Myrtle Beach Second Home Market: What the Data Says About Buyer Demand

The Myrtle Beach second home market is moving in the opposite direction from the market most Grand Strand brokerages report on. Condo sales volume is up sharply year over year while condo prices soften. Single-family closings are down while single-family prices hold flat. Those are two different buyers, and one blended market update describes neither.

The numbers come from the Coastal Carolinas Association of REALTORS® MLS. In its Monthly Indicators report for July 2026, current as of August 10, 2026, condo closed sales rose 17.3% year over year, from 399 to 468, with year-to-date closings up 8.1%. Single-family closed sales fell 11.2% that month, from 1,074 to 954. Condo median price dropped 3.3% to $231,000 while single-family median sat at $375,000, unchanged from $374,995 a year earlier. Condo months supply ran 7.6 against 4.2 for single-family: more units trading in the segment second-home buyers actually buy, each at a slightly lower price, from a supply pool nearly twice as deep.

Table of Contents

1. What the Myrtle Beach Second Home Market Data Shows
2. Why Condo and Single-Family Numbers Disagree
3. The Carrying Cost Math Nobody Shows the Buyer
4. The 72-Day Rule and Four Other Deal-Breakers
5. A Qualification Scorecard for Second-Home Leads
6. A 60-Day Plan for Your Brokerage
7. Frequently Asked Questions
8. Ready to Build the Dashboard Behind These Numbers?

What the Myrtle Beach Second Home Market Data Shows

Local condo volume is rising while condo pricing power falls, and the national second-home market turned positive for the first time in four years. Neither fact means prices are about to jump.

The rest of the July 2026 CCAR picture: condo inventory grew 2.6% to 3,295 units, yet months supply still fell to 7.6 because closings outpaced listings. Condo sellers received 95.9% of list against 97.3% for single-family, and condos took 132 days to sell against 117.

Nationally, Redfin's analysis of federal mortgage disclosure data, published July 28, 2026, found second-home mortgages rose 4.1% in 2025, the first annual increase in four years. Context matters: second homes were 2.7% of all originations, up from 2.6% in 2024 but well below the 5.1% peak in 2021, and purchases had fallen to roughly half their pre-pandemic level by 2024. A 4% gain off that base is too thin to ride passively. Redfin also put 31.1% of second-home buyers at ages 55 to 64 and 27.6% at 45 to 54, a pool that researches carefully and walks away quietly when numbers surprise it late.

Why Condo and Single-Family Numbers Disagree

The segments diverge because they serve different households. Grand Strand condos skew toward seasonal and rental use; inland single-family inventory skews toward year-round residents.

Zip-code data sharpens the split. Reporting published September 22, 2026 by MyHorryNews, using South Carolina Association of Realtors data for August 2026, put the Myrtle Beach condo median at $199,000, down from $224,950 a year earlier, while the Myrtle Beach single-family median rose to $550,000 from $515,000. Inland in Carolina Forest, the single-family median climbed to $490,950 from $437,000 while closed sales fell from 106 to 82.

Where two datasets disagree, say so. Myrtle Beach condo closings in that August reporting were down, 120 against 138, while the MLS-wide July figure was up 17.3%. Different months, different geography. The honest reading: growth is not coming from the oceanfront towers in the core Myrtle Beach zips, and knowing where it is coming from beats quoting the countywide number.

Buyer intent is the number nobody publishes. No MLS field records whether a buyer is purchasing a second home, so every figure above is a proxy. The real second-home share of your business exists only in your CRM, and only if someone captures it. Our piece on real estate CRM data hygiene covers the cleanup first.

The Carrying Cost Math Nobody Shows the Buyer

A second home in South Carolina is assessed at 6% of market value instead of 4%, and it does not receive the exemption from school operating millage a legal residence gets. Together those rules roughly triple the property tax bill on an identical unit.

South Carolina's Department of Revenue says so plainly in its property tax guide chapter dated September 2025: a primary residence is assessed at 4% of fair market value, while "a person's second home or vacation home is taxed at an assessment ratio equal to 6%" (S.C. Code Ann. § 12-43-220(c)). The same chapter ties the school operating exemption under § 12-37-220(B)(47) to legal-residence status.

Consider a hypothetical North Myrtle Beach condo at $231,000, the CCAR median for July 2026. Millage comes from the South Carolina Association of Counties' 2025 Property Tax Rates by County, published February 2026: Horry County total 0.0521, North Myrtle Beach municipal 0.0450, school debt service 0.0100, school operation fund 0.1091.

As a second home. Assessment is $231,000 × 6% = $13,860. Millage is 0.0521 + 0.0450 + 0.0100 + 0.1091 = 0.2162. Tax: $2,997 a year.

As a legal residence. Assessment is $231,000 × 4% = $9,240. School operating millage drops out, leaving 0.1071. Tax: $990 a year.

Same unit, same street, about $2,007 a year apart. Assumptions: 2025 millage, no special tax district, no credits beyond legal-residence treatment, assessed value equal to purchase price. The county assessor's figure governs a real transaction.

