| SERVICE AREA | ||
|
: |
The Lowcountry Housing Trust is a 501(C)3 corporation created as a local source of funding to increase the inventory of affordable homeownership, rental, and transitional housing opportunities in Berkeley, Charleston, and Dorchester counties. LHT was established to help address a severe supply and demand issue in a three-county service area including the Charleston Metro area and also outlying rural communities. LHT operates as a community development loan fund for developers of rental and homeownership projects affordable to households whose total gross annual income is below 120% of the area median. The Charleston, South Carolina region is one of the fastest growing housing markets in the Southeast. A heavy influx of residents from northern states to coastal South Carolina is fueling unprecedented housing construction; older retirees, in particular, are the target market for new housing priced beyond the means of the average working Charlestonian. Escalating land and construction costs in these desirable coastal markets are severely limiting the housing available and affordable to working families. Particularly hard hit are members of LHT’s target market, households with incomes at or below 80% of the area median income. Charleston Trident Association of Realtors estimates a 100% increase in housing costs over the past 10 years while incomes have remained stagnant. The median household income for a family of four is $55,400, while the median price for a home in the downtown Charleston area exceeds $565,000. Even the more rural markets are seeing housing prices well over $200,000. The region’s major employment opportunities are in the hospitality, tourism, and service industries. Workers on average earn between $14,000 to $43,000 yearly. The Charleston Area Chamber of Commerce indicates that average incomes in South Carolina are approximately 15% below the national averages. Recent research from the South Carolina Department of Commerce shows 55% of Charleston households do not earn enough to purchase a median priced home at $210,000, while 75% do not earn enough to purchase the average priced home at $300,878. Impacting approximately 195,000 households in the Charleston region. The household earning the region’s median income of $55,400 can qualify for a $166,200 home, a rare find in the current housing market. Households at 80% of the area median income earning around $45,000, representing a little over 125,000 households in the region, have still fewer choices. Recently the Charleston Trident Realtors Association indicated fewer than 18% of homes listed were below $150,000, while over 50% of the region’s population earns less than the median income.
|
County Housing Stats from The Market What's Happening in the Tri-County Housing Market? 2007 Median and Average
|
