by Bryan Crabtree

Ryan Serhant recently made a provocative statement on CNBC that caught my attention.

“There is no longer a housing market in the United States.”

Obviously, homes are still being bought and sold. His point was that America increasingly doesn't have one housing market. Instead, Serhant described four very different groups operating under completely different financial circumstances: cash buyers, financed buyers, homeowners locked into ultra-low mortgage rates and homebuilders.

I think he's onto something.

But here in Charleston, I would take his argument one step further.

We don't have one Charleston housing market anymore, either. We have at least five.

I've spent nearly three decades in real estate, and one of the biggest mistakes consumers can make today is looking at a national housing headline — or even a Charleston-area statistic — and assuming it describes what's happening to them.

It often doesn't.

The housing market on Daniel Island can look dramatically different from Summerville. Mount Pleasant can behave differently from parts of West Ashley, North Charleston or Goose Creek. A $2 million cash buyer experiences Charleston real estate completely differently from a family trying to finance a $600,000 home.

And underneath all of this is a much bigger problem that I believe deserves more attention:

Traditional homeownership is struggling.

That is especially apparent in Charleston County, where prices have pushed ownership increasingly beyond the reach of ordinary working households, but the effects are spreading throughout the entire Charleston tri-county region.

Charleston #1: The Cash and Wealth Market

Start at the top.

There is a Charleston housing market that remains largely insulated from mortgage rates.

You see it on Daniel Island, downtown Charleston, Sullivan's Island, Isle of Palms and portions of Mount Pleasant. It includes second-home buyers, retirees arriving with substantial equity, executives relocating from more expensive markets, investors and households with significant accumulated wealth.

For these buyers, the difference between a 3% mortgage and a 6.5% mortgage may be irrelevant because there may not be a mortgage at all.

That creates a strange dynamic.

We can simultaneously have an affordability crisis and multimillion-dollar homes selling.

Those two things aren't contradictory.

They are different Charlestons.

A buyer writing a $1.5 million or $2 million check is not participating in the same housing economy as a teacher, police officer, nurse, small-business owner or young professional trying to qualify for a mortgage.

That's one reason looking at Charleston's median sales price alone tells us increasingly little about the health of homeownership.

Expensive homes can continue trading while the traditional middle of the market deteriorates underneath them.

Charleston #2: The Mortgage Market

This is where the pressure becomes much more obvious.

Consider the household trying to buy somewhere between roughly $400,000 and $900,000.

They aren't just buying a house.

They're buying a monthly payment.

And that payment has been attacked from almost every direction.

Home prices remain dramatically higher than they were before the pandemic. Mortgage rates are substantially higher. Homeowners insurance has increased. Flood insurance can be significant. Property taxes matter. HOA fees matter. Maintenance costs have risen.

A household can have a good income and still look at the monthly cost of owning a home in Charleston County and say:

This doesn't make sense anymore.

That is a profound change.

For decades, homeownership was one of the primary mechanisms through which middle-class Americans accumulated wealth. You bought a house, paid down the mortgage, benefited from appreciation and eventually owned a valuable asset.

Today, getting onto that ladder is becoming increasingly difficult.

The problem is particularly severe in Mount Pleasant, Daniel Island, James Island and much of Charleston County, but it doesn't stop at the county line.

As buyers get priced out, they move outward.

Which leads us to another Charleston.

Charleston #3: The Golden-Handcuff Homeowner

This group may actually be the strangest product of the post-pandemic housing market.

Imagine someone who purchased or refinanced a Charleston-area home several years ago.

They owe $400,000 at approximately 3%.

Their home may now be worth $700,000 or $800,000.

On paper, they're doing wonderfully.

They have equity. Their payment is manageable. Their mortgage is one of the cheapest sources of long-term money they'll probably ever have.

There's only one problem.

They don't want to live there anymore.

