Late Apartment Loans Have More Than Doubled Since 2024

Jobs added or lost each month, November 2024 to October 2026. The latest reading is 165,000, for October 2026.

Chart by the Intelligencer from figures by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, via FRED

A strong October jobs report made a Fed rate increase in December likelier. Payrolls rose by 165,000, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday, against an average of 48,000 a month over the prior year, and August and September were revised up by a combined 84,000. Futures prices put the chance of an increase at the Dec. 9 meeting at about 77 per cent, up from about 66 a day earlier, CNBC reported.

The 5-year Treasury yield closed Friday at 4.64 per cent and the 10-year at 4.86, according to the Treasury Department. Both rose a few hundredths on the jobs figures and are still below where they stood on Oct. 6, at 5.03 and 5.27.

The S&P 500 rose 0.3 per cent and the Nasdaq 1.1 per cent on Friday, and the Dow slipped.

The South Ridge apartments on South Church Street in Greenville.

Courtesy of Northmarq

GREENVILLE, Nov. 4. South Ridge, a downtown apartment complex, has sold to a buyer new to Greenville. The Dinerstein Companies bought the 350 apartments in six buildings at 823 South Church Street from Railfield Realty, according to Northmarq, which represented the seller and arranged the buyer's financing. Northmarq said occupancy has averaged 94 per cent since 2023 and net operating income has risen 28 per cent over the same period. The price was not disclosed.

Christian Evans of Dinerstein said the purchase is the firm's entry into the Greenville market and cited the property's nearness to County Square. Andrea Howard of Northmarq, whose Carolinas team handled the sale, said South Ridge sits directly across from the $1 billion redevelopment there.

Dinerstein financed the purchase with a three-year bridge loan from AllianceBernstein, an investment firm, placed by Northmarq's Southeast debt team. A bridge loan is short-term money that carries a building through a change, such as a renovation, until it can qualify for a cheaper long-term loan. The complex was finished in 2015, and its apartments still have their original finishes, Northmarq said. Evans said Dinerstein sees potential in renovations and better amenities.

NEW YORK, Nov. 5. The Nasdaq, the S&P 500 and the Dow each had their worst day since April 2025 on Thursday, as the seven largest technology stocks lost more than $1 trillion in market value, CNBC reported.

Four things set Greenville apart for an investor: it is a small city at the center of a region of a million people; its economy is known for factories, many of them owned abroad; its downtown was rebuilt on purpose, with public projects going first and private money following; and South Carolina taxes a building you rent out far more heavily than a house you live in.

The city itself has about 80,000 residents, but the metro area passed a million in the Census Bureau's estimate for July 2025, the first in South Carolina to do so. Most of the growth lands in suburbs such as Greer and Simpsonville, or in places like Taylors and Five Forks that sit outside any town's limits and are governed by the county directly. Large parts of that county land have no zoning at all, so a builder there needs no rezoning, and neither does the neighbor.

BMW's plant near Greer opened in 1994 and is now the largest BMW plant in the world, with more than 11,000 employees. Michelin runs its North American business from Greenville, GE Vernova has built gas turbines there since 1968, and their suppliers fill plants and warehouses along Interstate 85.

Downtown was rebuilt by the city one public project at a time, with private money following each. Beginning in the late 1970s the city narrowed Main Street from four lanes to two and widened the sidewalks enough for restaurant tables. In 2004 it opened Falls Park where a highway bridge had hidden the Reedy River's falls since 1960, and Knox White, then the mayor, said the park drew more than $100 million of private investment in its first year and a half.

Greenville County is doing the same now: it moved its offices so that a private developer, RocaPoint Partners, could rebuild the old 40-acre County Square campus as a project of about $1 billion. The buyer of South Ridge, across the street, named County Square as a reason for buying.

A house its owner lives in is assessed for property tax at 4 per cent of its value, while a rental or commercial building is assessed at 6 per cent. Since 2006, owner-occupied homes have also been exempt from the property tax for school operations, which every other property still pays. And while a county's periodic reassessment can raise a property's taxable value by no more than 15 per cent, a sale resets it to market value, so a buyer can owe far more than the seller did.

A metro of a million has fewer buyers and lenders than Charlotte or Atlanta, so a building here can take longer to sell. Greenville and Spartanburg also added nearly 20,000 apartments in the five years to the end of 2024, slightly more than demand, according to Colliers, and new supply holds rents down while it fills. And a region known for a few large manufacturers rises and falls with them.

Greenville suits an investor willing to learn it town by town, to follow the public projects, and to plan on the tax bill a purchase creates rather than the one the seller paid.

"Except the LORD build the house, they labour in vain that build it: except the LORD keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain. It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows: for so he giveth his beloved sleep." Psalm 127:1-2.

Notice that the psalm never tells the builder to put down his tools or the watchman to leave his post. The house still gets built and the city still gets watched. What it calls vain is building as if it all rested on us, and the worry that has a man up before dawn and still at it past midnight, eating his bread with a knot in his stomach.

The Psalmist's answer is sleep, and he calls it a gift the Lord gives to those He loves. I've found that hard to accept in a week when the numbers won't sit still. But the work was never mine alone to hold up.

So tomorrow is the Lord's Day, and I mean to keep it. The ledgers will be there Monday. I'll go to church, eat a slow dinner, and sleep the sleep that is given and not earned, trusting the One who keeps the city better than any watchman can.

Dear Editor: I drove downtown on Tuesday with a pocketful of quarters, as my father did, and found a parking meter that wanted me to download something, make an account and agree to terms longer than my mortgage. I asked a young man for help, and he did it for me in eleven seconds and looked sorry for me. I am not sorry for me. I am sorry for the quarter, which has done honest work in this country since 1796 and is now refused on the street like a stranger. [A coin that is good at the bank ought to be good at the curb. ED.]

A Shopper, Coffee Street

Saturday will be sunny, with a high near 67, and Saturday night partly cloudy, with a low around 41, the National Weather Service says. Sunday is to be sunny again, near 66, with a light wind from the southwest in the afternoon.