New homes under construction (File/Getty Images)
COLUMBIA — South Carolina’s housing authority is upping its aid for homebuyers.
Starting Dec. 16, qualified South Carolinians seeking to buy a home can get an additional $2,000 to put toward a down payment, SC Housing announced this week.
It’s part of an effort in one of the nation’s fastest growing states to “increase opportunities for a wide range of South Carolinians to take the step of becoming homeowners,” the agency said in a release.
The agency helped South Carolinians buy 1,743 homes last fiscal year, a record high. Those loans collectively tallied $378 million, according to the agency.
Now the agency is taking those efforts a step further.
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Next week, homebuyers can start applying for up to $10,000 in a zero-interest, potentially forgivable loan for down payment and closing costs. According to the agency, those costs are often cited as the main obstacles to homeownership.
Eligibility also will be based only on the income or incomes of those listed on the loan application rather than total household income, the affordable housing agency announced. This change should help more people qualify for the program, since eligibility is based on homebuyers’ incomes.
To qualify, applicants’ annual incomes must fall below limits that vary by county. Income caps range from $84,800 in Anderson, Greenwood, Oconee and Spartanburg counties to $127,680 in Beaufort County.
The program is available to all first-time homebuyers. In counties “targeted” for aid, people who have previously bought a home still qualify as long as they don’t already own a home in that county. Repeat buyers in “non-targeted” counties qualify if they haven’t owned a home in those counties for at least three years. Single parents and people with disabilities are exempt from that rule.
The agency didn’t have any predictions for many more people might become eligible by applying those income limits only to the applicant.
Other requirements for the aid include completing a homebuyer education course and having a credit score of at least 640. And they can’t buy a home for more than $425,000. To have their loan forgiven, they must remain living in the home for at least 15 years.
Most South Carolinians earn well below the limits. South Carolina’s per capita income is $57,332, according to the latest data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.
And most homes sell for less than the maximum price allowed. The statewide median home sales price was $340,000 in October, according to the latest report from the state Association of Realtors.
In Beaufort and Jasper counties, the median sales price was $422,500. The highest prices were on Hilton Head Island, where the median was $545,000. The most affordable homes were in the region dubbed Central Carolina, which stretches north to south between Newberry and Orangeburg counties, where the median sales price was $175,000.
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The housing authority also pointed to a homeownership program that offers up to $12,000 in aid specifically for teachers, nurses, law enforcement and military as an example of demand in the state.
In just two months, the program known as Palmetto Heroes gave out all of the $60 million in down payment assistance it had available for 2024.
SC Housing Director Richard Hutto told a legislative fiscal oversight panel last week that his agency hopes to expand that program in the coming year.
“There is no better way to build wealth and to pass on wealth to future generations than to have affordable housing,” Sen. Darrell Jackson said in response.
The Hopkins Democrat shared the story of his own parents’ journey to home ownership more than 60 years ago, when on a pastor’s salary, they scraped together the roughly $70 a month they needed to pay the mortgage.
“They prayed every night that they would be able to afford that, but fast forward, years later, the house is paid off. And it’s something that they can pass on to future generations,” said Jackson, who is the senior pastor of the church his father founded.
SC Housing raises money for these programs and others through the sale of mortgage revenue bonds.