How Buying Actually Works in Myrtle Beach, SC: Price Confusion, the HPR Insurance Crisis, and a Rental-Conversion Ban Worth Knowing Before You Offer

The Price You Hear Depends Entirely on Which Source Is Talking

Ask three different sources what a typical Myrtle Beach home costs right now and the answers won't agree, and the spread is large enough to matter when you're setting an offer strategy. Zillow's own ZHVI ("typical home value") stood at $323,460 as of the most recent monthly read, down 0.5% year-over-year - essentially flat to softening, not a hot seller's market. But Zillow's own separately reported median sale price was $274,357 as of May 31, 2026 - roughly $49,000 lower than its own ZHVI figure, a reminder that "typical value across all homes" and "median price of homes that actually closed" are two different, non-interchangeable numbers even from the same source. A third source, housingdata.report, put the median home price at $315,047 as of February 2026, down 2.9% year-over-year and describing prices as having "dropped for the 11th straight month," though the pace of decline had slowed by early 2026.

That's a roughly $50,000-$60,000 range depending on exactly which metric and which month you're reading - reason enough to ask a Myrtle Beach agent which source, and which date, any number you're handed is actually coming from before you anchor an offer to it. The same softening shows up in new construction: Horry County issued 17,552 building permits in fiscal year 2023-24, only a 1% increase in permit count over the prior year (the lowest growth rate since 2019-20) and, notably, a 6% decline in total construction value from the year before. Local builders quoted in that reporting described conditions as "stable but unspectacular," with some projects "canceled or delayed due to interest rates" - a real, current data point for a buyer trying to gauge how much urgency the market actually demands right now.

Buying an Oceanfront Condo: South Carolina's HPR Structure and a Real Insurance Crisis

Most of Myrtle Beach's oceanfront skyline is condominium towers, and South Carolina law has its own name for what you're actually buying into: a Horizontal Property Regime, or HPR, a term dating to the state's 1960s-era Horizontal Property Act. An HPR is defined by its ownership structure - governed by a master deed, bylaws, and rules and regulations - not by its architecture, so everything from a 20-story oceanfront tower to a detached cottage can legally be an HPR. That vocabulary matters practically because those governing documents, not just the unit's own deed, control what you can and can't do with the property, including rental use.

It also matters because oceanfront HPRs here are in the middle of a genuinely current, dollar-figured cost crisis. Per a 2026-dated investment report analyzing more than 30 major oceanfront buildings, HOA/regime fees have risen 15-30% over the past 24 months, with monthly fees now ranging from under $400 to over $1,200 depending on building size and amenities. Insurance costs specifically have "skyrocketed": wind and hail premiums are up 40-80%, building master insurance policies that cost $300,000-$400,000 a few years ago now run $600,000-$700,000 or more annually, and individual unit-owner policies cost 30-50% more than three years prior. That same reporting describes the buyer pool shifting away from cash-flow-driven short-term-rental investors toward owner-occupants, retirees, and longer-hold buyers who can absorb those rising carrying costs.

Before making an offer on any Myrtle Beach HPR unit, request the building's master deed, bylaws, current HOA/regime financials, and reserve study - not just the unit's own listing sheet. Ask specifically about recent or pending insurance premium increases, any special assessments under discussion, and what the reserve study says about funding for major components. No single named Myrtle Beach tower's specific rental restrictions or in-house rental-program requirements were confirmed in this site's research; many towers are understood to impose their own rules on top of the city's, so confirm a specific building's rental policy directly with its HOA before assuming a rental strategy pencils out. Have an SC-licensed real estate attorney review those documents before your due-diligence period closes.

Buying for Short-Term Rental Income: A Zone Where Converting Away From STR Is Now Banned

If part of your reason for buying is short-term rental income, there's a genuinely unusual, current regulatory fact worth understanding here - one that runs the opposite direction from what most other beach markets are doing. On December 10, 2024, Myrtle Beach City Council gave second-reading approval to an ordinance creating a "short-term rental conversion overlay zone," covering essentially the entire primary tourism corridor: everywhere east of Kings Highway from 29th Avenue South to 82nd Avenue North. Inside that zone, owners are banned from converting a short-term rental unit into a long-term rental - a lease exceeding 89 days is treated as long-term and is not permitted to convert back to short-term use. The city's own reasoning, per Assistant City Manager Brian Tucker, was direct: the area east of Kings Highway is the city's core tourism corridor, and the ordinance followed a study finding that converting just 1,000 rental rooms to long-term use would cost the city, county, and state a combined $7.6 million in lost tax and fee revenue.

