Myrtle Beach, SC Real Estate Market 2026: Score 8, 47.5% Overvalued

Myrtle Beach, South Carolina scores 8 out of 100 on the PropertyIQ index as of February 2026.

That puts the Myrtle Beach-Conway-North Myrtle Beach metro among the lowest-scoring markets in the national dataset. The score reflects a market that ran well ahead of its economic fundamentals during the pandemic relocation wave and has not corrected meaningfully. Prices remain elevated, demand has retreated, and unemployment sits at 5.8%.

PropertyIQ scores Myrtle Beach an 8 out of 100 as of February 28, 2026. Scores are updated monthly using Zillow, Census, and Realtor.com data.

What a Score of 8 Looks Like in Myrtle Beach

The number that defines Myrtle Beach right now is 47.5. That is the overvaluation percentage as of February 2026, calculated against income-adjusted affordable home prices. The median income in Myrtle Beach is $64,623. A buyer earning that income can comfortably afford a home priced at $243,130. The median home value is $334,037 as of January 31, 2026.

The gap is $90,907. That is the structural affordability problem sitting underneath the score.

The demand score is 30.8 out of 100. The supply score is 20.7. The hotness score is 25.8. None of these components come close to supporting a higher composite reading. A market scores in the single digits when every major input is weak simultaneously, and Myrtle Beach qualifies on all three dimensions.

Myrtle Beach South Carolina Housing Market: Price and Inventory Data

The median listing price is $327,950 as of February 1, 2026. The Zillow home value for the metro is $334,037 as of January 31, 2026. Year-over-year appreciation is 1.14% as of February 2026. Month-over-month is 2.81%.

The five-year appreciation rate is 33.88% as of February 2026. That number tells the story of the pandemic run-up. Homes in Myrtle Beach are worth one-third more than they were in 2021, yet the economy and income base have not grown at a comparable pace.

The Zillow one-year price forecast is 1.9% as of December 2025. Prices are not forecast to fall sharply, but a 1.9% forward return in a market 47.5% above income-supported valuations reflects continued stagnation rather than recovery.

Active inventory is 5,107 homes as of February 1, 2026, down 4.16% year over year. New listings are 1,802, down 3.74% year over year. Supply is tightening modestly, but it is not translating into price recovery because the affordability ceiling is too low. Buyers simply cannot qualify at these prices in sufficient numbers to clear the market.

Days on market is 81 as of February 2026. In a healthy market for a metro with 369,000 residents, 81 days signals that listings are sitting. Price reductions affect 18.32% of active listings. Nearly one in five sellers has already cut their price without finding a buyer.

Myrtle Beach Real Estate Market: Affordability and Income Analysis

The income required to purchase at the median listing price is $87,168 per year as of February 2026. The metro median household income is $64,623 per year as of 2023 Census data.

The income-to-buy ratio is 1.35. A household at the median income needs to earn 35% more to comfortably buy the median-priced home. That gap is manageable in high-wage metros but severe in a retirement-oriented market where Social Security, pension income, and fixed-income earners make up a large share of residents.

The median age in the Myrtle Beach metro is 48.2 years as of 2023 Census data. The homeownership rate is 75.84%. Both numbers reflect a predominantly retiree and near-retiree population base. Retirees on fixed incomes are not the buyer pool that absorbs housing inventory when prices remain elevated.

The unemployment rate is 5.8% as of November 2025. For a market dependent on tourism and hospitality, that reading reflects the structural employment base rather than a cyclical downturn. The service industry employment backbone that supports much of the local economy does not generate the incomes required to buy at current price levels.

Myrtle Beach SC Rent Data and Cash Flow Metrics

The Zillow rent index for Myrtle Beach is $1,680 per month as of December 2025. At a Zillow home value of $334,037, the gross rent multiplier is approximately 16.6.

A GRM of 16.6 is not a cash flow market by any standard definition. An investor buying at $334,000 with a $1,680 monthly rent is working against the math before financing costs, vacancy, insurance, and maintenance. The sale-to-list ratio is 97.05% as of November 2025, so sellers are accepting modest discounts but not enough to move the GRM into viable territory.

The Zillow one-year price forecast of 1.9% combined with a GRM above 16 places Myrtle Beach in a category where neither appreciation nor yield justifies investment at current pricing.

Why Myrtle Beach Scores So Low

Myrtle Beach scored higher during the 2021 to 2023 period when relocation-driven demand was absorbing inventory at elevated prices. That demand has normalized. Buyers from higher-cost markets are not flowing in at the same velocity, and the local income base was never sufficient to sustain $330,000-plus median prices independently.

The pending ratio is 0.4123 as of February 2026. For every 100 homes listed, roughly 41 are under contract. That is not a seller's market. A healthy market typically shows pending ratios above 0.60. At 0.41, there is genuine excess supply relative to active buyers at current prices.

New construction sales were 821 units as of November 2025. The beach community continues to add supply through new development while existing inventory sits at 81 days. That combination preserves downward pressure on pricing even as listed inventory appears to be declining on a year-over-year basis.

The Structural Challenge

The score of 8 is not a temporary condition created by a single weak quarter. The conditions generating it, including overvaluation, weak local incomes, high unemployment for a coastal market, and limited buyer demand, are structural.

Myrtle Beach markets well as a retirement destination. The appeal of the coastline, the mild climate, and the lifestyle draws buyers from colder northern markets. But the post-pandemic surge in that migration has passed, and the remaining buyers are confronting an affordability gap that $327,950 median listings cannot bridge at current income levels.

For investors and buyers evaluating the Grand Strand, the data points to a market in a waiting period. Prices would need to fall to approximately $243,000 to align with income-supported valuations, or local incomes would need to rise substantially, which hospitality and retirement-service sectors do not deliver quickly. Neither scenario resolves the gap on a short timeline.

The score of 8 is the data's way of saying: this market has not yet repriced to match where the buyers actually are.

PropertyIQ score as of February 28, 2026. Listing and inventory data as of February 1, 2026. Zillow home value data as of January 31, 2026. Sale-to-list data as of November 30, 2025. Forecast data as of December 2025. Census data as of 2023. Economic data as of November 2025. All data for informational purposes only.