Why the Myrtle Beach Condo Boom is Collapsing Under a Hidden Insurance Crisis

Added: 2026-06-02

[00:00:00]According to fresh data from the South Carolina Association of Realtors, the median condo price in Myrtle Beach dropped 12.2% in the first quarter of 2026 alone, down to $195,000 from $222,000 just 1 year ago.

[00:00:20]And Redfin's numbers are even sharper.

[00:00:23]Over the 3 months ending April 2026, home prices across Myrtle Beach fell 14.1% year-over-year, settling at a median of $232,000.

[00:00:38]For years, this beach town was considered bulletproof. Investors flooded in. Developers couldn't build fast enough. Every oceanfront condo sold before the paint dried. Now, condos are sitting on the market for over 113 days on average. Inventory for condos specifically has climbed to 7.4 months of supply. That's firmly in buyer territory. And in the first quarter of this year, the number of condos listed for sale shot up another 10.5%.

[00:01:12]So, what broke? The answer isn't interest rates. It isn't just the economy. It's insurance. And the situation is getting messier by the month. Here's what actually happened.

[00:01:25]For most of the early 2020s, Myrtle Beach was one of the hottest real estate markets in the entire Southeast. People were relocating from the Northeast.

[00:01:35]Remote workers wanted beach access. And investors saw short-term rental income as a guaranteed play.

[00:01:41]Demand was so intense that agents were handling over 40 offers on a single property within 48 hours. That's not a figure from some analyst's report.

[00:01:52]That's something local agents in Myrtle Beach described publicly.

[00:01:56]The condo market was at the center of all of it. Oceanfront units, high-rise towers, mid-rise buildings a block off the water. All of it was moving fast.

[00:02:06]Investors from across the country were buying units sight unseen and listing them on Airbnb the same week they got the keys.

[00:02:14]Then the numbers started shifting. By the summer of 2025, condo sales had dropped 23.6% in a single month compared to the year before.

[00:02:25]The average condo sale price fell 7% to around $257,000.

[00:02:31]Inventory jumped 22.2% in the condo segment alone. And the average condo listing in Myrtle Beach was only receiving about 1.9 showings over a 6-month period when it typically takes around nine showings to secure a contract. Only half of all listings were making it to closing.

[00:02:50]Real estate agents were describing it as a complete 180. One week you had a frenzy, the next buyers were not even walking through the door.

[00:02:59]And behind all of it, quietly stacking up, was an insurance problem that most buyers never saw coming when they signed the purchase agreements. Here's the part that nobody who bought a Myrtle Beach condo in 2021 or 2022 fully understood.

[00:03:15]When you own a condo in South Carolina, you don't just pay for your own individual units insurance. Your HOA, the condo association, carries a master insurance policy that covers the entire building. Wind damage, structural repairs, shared areas, and every condo owner's monthly fee goes toward paying that master policy. What happened from 2023 into 2025 is that the cost of those master policies exploded. According to local insurance data from the Myrtle Beach area, the average home insurance premium in the Grand Strand region sits at roughly $3,215 per year as of 2026. That sounds manageable for a single-family home, but for condo associations carrying insurance on entire multi-story buildings with hurricane exposure, the numbers are far worse. One real estate brokerage in the area documented specific examples where per unit insurance costs jumped from $2,600 per unit to $5,600 per unit, more than double in a single renewal cycle. When that hits, the HOA has no choice. Dues go up, and in many cases, the association issues what's called a special assessment, a lump-sum bill sent to every unit owner to cover the shortfall. Nationally, data from Association Reserves shows that about 74% of HOAs across the country are currently under- funded. That's the highest rate ever recorded, and in a coastal market like Myrtle Beach, where buildings are facing salt air, storm exposure, and aging infrastructure, the problem is worse. In 2025, local underwriting data confirmed that average annual insurance premiums for coastal South Carolina properties climbed 20 to 35% compared to 2023 in just 2 years.

[00:05:17]Insurance companies are citing reinsurance costs, storm modeling updates, and the aftermath of major storms like Hurricane Helene in late 2024.