Maybe they need another bedroom. Maybe they're getting divorced. Maybe their children have moved away. Maybe they want to downsize. Maybe their job changed. Maybe they simply want something different.

Selling means surrendering that mortgage.

Suddenly they're looking at borrowing money at more than twice the interest rate.

These homeowners aren't necessarily trapped in their houses. They're trapped by the economics of leaving them.

That's an important distinction.

Financially, many of these homeowners are actually winners.

But their extraordinarily cheap mortgage has become a pair of golden handcuffs.

And when millions of homeowners make the perfectly rational decision to stay put, fewer existing homes come onto the market.

That reduces mobility and distorts inventory.

Charleston #4: Builder Country

Now drive farther out.

Summerville. Nexton. Cane Bay. Carnes Crossroads. Goose Creek. Moncks Corner. The expanding edges of Berkeley and Dorchester counties.

Here the rules change again.

A homeowner trying to sell a three-, five- or seven-year-old house may discover that the biggest competition isn't the neighbor down the street.

It's the builder down the road.

And that's not a fair fight.

An ordinary homeowner has one house to sell.

A builder may have dozens.

The homeowner probably can't offer a subsidized mortgage rate.

The builder can.

The homeowner can't casually throw $15,000 or $25,000 toward closing costs without directly reducing what they walk away with.

The builder may be able to.

Builders can offer rate buydowns, closing-cost assistance, upgrades and other incentives that effectively reduce the buyer's cost without necessarily producing the same headline price reduction.

There's another important difference.

The homeowner can decide not to sell.

The builder eventually needs to move inventory.

Construction financing costs money. Capital partners expect returns. Land has carrying costs. Completed inventory sitting on a balance sheet isn't the objective.

That gives builders motivations that are fundamentally different from ordinary homeowners.

And it is one reason resale sellers in heavily developed portions of Berkeley and Dorchester counties can face enormous competition even while desirable established neighborhoods elsewhere in Charleston remain comparatively resilient.

Again:

Different Charleston. Different rules.

Charleston #5: The Aspirational Market — Buyers Being Pushed Outward

This fifth Charleston concerns me the most.

These are people who aren't necessarily poor.

They have jobs.

They have careers.

Many make incomes that would have comfortably supported homeownership a generation ago.

They simply can't afford the Charleston they actually want to live in.

Maybe they work downtown but can't afford James Island.

Maybe they grew up in Mount Pleasant but can't afford to buy there.

Maybe they would like to live in West Ashley but discover that the combination of purchase price, mortgage rate, insurance and renovation costs blows up their budget.

So they move outward.

Summerville.

Goose Creek.

Ladson.

Moncks Corner.

Then eventually farther.

This creates the illusion that housing demand disappeared from Charleston County.

It didn't necessarily disappear.

It migrated.

The buyer who couldn't afford Mount Pleasant became a Summerville buyer.

The buyer who couldn't afford Summerville became a Goose Creek or Moncks Corner buyer.

And increasingly, the household that can't make those numbers work becomes a renter.

That is where the housing discussion needs to become much larger than whether home prices increased or decreased 2% last year.

Homeownership Itself Is What's Under Pressure

This is the bigger story.

We spend an extraordinary amount of time debating whether we're in a buyer's market or a seller's market.

I think we're asking the wrong question.

Are we still creating homeowners?

Because ownership matters.

Owning a home isn't merely about having somewhere to sleep.

For generations, it has been one of America's primary wealth-building mechanisms.

You purchase an asset.

You finance it over decades.

Inflation gradually reduces the real burden of the debt.

Your income hopefully increases.

Your mortgage balance decreases.

The property hopefully appreciates.

Eventually you own something.

That matters enormously.

And when younger and middle-income households increasingly cannot participate in ownership, we shouldn't simply shrug and call it an affordability cycle.

We should recognize the long-term implications.

A society increasingly divided between people who own appreciating assets and people who perpetually rent those assets is going to produce very different economic outcomes.

