By state
DSCR and Investor Loans in South Carolina
Loan terms are national, but South Carolina property taxes and insurance move your DSCR. Here is how much, with a worked example.
South Carolina is a growing market with low headline property taxes. Investors concentrate in Greenville, Columbia, and Charleston, and the financing question is the same one everywhere: will the deal cover its own loan once the local costs are counted?
Loan terms are national; South Carolina changes your costs
The rates, leverage, and minimums on a DSCR loan or hard money loan are set by lenders that operate nationwide, so the ranges in the independent Rate and Terms Survey apply in South Carolina as anywhere. What South Carolina changes is your full monthly payment, because two of its parts, property taxes and insurance, are local.
How South Carolina property taxes and insurance move your DSCR
South Carolina headline property tax rates look very low, but there is a catch for investors. Insurance is moderate inland and higher on the Charleston coast. South Carolina assesses owner-occupied homes at a 4 percent ratio and non-owner-occupied rentals at 6 percent, so an investment property is taxed at a meaningfully higher effective rate than the owner-occupied figure you may see quoted. Use the rental figure when you run the numbers. Both feed directly into PITIA, the full payment a lender divides into the rent to get your debt service coverage ratio, so a deal in South Carolina can score differently from an identical property in another state purely on these lines.
A worked South Carolina example
Take a $250,000 property renting for $1,850 a month, financed with 25 percent down at an illustrative 7.5 percent over 30 years. The loan is $187,500, so principal and interest run about $1,311. Add roughly $188 a month in property tax and $142 in insurance, and the full PITIA payment is about $1,641. The ratio is $1,850 divided by $1,641, or about 1.13, which clears the 1.0 floor, so it finances, with room that depends on the exact numbers. Change the tax or insurance line and watch the ratio move; that is the South Carolina factor in one number.
Confirm your South Carolina deal
Run the property through the DSCR calculator with the real county tax bill and a true insurance quote, then check your own profile with the pre-qualifier and read how to qualify. Choose the right loan and confirm the deal qualifies before you apply, which is the whole idea behind The Lender's Lens.