Tide Gauge™: market conditions
Redfin · past three months · compared with what's normal for the town · 50 = normalHome value index
Zillow ZHVI · monthlyMedian sale price
Redfin · 3-month rollingMedian days on market
Redfin · 3-month rollingMonths of supply
Redfin · under 4 favors sellers, over 6 favors buyersAsking rent index
Zillow ZORI · monthlyMedian household income
Census ACS 5-year · each year in its own dollarsUnemployment rate
Bureau of Labor Statistics · monthlyPopulation growth since 2020
U.S. Census Bureau · yearly, as of July 1Side-by-side
Data: Zillow Home Value Index and Zillow Observed Rent Index (Zillow Research) · Redfin, a national real estate brokerage · U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey · Bureau of Labor Statistics, Local Area Unemployment Statistics · U.S. Census Bureau, Population Estimates.
The Cape Island Point Tide Gauge™
Our market conditions score: how hot or cool the housing market is right now, compared with what's normal here for the time of year. Like a tide gauge, it shows the level rising and falling against a fixed mark.
What you're looking at: a score from 0 to 100, made from five Redfin figures on how many homes are for sale, how quickly they find buyers and how much room buyers have to bargain · 50 is normal · above 50 is hotter, which is better for sellers · below 50 is cooler, which is better for buyers
Where things stand
Redfin data · score by Cape Island PointCharleston-area score and home values since 2016
monthly · 50 = normal · values: ZillowCounty snapshot
What single-family homes sold for last month in each county, from the local Realtors' association.
Year-over-year compares the same month a year earlier. Tap a county to chart it. See all MLS areas →
Leading indicators
Prices and closed sales are the last things to change. These numbers usually turn first.
What you're looking at: Redfin, Zillow, the Census Bureau, BLS and Freddie Mac · the whole Charleston area, not one town · latest reading vs. a year ago · each small chart is dated underneath and covers up to three years
Tap a tile to see its trend over the past three years and what it means.
Arrows show direction only, not good or bad: what helps a buyer usually hurts a seller. Pending sales, new listings and quick sales sum the 27 towns in the Towns tab (Redfin, 3-month rolling). Building permits are for Charleston, Berkeley and Dorchester counties (U.S. Census Bureau); jobs and unemployment are for the Charleston metro (Bureau of Labor Statistics, not seasonally adjusted, so compare with the same month a year earlier). Price cuts and new-construction prices are Charleston metro figures from Zillow. Mortgage applications are only published nationally, so they're not shown.
Population by county
How fast each county is growing, and where the new residents came from.
Population growth since 2020
U.S. Census Bureau · yearly, as of July 1Where the growth came from
Unemployment by county
The share of each county's labor force that is out of work and looking.
Unemployment rate
Bureau of Labor Statistics · monthlyMLS areas
Monthly sales figures from the local Realtors' association (CTAR), by MLS area. Each area groups many neighborhoods and ignores town limits: James Island (Area 21) mixes the Town of James Island, parts of the City of Charleston and unincorporated land. Pick an area to chart it, or tap a row in the table.
Year-over-year compares the same month a year earlier. * Fewer than 5 sales that month. Small areas swing hard on a handful of sales. Six counties outside the region report all property types combined. Market areas don't match town limits: CTAR's James Island area covers the whole island (including City of Charleston neighborhoods) and splits single-family from condos, while the Towns tab uses each town's own limits and all home types. Why the sources differ.
Data: Charleston Trident Association of REALTORS® (CTAR) Local Market Updates, published through ShowingTime FastStats. Figures are CTAR's, shown as reported.
Neighborhoods
Median sale price
Redfin · 3-month rollingHome value index
Zillow · City of Charleston neighborhoods onlyHomes sold
Redfin · 3-month rollingMedian days on market
Redfin · 3-month rollingSide-by-side, by area
Neighborhood boundaries are drawn by Redfin and Zillow and differ slightly between them. Redfin covers neighborhoods with recent sales across the region; Zillow publishes neighborhood values only inside City of Charleston limits. Town assignments are ours.
