At the end of the third quarter, South Carolina had the:
- 3rd-highest rate of mortgages facing a foreclosure filing among U.S. county metro areas (Dorchester County, one mortgage in every 509)
- 9th-highest rate of mortgages facing a foreclosure filing among U.S. county metro areas (Richland County, one mortgage in every 582)
- 15th-highest cost-to-income ratio for homeowners among U.S. county metro areas (Beaufort, 75% of income)
These data points are part of ATTOM Data Service’s Q3 Housing Impact Market Report, released Thursday; and they continue a trend that has been on South Carolina’s housing radar since 2023, when the state reported the sixth-highest rate of foreclosure filings in the country.
Even as a building boom hit the Southeast that summer, housing prices continued to escalate; and by this time a year ago, U.S. Census data revealed that nearly half of South Carolina’s households were financially burdened, along ALICE (Asset-Limited, Income-Constrained, Employed) criteria.
The most common benchmark for housing affordability is the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s – when more than 30 percent of household income is spent on housing costs such as rent, mortgage, and insurances, a resident is considered cost burdened.
Ten of the 15 South Carolina counties charted by ATTOM in Q3 reported the cost of paying for a mortgage to be more than 30 of the area’s median household income. The highest was Beaufort County, where the median monthly mortgage payment was 75% of the median monthly household income.
The only other markets at that percentage point or higher were in California, New York, and Hawaii.
To put that in real numbers: By the end of the third quarter, ATTOM set the median sale price of a house in the Beaufort market at $608,000 (which is the 61st-highest in the country, among 579 county metro areas charted).
Based on the National Association of Realtor’s RealCostTM calculator, buying a home in Beaufort for $608.000 would require a 20% downpayment of $121,600, plus another $24,320 in closing fees, leaving the buyer with a monthly mortgage of $3,507 at the current 6.664% interest rate.
The latest U.S. Census numbers place the median household income in Beaufort County at $81,260, which breaks down to just shy of $6,800 per month, before taxes. (Note: U.S. Census numbers are expected to be updated by the end of next week, so Beaufort’s median income total could change.)
Run all that through ADP’s bring-home-pay calculator, including South Carolina-specific taxes, and $6,800 per month becomes $4,940 — for which $3,507 is 75%.
Dorchester County, with the third-highest foreclosure risk of U.S. county metro areas charted by ATTOM in Q3, had the second-highest cost burden for mortgage holders in South Carolina. According to ATTOM, the median mortgage in Dorchester will cost the median area household income earner 47% of their earnings per month.
Overall, eight of 15 charted county metro areas in South Carolina had higher foreclosure risk rates than the U.S. national average of 5.5 percent.
But high costs do not necessarily a foreclosure risk make. Beaufort County closed Q3 as South Carolinas least-risky foreclosure market, with 2.9% of mortgages underwater; in Dorchester, the rate was 4.7%.
Compare that to Florence County, where one in every 909 mortgages faced a foreclosure filing and 10% of mortgages were underwater last quarter, even though Florence also had the most affordable market in the state, based on income-to-payment costs. According to ATTOM, the median mortgage in Florence last quarter would take 21% of the median area household income to pay – the 43rd best affordability ranking in the U.S.