Lee County

Lee County, South Carolina sits at a median home price of $138,288, which puts it firmly in the affordable tier of the state's rental markets. With an affordability index score of 100 and a state rank of 26 out of 46 counties, the raw entry cost is low, but the investment estimate data returns zeros across cap rate, cash-on-cash return, estimated cash flow, and monthly mortgage, indicating that reliable rent comparables are thin enough that the tool cannot generate a complete underwrite. That missing data is itself a signal: this is a small, thinly traded market of 16,557 people where price discovery is difficult and assumptions carry more weight than usual. What the data does confirm is that home prices fell 8.6% year-over-year, which compresses the appreciation case considerably and pushes any investment thesis toward income rather than price gains. The appreciation score of 8 out of 100 makes that explicit.

Given the cash flow score of zero and the appreciation score of 8, Lee County does not fit neatly into either the pure cash-flow or pure appreciation bucket. The appreciation buyer has almost no data-supported case here: an 8.6% price decline over the prior year and an appreciation score in the single digits rule out a bet on price growth. The cash-flow buyer faces the opposite problem, which is not that rents are necessarily bad, but that no reliable rent figure is available in the data to confirm the spread over a $138,288 purchase. The buyer this market might suit is the deep-value or distressed-asset operator who can source off-market acquisitions at meaningful discounts to that median, self-manage to control expenses, and generate returns through operational efficiency rather than market tailwinds. At $138,288 median, the absolute dollar exposure is low, which limits downside in a way that a $385,000 median market does not.

No economic anchors or employer data were provided for Lee County, so no claims about the employment base or demand drivers can be made. What the population figure alone suggests is that at 16,557 residents, the rental pool is structurally small. Tenant turnover hits harder in small markets because re-leasing timelines extend when demand is thin, and vacancy in a single property represents a larger percentage of any portfolio concentrated here.

The tax and insurance picture is one of the cleaner pieces of data available. The combined monthly tax and insurance estimate comes to $105, based on a state-average effective property tax rate of 0.57% and an insurance rate of 0.34%. South Carolina's property tax rate at 0.57% is low enough to be a genuine underwriting tailwind: on a $138,288 property, annual taxes run approximately $788, which is materially cheaper than most Midwest or Northeast markets at similar price points. Annual insurance of $470 is also modest. The caveat that matters here is the one embedded in the data itself: this is a state-average estimate, and actual county or township rates in Lee County may differ. Before closing, verify the millage rate directly with the county assessor. That said, if the effective rate holds near 0.57%, the combined $105 monthly carry cost for taxes and insurance is a real advantage on the expense side of any cash-flow model.

The primary risks are concentration and liquidity. A population under 17,000 means the buyer pool for resale is narrow, exit timelines are unpredictable, and rental demand is tied to a small employment base whose composition is unknown from this data. The 8.6% year-over-year price decline adds a second layer: if that trend persists, equity erodes while you hold. There is no vacancy or demographic data provided here to quantify those risks further, but the combination of a small population, declining prices, and absent rent comparables warrants treating this county as a higher-uncertainty underwrite regardless of the low entry price.

Against its neighbors, Lee's $138,288 median stands well below Laurens County at $189,376, Fairfield at $177,744, and Clarendon at $190,913, and far below Lancaster at $384,904 and York at $385,981. The most useful comparison is Laurens County, which provides a complete dataset: median rent of $1,012.83, a rent-to-price ratio of 6.42%, and an overall score of 47, essentially matching Lee's 48. Laurens is modestly more expensive at $189,376, but it offers documented rent data and a higher ratio, which means an investor can actually underwrite it with real numbers. If the thesis is affordable South Carolina markets with cash-flow potential, Laurens County presents a clearer, more verifiable case. Lee County makes sense over a neighbor only if an investor has proprietary access to below-median deals, local management infrastructure, and a conviction about demand that the public data does not yet support.