Market screen · county data · updated October 18, 2026
Charleston, SC: a typical house comes in at 0.77x; houses under about $253,500 clear 1.20x
At the HUD 2-bedroom Fair Market Rent ($1,884 a month), a house at the area's typical value ($409,200) has a full monthly payment of $2,443: principal and interest on a 75% loan at 7.5% over 30 years, plus property tax and insurance. The rent covers 0.77x of it. At the 3-bedroom figure ($2,336) it would be 0.96x. Run the house you are looking at on its own rent.
The numbers
Typical home value
$409,200
County medians weighted by households (Census ACS).
Rent: HUD 2-bedroom Fair Market Rent
$1,884
A government floor, not a house rent.
Rent: HUD 3-bedroom Fair Market Rent
$2,336
The high end of the range.
Payment that clears 1.20x
$1,570
Rent ÷ 1.20, taxes and insurance included.
Price that clears 1.20x
$253,500
At this rent, 25% down, 7.5%, 30 years.
Rent-to-price
5.5%
A year of rent over the typical value.
Effective property tax
0.44%
Median tax over median value, owner-occupied homes (Census ACS); a rental can be taxed higher.
Insurance, median
$1,760 a year
What owners report paying (Census ACS); a landlord policy can differ.
Rental vacancy
10.0%
Unemployment
3.7%
Jobs up 3.7% over a year (federal labor statistics).
New homes permitted
21.7 per 1,000 households
Census Building Permits, latest year.
Flood insurance claims
7,735
NFIP claims since 2005 across the area's counties.
The typical house, worked out
| Price | $409,200 |
| Loan (75%) | $306,900 |
| Principal and interest (7.5%, 30 years) | $2,146 |
| Property tax | $150 |
| Insurance | $147 |
| Full monthly payment | $2,443 |
| Rent (HUD 2-bedroom Fair Market Rent) | $1,884 |
| DSCR: rent ÷ full payment | 0.77x |
DSCR is the monthly rent divided by the full monthly payment. We use 1.20x as a cushion; many DSCR lenders accept as low as 1.00x. A lender sizes the loan on the lease or the appraiser's rent estimate for the specific house, often the lower of the two, not on an area figure.
The 3 counties in this area
- Charleston County, SC178,975 households
- Berkeley County, SC93,711 households
- Dorchester County, SC63,179 households
How this screen is made
A market screen is built from official county data only: the HUD 2-bedroom Fair Market Rent and its 3-bedroom figure, Census household-survey values, taxes, insurance and vacancy, Census building permits, federal unemployment statistics and NFIP flood claims. It updates when those sources do. Owner-occupied homes can carry a homestead exemption or assessment cap that a rental does not get, so a rental's tax can run higher, notably in states such as Florida and Texas. It carries no monthly interpretation; markets with a monthly hub get that on their own page. The rent is the HUD 2-bedroom Fair Market Rent, which can sit below what a single-family house rents for, so the ratio here is cautious.