Charleston County’s decision tension is a high entry value beside a modest pre-cost income return: Zillow’s 2026-06 median home value was $619,614, versus $2,156 monthly median asking rent and a supplied 4.18% gross yield. Rent rose 2.73% year over year, versus 0.67% for the home-value measure. Buyers able to verify property-level costs should investigate; hurricane-exposed or highly financed cases warrant caution because gross income is not net income.
Measured market rent—not HUD’s $1,787 two-bedroom Fair Market Rent—supports the yield calculation; FMR is a payment standard, not an asking-rent estimate. The 0.39% effective property-tax rate is carrying-cost context, not a parcel bill. FHFA’s 2025 repeat-transaction HPI rose 2.30% annually and 70.79% cumulatively over its stated five-year window; it is an appreciation index, not a dollar home value. Its positive direction matches Zillow’s, but their distinct methods and observation periods cannot be merged.
Tax-return migration produced a net gain of 1,923 households, and incoming movers had higher average income than outgoing movers. This raises a question about income depth but does not prove housing demand. Investors accounted for 7.69% of purchases, indicating non-owner participation without showing cash buyers or bidding intensity. QCEW’s 2025 annual average counted 283,616 covered jobs at county workplaces, not resident employment. Trade, transportation, and utilities was the largest disclosed private supersector at 21.07% of private covered employment; this does not describe the whole economy or forecast jobs.
Modeled annual building-value loss is 0.48%, consistent with hurricane as the dominant hazard, but it is not an actual loss estimate for a building. Realtor.com’s 2026-06 listing figures are not published, preventing a read of MLS asking-price movement, visible supply, marketing time, price reductions, or pending activity. Insurance, vacancy, operating expenses, property condition, and financing terms are also not published; without them, net yield, resilience costs, and transaction-level buyer competition cannot be underwritten from this county record.