Although far from being the largest city in the Southeast, rental prices in Charleston are higher than in any other metropolitan area in the Carolinas, real estate platform data Zillow Show.
Zillow has been posting monthly information extracted from many listings on its website and app for rental and housing prices for years.
Instead of using a simple average, which may not capture a complete image, Zillow’s researchers calculate their own “rental rate” for 100 of the country’s largest metropolitan areas.
Charleston is the 78th largest in that group. However, the Holy City had the 35th highest rental rate at the end of 2020.
Charleston ranks ninth among the metropolitan areas that Zillow does in the south. In general, rents south of the Mason-Dixon line are highest in major cities in Florida and Texas. The rate is also higher in Atlanta.
Despite higher rents, the average rent in Charleston is lower than in Raleigh, for example.
The driving force behind the higher rates for Charleston is the city’s geographic restrictions, he said. Kenneth Soyeh, an assistant professor at the doctoral level in the real estate sector in College of Charleston. The proximity to the coast, as well as the limited availability of land on the peninsula, means that there is plenty of room for growth.
But Soyeh added that there is also not enough housing stock. Part of the problem lies in the lack of available capital for developers to build more units at more affordable prices.
He said eviction laws that favor homeowners can also contribute to higher prices. Tenants who are unable to pay are more easily evicted, giving landlords more flexibility and an opportunity to raise prices, Soyeh said. A 2018 Princeton University study gave North Charleston the worst eviction rate in the country.
Zillow is not the only organization that estimates rental prices, and other sources reflect similar trends.
The US Department of Housing and Urban Development publishes median rentals – the midpoint of the data. He also found that rental prices in Charleston are higher than in Charlotte, Greenville, Raleigh and even Atlanta for some unit sizes. Rentals in Asheville, the smallest mountain town in western North Carolina, are more expensive than in Charleston.
Data from National Low Income Housing Coalition also show that Charleston is expensive compared to many of its neighbors: the hourly wages needed to pay rent in Charleston are higher than in the largest cities in the rest of South Carolina, North Carolina and Georgia, with Asheville again one notable exception.
Reach Mary Katherine Wildeman at 843-607-4312. Follow her on Twitter @mkwildeman.