Mounting Supply Hasn’t Deterred Rent Growth in Charleston

Despite an influx of new supply, Charleston-North Charleston has seen rents and occupancy surge over the past year. In the year-ending May, Charleston-North Charleston’s inventory base grew 5.5%, according to RealPage Market Analytics. That was the fourth-highest growth rate in the nation, outpaced only by Huntsville, AL (7.9%), Boise City, ID (7.5%) and Cape Coral-Fort Myers, FL (6.2%). This new supply in Charleston-North Charleston hasn’t dampened rent growth. Effective asking rents in this coastal South Carolina market climbed 20% in the year-ending May. That was among the top 20 performances out of RealPage’s core 150 markets and was well above the average annual rent growth of 3.5% in this market in the five years leading up to the start of the pandemic. Even with rising rents, demand for apartments in Charleston-North Charleston has remained strong. Occupancy has registered at roughly 96% to 97% over the past year and stood at 95.9% in May. Though that was a vast improvement from the pre-pandemic average of roughly 94% from 2015 to 2019, occupancy here still ranked among the bottom 20 occupancy performances nationally in May.