Monday, January 28, 2013

New Outdoor Retailer Coming to Greenville




Outdoor Retailer Cabela’s is coming to Greenville

Outdoor gear chain Cabela’s has chosen Greenville for their flagship store for the southeast and put a retailer that rivals Bass Pro Shops right into the middle of the growing Woodruff Road area at Magnolia Park.  The rest of the old Greenville Mall will be demolished to make room for the 100,000 square foot retail site, which will feature a “gun library”, indoor archery, and a deli for those shoppers in need of sustenance.  Cabela’s has 39 locations in the U.S. and Canada, but the nearest to the southeast are in Bristol, Virginia and Gonzales, Louisiana.  With the nearest Bass Pro Shops in Concorde, NC, Myrtle Beach, SC, and Atlanta, GA, Cabela’s expects a lot of local shoppers plus those from outside South Carolina.  The chain expects to hire about 235 full-time, part-time and seasonal workers and be open by the spring of 2014. 

Menin Development continues to add stores to Magnolia Park, with construction underway for a Toys R Us/Baby's R Us superstore that will replace those brands now at Haywood Rd near the Mall.  Jared Jewelers and Firebirds Wood Fired Grill are also getting ready to move into a new building under construction.  Menin also announced that there will be 500,000 square feet of retail, restaurant, and entertainment at Magnolia by the end of 2014. They also plant to have a 180-room hotel in the area as well. Magnolia Park is located on the East Side of Greenville. View more about this area and the homes available for sale by clicking here.

What about the nearby Interstate traffic?

Yes, the Woodruff Road retail corridor has been expanding and with it has come the busiest traffic in Greenville County. At the heart of this area is the I-385 and I-85 intersection that handles about 100,000 cars per day.  The South Carolina DOT announced last November that they have a plan to revamp the intersection into a four-level interchange, similar to the one in Atlanta at I-85/I-285.  The bottom two levels will function as they do today, while the third and fourth levels of the interchange will direct I-85 traffic northbound and southbound on I-385 respectively.  This project will be the first 4-tier interchange in South Carolina and is scheduled to begin construction in 2014, with a 3-year completion plan.

The interchange project is separate from the widening of I-385 that has been underway from Simpsonville northward up to the interchange.  That project has been underway for a couple of years causing the typical confusion for commuters, but has finished up and things are moving pretty well along that portion of the highway.  The widening project should fit well into the new interchange so that our biggest traffic problem will be running smoothly by 2017. 

Current Weather

It’s been a pretty mild winter so far with nice warm temperatures. Last week we finally hit some colder weather with lows down around freezing and a touch of winter weather. This week we will see a warming trend and a chance of thunderstorms mid week.  

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Google and NAR Team up for Study of Home Buyers

In early January 2012 NAR (National Association of Realtors) and Google worked on a study to determine the internet habits of home buyers. The results were impressive in some areas and to be expected in others. One of the hot new areas was in mobile device usage to search the internet for homes.  Mobile devices, which includes smart phones and tablets, used for searching increased 120% from 2011 to 2012.
Internet searches as a whole increased 22% on Google for home buying related searches in 2012. One-fifth of these were done on the aforementioned mobile devices. So what percentage of home buyers used the internet to search for homes? The study says a whopping 90% searched online at some point. The 22% increase in 2012 we mentioned pales in comparison to how much real estate related searches have increased over the past 4 years...ready?...253%. Yes, internet searches for real estate have increased 253% in the past 4 years- during the recession. 

How do real estate searches begin usually? 69% start with the shopper searching for a local term such as "Greenville SC Real Estate." In fact in Greenville SC, the search term "Greenville SC Real Estate" is by far the most searched real estate term. 

Did home shoppers also use offline channels? Yes, most (89%) used a real estate agent, 53% used yard signs, 46% attended open houses, 28% looked at print ads and 19% used a home book or magazine. Three months was the usual amount of time it took for shoppers to purchase a home after starting their search, but most engaged a Realtor after about three weeks. 

Where to videos fit into the home shoppers search? Most shoppers, 86%, wanted to look at videos of specific communities more then anything. Next major use of videos was to tour homes, 70% and the venue people used most often to view videos was YouTube, no surprise there. 

The age group which most used the internet to buy/sell a house was the 25-34 aged group. Although seniors had 14% searching online and  all age groups are fairly represented as using the internet to home search. The bridge between online and offline searching seems to be Realtors with 88% of buyers using an agent. Other channels, yard signs, open houses and print advertising, lagged far behind Realtors as the means people used to find a home offline (in the real world). 

All in all the study was fascinating and can be found at Realtor.org, but it really tells us what we already knew. The mobile devices are coming on strong and here to stay and of course that the internet is a force to be reckoned with. We here at The Cunningham Team have respected the power of the internet for years. Which is why our site Http://GreenvilleSCRealEstate.net comes up at the top of searches and all Listings have video tours and are showcased on YouTube.