Charleston Housing Market Trends in 2021

If there were a few thousand more homes for sale in Charleston South Carolina it would make our jobs as Realtors a lot easier! The post-COVID lockdown housing boom is still in full force here with demand as strong as we’ve ever seen. We’re seeing so many local buyers moving up to get more square footage or a waterfront view. And on top of that, we’re seeing an influx of buyers from pricier markets around the country like New York and California who are paying cash and finding Charleston’s increasing home values very affordable compared to where they’re moving from.

It’s hard for buyers to compete against cash offers with no contingencies who are waiving the appraisal. Multiple offers have become the norm, and the most we’ve seen for a single home in Charleston is 18! This is the hottest our market has ever been in the history of our MLS!

This past week Charleston’s home listing inventory increased about 70 properties versus the previous week which is good news for buyers. Right now we’re seeing a trend that new listings taken are actually UP year-over-year, so more inventory is hitting the market. However, it’s getting bought before it can accumulate. This time of year we generally see an uptick in listings (after school lets out), so we’re hoping this trend will continue to help alleviate the listing shortage. Here’s the most updated chart showing home sales on the Charleston MLS. Note that 2021 ratified contracts are shown by the green line, 2020 home sales by the orange line, and 2019 by the blue. The blue 2019 line is helpful for comparing our current market to a normal or typical year. You’ll also see a green dotted line going straight across that shows the record week of home sales in the Charleston MLS before the pandemic (458 ratified contracts), and this happened just once in 2018. Between 2020 and 2021, there have been 25 weeks that have beaten this previous record!

Charleston’s median sales price has increased 21% in the past 12 months which is an increase of about 1.75% per month. This past month the median sales price was $348,975, and last year at the same time it was $287,930.

The higher end sector of Charleston’s market (homes priced over $1 million) continues to surge. Starting around July 1, 2020 we started seeing these higher priced sales increase dramatically. This niche of the market has been outpacing last year roughly 2.4 to 1 ever since. For example, May 2020 saw 54 properties priced over $1 million go under contract. During this same month of 2021, there were 175 properties (an increase of 224%)!

Charleston and Myrtle Beach currently make up 45% of home sales in the entire state of South Carolina which makes sense since so many of the buyers we talk with relocating want to live within an easy drive of the beach.

This housing boom is predicted to last at least another year and a half or two years. There’s simply so much pent up demand that even a surge of new listings won’t balance out the market. Check out more Charleston housing market statistics on our website, or search the most up to date listings from the MLS!