[00:05:27]Several national carriers reduced or paused new business writing in parts of South Carolina in 2024 and 2025. One insurer, American National, went further, announcing it was withdrawing from the homeowners insurance market in South Carolina entirely along with eight other states. Meanwhile, older wooden condo buildings close to the ocean in the Myrtle Beach area have been described directly in the South Carolina Department of Insurance's 2025 annual coastal report as experiencing significant challenges finding affordable coverage. That's not a warning from a blog. That's language from the state's own official market report. In 2025, FEMA also updated its flood maps for parts of the Grand Strand, quietly reclassifying certain areas into higher risk zones. That pushed more properties into mandatory flood insurance requirements on top of the wind coverage already skyrocketing in price. The result? For a buyer looking at a condo in Myrtle Beach right now, the monthly payment isn't just mortgage principal and interest. It's an HOA fee that has gone up sharply. It's a separate flood insurance policy. And it's the very real possibility of a special assessment arriving in the mail from the building's association. One agent put it simply, for anyone financing a beachfront investment condo, making the numbers work has become a real challenge right now.

[00:06:57]>> There's a layer to this that most people outside the real estate world don't realize. Mortgage lenders, including those backing conventional loans through Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, now look closely at a condo association's financial health before approving a loan.

[00:07:12]If the building's reserve fund is too low, lenders will either reject the loan entirely or require buyers to put down 25% or more instead of the standard amount.

[00:07:22]This is happening in Myrtle Beach right now. Some associations with depleted reserves are being flagged during the underwriting process, which means buyers walk in expecting a normal mortgage and walk out being told they need a bigger down payment or can't get financing at all. That immediately shrinks the pool of who can actually buy units in buildings.

[00:07:43]And here's where the condo inventory number makes more sense. As of the first quarter of 2026, the number of condos on the market in Myrtle Beach rose 10.5% year-over-year to 980 active units.

[00:07:56]Condos are sitting at 7.4 to 7.8 months of supply depending on which area you look at. Buyers have walked away from deals. Some investors are trying to unload properties before assessments hit.

[00:08:09]The short-term rental math that made condos attractive has also gotten harder. Rental prices in the Myrtle Beach area fell 6 to 7% year-over-year in 2025 according to data tracked by Zillow, Zumper, and Apartment List. That income side of the equation is shrinking at the same time costs on the expense side are climbing.

[00:08:30]The tone shifted fast among investors.

[00:08:32]People who bought with the plan of covering the mortgage through Airbnb income are now doing the math again, and in some buildings it's just not adding up the way it once did. As of May 2026, the Myrtle Beach condo market is sitting in a place no one predicted four years ago. Redfin data shows homes across Myrtle Beach selling about 4% below list price on average, and that's for the ones that actually find a buyer.

[00:08:58]Properties with price reductions have climbed from 75% to 79% of all active listings. Only 4.35% of homes sold over asking down from 4.46% last year. The condo segment specifically has 9.43 months of supply.

[00:09:17]Only 391 houses total were sold in Myrtle Beach in March 2026. A city that was once one of the busiest coastal real estate markets on the East Coast is now averaging 113 days on market before a deal closes.

[00:09:32]The South Carolina Department of Insurance's latest annual coastal report released in early 2026 acknowledged that while the state's coastal insurance market is in better shape than Florida's, it is not problem-free.

[00:09:46]Coastal condo owners with older wooden buildings near the water are among the hardest hit and the report confirmed that many of those associations have migrated out of the state's wind pool and into private coverage suggesting the pricing pressure has been real enough to force changes in how entire buildings insure themselves.

[00:10:05]Economists are watching this market closely. The concern isn't a sudden crash, it's a slow grind, prices easing, inventory building, costs rising and the investor math getting worse every quarter. For regular condo buyers, the message from agents right now is consistent. Check the HOA financials before you make any offer. Ask specifically about the reserve fund.

[00:10:29]Find out when the last reserve study was done. Ask if any special assessments are being planned and get a clear picture of what the master insurance policy actually costs per unit because right now in Myrtle Beach, the number on the listing price is only part of what you're actually agreeing to pay. The Myrtle Beach condo boom didn't collapse overnight. It's been slowing down piece by piece. First, the buyer frenzy cooled, then the days on market stretched out and now the insurance costs are squeezing owners from every direction. Nobody expected it to get complicated this fast and with hurricane season returning and reinsurance costs still elevated heading into late 2026, everyone watching this market is asking the same question. Is this the floor or just the beginning of the adjustment?

[00:11:19]That's what has homeowners, investors and first-time buyers all watching closely right now.