Hello REALTORS®, As local governments spend the surge of COVID money, balancing their budgets is getting more difficult. Budgets have dominated our local government agendas—except in Anderson County. In the last year, Anderson County government has been especially busy with development-related ordinances, considering 16 ordinances and adopting 11 of them. The riparian buffer ordinance (8.)… Read more »
Read MoreHello REALTORS®, Each year, thousands of Realtors go to Washington DC to meet with our members of Congress. This year, that is next week. What will they be talking about? Key Legislative Priorities NAR is focused on two main policy areas: increasing housing supply and protecting and supporting self-employed professionals like Realtors. These are some… Read more »
Read MoreHello REALTORS®, Most cities in South Carolina require a business license to conduct business in their city. Nearly all of them impose a business license tax as well. The tax is not insignificant. In fact, most cities receive a substantial portion of their revenue, sometimes as high as 30%, from business license taxes. Some counties… Read more »
Read MoreHello REALTORS®, The SC General Assembly wrapped up the main part of their work last week and adjourned. They’ll come back in a couple of weeks to deal with vetoes by the Governor and to adopt the final version of the budget, among other things. About the SC Legislative Session 2025 was the first half… Read more »
Read MoreMonthly Indicators U.S. existing-home sales decreased 5.9% month-over-month and 2.4% year-over-year to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.02 million units, according to the National Association of REALTORS® (NAR), as affordability challenges and economic uncertainty weigh on market activity. Sales were down month-over-month in all four regions, with the West experiencing the largest decline, at… Read more »
Read MoreThe core principles we use for evaluating public policy are: During the last three years, Pickens County Council has adopted several ordinances of interest to Realtors. In 2022, they started with a new development code for Highway 11 that restricts land uses to primarily residential and sets a very low-density standard. Their objective was to… Read more »
Read MoreIs South Carolina the most affordable state in the US? I’ll call this Watchdog Report the “News Brief” version. There are several topics to cover, but they are all brief. Walhalla Special Election Results The turnout was about average for most elections, but better than average for a special election—14% of registered voters turned out,… Read more »
Read MoreWhy RPAC? + Thank You Major Donors The Realtor advocacy program takes a team, and an important part of that team is RPAC. RPAC is the REALTORS® Political Action Committee. In effect, RPAC is a joint account to which Realtors make an annual deposit so that your industry can support the campaigns of candidates for… Read more »
Read MoreHello REALTORS®, I know it seems like elections are always in the news—because they are. And it’s not because campaigns are getting longer—even though they are. Sometimes it’s because life intrudes, and elected officials aren’t able to fulfill their terms of office. That’s what happened to two former members of Walhalla City Council. On January… Read more »
Read MoreMonthly Indicators U.S. existing-home sales rebounded from the previous month, rising 4.2% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.26 million units, according to the National Association of REALTORS® (NAR). Economists polled by Reuters had forecast sales would fall to a rate of 3.95 million for the month. Purchase activity increased in the South and… Read more »
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