Charleston County is becoming an uncomfortable case study.

There are enormous amounts of wealth here.

There are extraordinary homes.

There are wealthy buyers arriving from around the country.

There are neighborhoods where million-dollar transactions have become routine.

At the same time, many households earning what most Americans would consider very good incomes struggle to purchase an ordinary home.

Both realities can exist simultaneously.

That's precisely the point.

The Tri-County Market Is Fragmenting

Charleston, Berkeley and Dorchester counties are geographically connected.

Economically, their housing markets are increasingly fragmented.

The traditional model looked something like this:

Buy a starter home.

Build equity.

Move into something larger.

Raise a family.

Build more equity.

Eventually downsize.

That ladder depends upon people being able to reach the first rung.

Today, that first rung is moving higher.

At the same time, existing owners don't want to surrender their low mortgage rates, builders are competing aggressively with resale inventory, wealthy cash buyers remain active in desirable areas and middle-income buyers are pushed progressively farther from Charleston's economic center.

That's how we arrived at the Five Charlestons.

And it explains why two people can have completely contradictory opinions about the Charleston housing market — and both can be right.

A Daniel Island cash buyer may see opportunity.

A Mount Pleasant homeowner with a 3% mortgage may feel financially comfortable but unable to move.

A first-time buyer may see impossibility.

A Summerville resale seller may feel like they're competing against an entire corporate sales department.

A builder may see inventory that simply needs to move.

Same metropolitan area.

Five different realities.

So Is Charleston a Buyer's Market or a Seller's Market?

Neither question is sufficient anymore.

The better question is:

Which Charleston are you in?

Because your answer determines almost everything.

Price point matters.

Neighborhood matters.

Financing matters.

Equity matters.

New construction matters.

And increasingly, wealth matters.

The Charleston housing market isn't collapsing into one uniform recession, nor is everything booming simply because expensive homes continue to sell.

It's fragmenting.

That's why homeowners need to be extremely careful with broad headlines and generalized housing statistics.

The national housing market isn't your neighborhood.

The Charleston MLS isn't your street.

And even the statistics for your ZIP code may not accurately describe your particular price range.

After nearly three decades in real estate, I believe understanding those distinctions has rarely mattered more.

Because behind all the arguments about mortgage rates, inventory and home prices lies a much bigger question for Charleston and America:

Are we building a society of homeowners — or slowly creating a permanent class of renters watching the ownership economy from the outside?

That may ultimately be the most important housing story of all.

About Bryan Crabtree

Bryan Crabtree is a Charleston-area luxury real estate broker, longtime housing-market analyst and one of the region's most experienced residential real estate professionals. With nearly three decades in the real estate industry, more than 5,000 career transactions and over $1 billion in lifetime residential real estate sales, Crabtree brings a transaction-level perspective to Charleston housing trends, property values, neighborhood dynamics and real estate economics.

Based in the Charleston area and specializing in Mount Pleasant, Dunes West, Daniel Island, Charleston, James Island and the surrounding Lowcountry, Crabtree advises homeowners, buyers and investors across Charleston, Berkeley and Dorchester counties. His market analysis focuses not simply on broad MLS statistics, but on the forces actually affecting individual neighborhoods and property values — including mortgage rates, inventory, affordability, insurance costs, new-construction competition, migration patterns and changing buyer behavior.

Crabtree is affiliated with IndigoOak | Christie's International Real Estate and works extensively with luxury and upper-tier residential properties throughout the Charleston market. His real estate commentary and Charleston housing-market analysis are designed to help consumers understand the difference between national housing headlines and what is actually happening at the neighborhood, price-point and property level.

For Charleston and Mount Pleasant homeowners considering selling, buyers evaluating the market, or consumers researching Charleston real estate, Mount Pleasant real estate, Daniel Island homes, Dunes West homes and the Charleston housing market, Bryan Crabtree provides local analysis grounded in decades of real-world sales and brokerage experience.