For most beach markets, the story is residents fighting to restrict short-term rental growth. Here it's the reverse: the city is using its zoning power to lock properties into short-term-rental use and prevent owners inside that corridor from opting out of it. That matters directly to two different kinds of buyers. If you're buying specifically to hold a long-term or workforce rental inside that Kings Highway corridor, converting an existing STR into one may not be an option going forward - confirm a specific parcel's zone status with the city before assuming that flexibility exists. And if you're buying an STR expecting to eventually convert it to long-term use as a retirement or exit strategy, that flexibility may simply not be available on a property inside the overlay zone.

Separately, every rental property in the city - short-term, long-term, residential, or commercial - needs its own business license, and short-term stays are additionally layered with South Carolina's state and local accommodations-tax stack (a 2% state accommodations tax plus local options, on top of the city's own local accommodations tax and hospitality fee, and Horry County's separate hospitality fee) stacked on top of the area's 9% in-city combined sales tax. This research pass's own arithmetic suggests the combined nominal rate on a short-term room-night lands somewhere in the 15-17% range, but that figure has not been confirmed as a single number by any primary source - verify the current, true all-in rate directly with the South Carolina Department of Revenue or the Horry County Treasurer before building a rental income projection.

Buying as a Primary Residence: The 4%/6% Ratio and the $50,000 Homestead Exemption

Whether a Myrtle Beach purchase will be your actual primary residence or a second home/investment property changes the tax math directly, and South Carolina's mechanic here is distinctive enough to plan around rather than discover later. An owner-occupied legal residence is assessed at 4% of fair market value; every other class of real property - second homes, rental property, commercial property, vacant land - is assessed at 6%. Run that on a $300,000 property: assessed value is $12,000 at the 4% owner-occupied rate versus $18,000 at the 6% rate - a taxable base 50% larger before any millage is even applied. Given how much of this market's inventory is second-home or investment property, that ratio is often the single biggest lever on a buyer's actual tax bill here, bigger than year-to-year millage changes.

Note also that the 4% rate is not automatic just because you intend to live in the home full time - it requires an application to, and certification by, the county assessor, and South Carolina counties have been known to enforce a hard filing deadline (a January 15 pattern has been documented in at least one nearby SC county) for claiming it in a given tax year. Confirm Horry County's own specific filing deadline directly with the Horry County Assessor rather than assuming the lower rate is already baked into your first tax bill. Separately, South Carolina offers a $50,000 homestead exemption under SC Code § 12-37-250, typically available to owners who are age 65-plus, totally and permanently disabled, or legally blind, applied on top of the 4% owner-occupied rate - a real, additional benefit for qualifying owner-occupants, though this research could not independently confirm Horry County's specific current-year filing mechanics for that exemption. This site's Myrtle Beach property-tax page goes deeper on the confirmed Horry County millage figures and the city-specific millage gap that research could not close - worth reading before budgeting a purchase either way.

Confirm Directly Before Closing

This page describes the general shape of buying in Myrtle Beach; it is not legal, tax, financial, or real estate advice. Before finalizing a purchase, get a current comparable-sales analysis from a Myrtle Beach-specific buyer's agent rather than relying on any single portal's price figure, and treat the market's current softening signals as real leverage to factor into an offer. For an oceanfront HPR condo, request the master deed, bylaws, current HOA financials, and reserve study before your due-diligence period closes, and ask directly about recent insurance and fee increases. If a short-term rental strategy is part of the plan, confirm the specific parcel's location relative to the conversion overlay zone and its business-license and accommodations-tax obligations with the City of Myrtle Beach before assuming an income projection - or a future exit into long-term rental - pencils out. If the property will be a primary residence, confirm the 4% owner-occupied filing deadline and the homestead exemption's current mechanics with the Horry County Assessor. Consult a licensed South Carolina real estate attorney, a Myrtle Beach-area buyer's agent, and a licensed South Carolina insurance agent for guidance specific to your own transaction before closing.