Data: Redfin, a national real estate brokerage neighborhood tracker · Zillow Home Value Index (Zillow Research).
Mortgage rates
Mortgage rates and the 10-year Treasury
Weekly averagesMortgage premium over Treasuries
30-yr fixed minus 10-yr TreasuryA wide gap means mortgages are expensive relative to bonds, usually when rates are volatile. If it narrows back toward average, mortgage rates can fall even if Treasury yields don't.
Monthly payment on a typical home
Data: Freddie Mac Primary Mortgage Market Survey® · U.S. Department of the Treasury.
ZIP codes
Latest value from each source for the region's residential ZIP codes. Town names show the largest incorporated places inside each ZIP.
FHFA 5-yr is the change in the FHFA house price index from 2020 to 2025. A dash means the source has too few sales or households there to report.
Data: Zillow Research · Redfin, a national real estate brokerage · FHFA House Price Index · U.S. Census Bureau.
Sources and notes
Zillow Research
Home Value Index (ZHVI), all homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted, by city and ZIP, monthly. Observed Rent Index (ZORI), all homes plus multifamily, smoothed, by city and ZIP. ZORI covers 8 of the 27 towns.
Redfin Data Center
Housing Market Tracker by city and ZIP, all property types. Each monthly point is a 3-month rolling window ending that month (August 2026 = June–August), from 2012 on.
Census ACS 5-year
Median household income (B19013), median home value (B25077), median gross rent (B25064) and tenure (B25003) for each town, 2006–2010 through 2020–2024, and for ZIP codes 2011–2024. Values are in each survey's own dollars. Home value is top-coded at $1,000,000+ through 2020 and $2,000,000+ after.
CTAR / ShowingTime FastStats
Local Market Update for 33 MLS areas, split by single-family and townhouse/condo, monthly. Each report also carries the same month a year earlier. Charts go back to the earliest month stored; the 3-month smoothing option averages the monthly figures and is off by default.
Mortgage rates
Freddie Mac Primary Mortgage Market Survey: weekly national average 30-year fixed (since 1971) and 15-year fixed (since 1991) rates. U.S. Treasury daily par yield curve: 10-year yield since 1990, averaged over each survey week for the premium chart.
FHFA
All-transactions House Price Index for five-digit ZIP codes, annual through 2025 (updated March 31, 2026). Based on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgages; ZIPs with too few loans are blank.
Census population estimates
Population Estimates Program: residents of every town and county as of July 1 each year, from 2020 on, plus each county's change split into moves from elsewhere in the U.S., moves from abroad, and births minus deaths. Released each spring and revised back to 2020 every year. Town figures count people inside town limits, so annexed land adds residents who did not move. Estimates before 2020 are left out because they were never revised to match the 2020 census; some towns were off by a third or more.
BLS local jobs figures
Local Area Unemployment Statistics: residents who have a job and the unemployment rate, monthly, not seasonally adjusted, for Charleston, Berkeley and Dorchester counties and for the five towns with 25,000 or more people (Charleston, North Charleston, Mount Pleasant, Summerville, Goose Creek). The other 22 towns have no monthly figures, so their chart shows their county. These count people by where they live, not where they work, and BLS builds them by dividing up the Charleston-area total, so places in the area trend almost together. October 2025 was never published. The latest months are preliminary and get revised.
How to read the town figures
Every town figure comes from that source's own town-level data, not from ZIP codes. Zillow has no town series for James Island or Rockville, so their home values use Zillow's ZIP series instead: 29412 for James Island (which contains the whole town) and 29487 for Rockville (all of Wadmalaw Island, a much wider and cheaper area than the town). Price-to-income divides the latest Zillow home value by the 2020–2024 Census median household income, so it slightly overstates today's ratio.