Then the financing. Fannie Mae's loan-level price adjustment matrix dated 09.30.2026 charges a second-home occupancy adjustment of 3.375% at 75.01% to 80.00% loan-to-value, falling to 2.125% at 70.01% to 75.00%, cumulative with the credit score grid. On 80% financing of that condo, a $184,800 loan, the adjustment alone is $6,237 in price, paid as points or absorbed into the rate. Putting 25% down drops the loan to $173,250 and the adjustment to $3,681: $2,556 saved for $11,550 more cash at closing.

Add regime fees, insurance quoted per building rather than per county average, and any management split, and the real monthly number often lands far enough from the buyer's own model to end the deal.

The 72-Day Rule and Four Other Deal-Breakers

The most expensive surprise in a Grand Strand second-home purchase is the rental-day limit on the 4% ratio. South Carolina disqualifies a residence from legal-residence treatment if it is rented more than 72 days in a tax year, under § 12-43-220(c)(2)(iv) of the same DOR chapter.

That catches the buyer who plans to move here eventually and rent the unit meanwhile. The statute lets a purchaser who intends the property as a primary residence claim the 4% ratio once they occupy it, retroactively if that happens within 90 days of acquiring ownership. Rent beyond 72 days and the 4% treatment is gone for that year, which buyers often discover after their first summer.

Four more failure modes, each with a check to run before the contract:

1. A pro forma built on gross rental revenue. Check: the projection subtracts management split, cleaning, platform fees, utilities, regime dues and vacancy, and names its occupancy assumption.
2. Regime fee special assessments. Check: three years of regime minutes and the reserve study requested, not just the current fee.
3. Financing priced as a primary residence. Check: the pre-approval names the occupancy type and the lender quotes second-home pricing.
4. Rental rules differing by municipality and building. Check: both the regime documents and the town ordinance read for this address, because North Myrtle Beach, Myrtle Beach and unincorporated Horry County are separate jurisdictions.

None of these is clever. They are process, not technology, in that order.

A Qualification Scorecard for Second-Home Leads

Second-home buyers need a different first conversation, because the deciding factor is carrying cost rather than school district or commute. Score each lead 0, 1 or 2 on seven items; 10 or higher out of 14 marks a buyer likely to transact within six months.

1. Use stated in specifics. Named months of personal use scores 2; "we would use it sometimes" scores 0.
2. Rental intent declared and consistent with the 72-day rule, whether or not they plan to rent.
3. Financing confirmed with a lender who prices second homes. A generic pre-approval scores 1.
4. Down payment at 25% or more, clearing the worst occupancy adjustment band.
5. Carrying cost acknowledged at the 6% ratio, in writing.
6. Both decision makers engaged. One spouse on every call scores 1 at best.
7. A visit scheduled or completed within 90 days.

Store the score as a CRM field, not a note. Low scores are not disqualifying; they say the lead needs education rather than showings, a different workflow and often a different person.

What not to automate. Keep chatbots and email sequences away from assessment ratios, rental-day limits, income projections and regime documents. Those answers are address-specific and belong to a licensed person who has read the documents. AI enhances human judgment; it does not replace the person who signs off. AI is the wrong answer here if volume is low enough that a person can call everyone within the hour, or if CRM data is too dirty to segment.

A 60-Day Plan for Your Brokerage

Sixty days is enough to replace the blended market update with a segment view and put a second-home workflow in place. The first phase costs nothing but attention.

Days 1 to 20: instrument and baseline. Add five intent fields to the CRM: stated use at first contact, buyer mailing-address state at contract, financing occupancy type, whether they asked about a rental program, and lead source. Pull 24 months of closings split by property type and mailing-address state, so you know your real second-home share before setting a target. Build the dashboard on five indicators: condo versus single-family closed sales, condo months supply, condo percent of list received, condo days on market, and median response time on out-of-state inquiries. Kill criterion: if the CRM cannot produce a clean 24-month export, fix the data first.

Days 21 to 40: fix the first conversation. Build the carrying-cost worksheet at the 6% ratio for the three towns you sell most, have a lender confirm second-home pricing in writing, and train the team on the 72-day rule and the pre-contract checks. Route out-of-state inquiries to whoever is actually available, measured in minutes; our analysis of real estate lead response time explains why.

Days 41 to 60: review and decide. Compare scorecard distribution against outcomes, identify which submarkets produce the condo volume the countywide number hides, then decide whether any of it needs software. Most brokerages find the first two phases pay for themselves. AI for real estate brokerages covers where technology fits after that.

Frequently Asked Questions

Ready to Build the Dashboard Behind These Numbers?

The Myrtle Beach second home market rewards brokerages that see their own segments clearly and lose fewer deals to carrying-cost surprises. Both are process problems with a reporting layer on top, which is where business intelligence earns its keep before any AI tool. ANtreliX is a strategy-first AI and business intelligence consultancy in North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, serving Grand Strand and remote clients. Talk to ANtreliX, or see our case studies.