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Charleston County · South Carolina

Charleston, SC housing costs

What a home costs to buy and to rent here, how old the housing stock is, and how much of a paycheck rent takes — all from Census ACS 5-year estimates.

Quick answer

The median home in Charleston, SC is worth $469,100 and median gross rent is $1,632 a month. That is 55% above the national median home value of $303,400. 55.6% of occupied homes are owner-occupied, against 65% nationally.

Median home value
$469,100#22 of 94 metros
Median gross rent
$1,632/mo#23 of 94 metros
Owner-occupied
55.6%US average 65%
Median year built
1994Half the homes here are older than this

Can a median household here buy a median home?

Price-to-income is the plainest affordability yardstick there is.

Charleston's median household earns $87,246 a year while the median home is worth $469,100. That is a price-to-income ratio of 5.4×, against roughly 3.9× nationally. Lenders have historically treated anything above 4× as stretched. Renters at the median put 31.4% of household income into gross rent; 30% is the federal threshold for “cost-burdened”.

Related data for Charleston

The same household, seen from three angles.

Source: US Census Bureau, American Community Survey 5-year estimates

Tables B25077, B25064, B25003, B25035 and B25071, 2019-2023 ACS 5-year, Census place 4,513,330. Values are place-level, not metro-area-wide.