in guys, thank y'all for joining those that are tapping in and I'll give the market update here in a minute. But within Keller Williams family is what's called red date. It's give where you live. And so, that's one of the reasons that I love Keller William's family so much. They do business like I do business. I like to give back to the community that serves me and they see that as a great opportunity.

Keller Williams nationwide, yesterday, shut down offices and a tremendous amount of the agents we're able to serve within the local communities. We filled blessing boxes all over Charleston, but the Piggly Wiggly here will be collecting donations through the end of the month. So we'll walk inside here at a minute and show you where to do that. We're also going to be collecting donations at my office, this Summerville location, the key is called Keller Williams key. And it's right in the heart of downtown Summerville. If you know where the CVS is on North Main Street, we are just adjacent to that. We've got signage and all out, so you can bring your donations there. And I'll give you a little something in response to doing that, a little take home, but thank y'all for giving to the community so well. I know many, many people that follow me on social media are big givers to our community. And so I appreciate that we are like minded in that regard.

So thank y'all again for tapping in. Let's talk about a quick market update, because I'm quite torn over the delivery of this today and here's why. Our market is starting to shift a little bit and our numbers are down on the buying side. In fact, we only had 382 sales that went pending this week in real estate in the Charleston region. 382, that's down from last week [inaudible] also 13. That's huge guys. Our market is shifting and here's why. The rates are continuing to go up. The government feels like it's necessary to increase rates, to get some dampening to all of the buying activity. They also felt like it was a reasonable response a couple of years ago to print a lot of money to feed into our economy. So we saw where that took us. It's going to be a very interesting ride this spring and summer as we go through this season where the government making decisions and it's increasing these rates so rapidly.

I knew that was coming. I did not realize how quickly it would impact our buying power and the buyer's confidence in the market. Now, the reason that I say that I'm quite conflicted with the delivery of that is because I'm listing property. I had three listings last week. I have another three that went live this week. I have another three that will be going live next week. With that means that there's a lot of sellers on the market, which I'm one of many, many agents. Thankfully, I do a lot of production, but that means that listings are coming on the market. Our inventory is up in the MLS. On those listings, I'm still getting multiple offers, which tells me there's still buyers that are out there for our inventory. We still have a huge buyer demand. Where is this year going to take us?

Listen, we used to be able to forecast from history where things would take us. It's going to be interesting because we really don't know. As much as I listen to economists and I love the data that's out there, the truth is it's a weekly change in our market. So it's a lot to keep up with. If you ever want to talk about is it a good time to list your sale? I believe it's an excellent time to list. The market is high. Do I think it's going to continue at the same pace that it's been over the last year with some values going up 20% now? Probably not, but we are going to continue to see the prices go up, but just not at the same pace. It's just not sustainable guys.

And so, I don't think that we are we're forecasting to see a decon in the market in terms of the value of properties. It's just that our market is not going to sustain a 20% increase this year. So that's the short side of the market update. If you want to know any statistics, I have tons of charts and data available. If you want to know what your house is worth, I'm happy to share that information with you. And you can make a determination after getting that data whether it is the right time to sell. It will always be the right time to buy if you need housing. That's a fact. People, no matter what the interest rates are, are going to be buying because in fact, everybody needs a roof over their head and rental prices are exorbitant and there's so few on the market.

So it is a good time to still buy. And my team is structured. We are well structured to be able to assist you with that. Let's go take a peek inside the Piggly Wiggly because I really want to show you where we're going to be taking these donations. And again, the donations are going to be anything that can go into what we call a blessing box. If you're not familiar with that, it's a box that's outside of businesses. Some of them are even outside of homes or churches, but it's where people within the community can go and get dry goods, non-perishables for their family. And so it's a truly a good way to bless the rest, so to speak.

So here's some of the donations that we're looking to get. Anything again, that is non-perishable, any kind of paper products, diapers, bleaches, cleaning supplies, laundry detergent, foods, hand goods, coffee, cereals, snacks, pet food, sunscreen, which is super important at this time of the year for families, socks, hygiene products, all of those items can be donated here at our local Piggly Wiggly. And again, in our Summerville Keller Williams office, it's 126 East North Street. That's a mouthful, 126 East North Street. Most people just know it is one block away from our friends over at Coastal Coffee. And it's adjacent to the CVS.

Guys, thank you so much for tuning into these market updates. Please give to our community through the blessing boxes. And if we can serve you, whether you're buying or selling, let us know. I can always be found on social media at That SC Real Estate Chick, as well as the web. Or you're welcome to give me a call or a text at any time on my cell phone, (843) 297-1935. Have a wonderful weekend and happy buying and selling.