How South Carolina landlords can help lower housing costs

For the past fifty years I have worked in the rental housing industry, beginning by renting out the other side of a small duplex that my husband and I owned and where we lived. I slowly added rental housing properties as I was financially able, focusing on the neighborhoods in Greenville that I had known and explored as a child. From those early days, SouthLand Properties was formed. We remain local and independent, with forty condos and duplexes catering to a wide variety of housing needs and costs.

I have heard an old proverb that says “The sun at home warms better than the sun elsewhere.”

I do believe that. Offering quality rental properties that can become homes of comfort, safety, and peace is something that has been a passion of mine for many decades. Housing is, for me, not only a business, but also a calling and a mission.

From that perspective I have watched the struggles in the housing industry that we — tenants, prospective home buyers, home owners, landlords, and more — are all experiencing with interest and some dismay. Are there solutions to the issues confronting the housing industry, particularly the high costs?

What drove up housing costs?

Some of the drivers of housing costs are baked into the cake. The federal  moratorium on evictions during the pandemic was overturned in August of 2021 — but that meant that some small landlords had no rental income for a year or more. In other states such as California some small local landlords had to go without rent for two years. Inevitably, landlords had to raise rental prices in order to recover sometimes dramatic, business-destroying losses. The eviction moratorium was especially devastating to the small, independent, locally owned housing companies like SouthLand. By the grace of God, not a single one of SouthLand’s tenants missed a month of rent payments.

Inflation arrived as well. The significant increase in living costs, coupled with job losses for so many, decimated some people’s ability to pay rent or buy houses. Inflation also exponentially increased costs for landlords. From 2020 to 2025, for instance, SouthLand’s regime/HOA fees (our largest expense) increased by 30% and taxes (our second largest expense) increased by 16%. Over a similar five-year stretch, from 2019 to 2024 our maintenance expenses increased by a whopping 53%.

In response to inflation, the Fed raised interest rates, so the cost of home buying went up dramatically as well.

In the meantime, certain areas of the country like Greenville County experienced significant increases in new residents which led to housing supply shortages — and wherever there are supply shortages, the cost of the remaining supply always rises.

All of these factors dramatically raised the cost of housing. From a global perspective, the two factors that can eventually contribute to lower costs are a reduction of interest rates and certain other costs, such as fuel and shipping costs.

How can we improve housing opportunities?

For landlords

View housing as a mission and calling. Providing a rental property as a real home — well maintained, updated and at as reasonable a cost as possible — should be the goal of businesses and free markets. This viewpoint allows us to take a longer perspective and work with people as individuals, not simply “tenants” or transactional units. It means that we don’t always charge full market rates for our units. I have always believed that having a rental that is occupied is better than having it sit vacant for a period of time in hopes that it can be rented for a few more hundred dollars a month.

Decrease “standard” costs for tenants as much as possible. I have been surprised at the costs that some large-scale landlords have added for tenants to simply apply for an apartment. I see other companies charging application fees of between $50-100 per adult tenant, “lease initiation/administration” fees for the start of a lease, and very high security deposits. SouthLand’s application fee of $30/adult covers the credit and criminal background check on the individual, and we have no “lease initiation” fee. Our deposit is typically about half of the monthly rent or less and is returnable if the tenant is in compliance with the lease. If a housing company has completed the appropriate credit, criminal and employment checks, a large deposit should not be necessary. Our pet policies are reasonable and our monthly fee applies to multiple pets (not per pet). None of these features are impossible for national housing companies. They can still make a profit while also getting the cost of applying and moving into a rental as reasonable as possible.

For local and state governments

Stringently review every cost associated with local housing and eliminate what you can. Every fee, tax, or regulation you add to a homebuilder, a person’s private home, or a landlord will get passed on to the end-user and that will necessarily make the home more expensive to build, purchase or rent.

Don’t increase costs by forcing landlords to pay for broader societal issues. The cost of evictions — vacancies that are as much forced on the landlord as on the tenant — is one of the most challenging costs for both parties. Landlords bear not only the lost rent during an eviction (a minimum of a month and often two or more) but also the cost of a significantly higher than usual level of repairs, maintenance and cleaning. I have replaced many a floor because of the damage done to a unit by pets that are not house-trained or by tenants who abused the property. One single eviction can create a net loss for that unit for an entire year. The very last thing responsible landlords want is an eviction — and so they will work hard to find tenants who are able to honor the terms of a lease.

Local governments who add more hoops to jump through once eviction is needed simply raise the costs of rental housing for everybody. Eliminating the ability of landlords to discover those who have repeatedly been evicted in the past means that landlords will have to charge higher deposit fees and higher monthly rents to everybody in order to cover the costs of inevitably increased evictions for a few whose eviction histories were erased by a government action. It also means that landlords will be forced to review more carefully the background of a prospective tenant in the absence of an accurate eviction history, again resulting in more time and expense for the landlord, and increased costs for tenants.

The reality is that there are some societal issues that are an even greater challenge than available housing. If someone is unable to hold a job, has an addiction problem, or is a chronic lawbreaker, resolving those highly significant issues is more important than simply putting him/her into housing. In a sense, housing may be the very least of their problems.

For those looking for rental housing

If possible, develop a relationship with the decision makers and property managers for the housing you are interested in. As testy as the rental housing industry can be, people still respond to warm personal relationships of honesty and genuineness. I am biased, of course, but I believe it is typically easier to build relationships with local independent businesses than national corporate chains, which have many levels of hierarchy and staff, along with policies that are less flexible and broader. Regardless of the size, choose a housing company that has integrity and some sense of mission. It’s easy enough to post in a local housing Facebook group and on Nextdoor to find the companies that have that sense of mission, that maintain their properties adequately, and treat people like individuals.

If you have a flaw on your record — whether it’s employment, credit, eviction or background — be honest and forthright with the decision maker, as well as on the housing application. Provide some details about what happened and why, how things have changed, and the time that the event occurred. We have sometimes been willing to overlook a one-time eviction, a credit ding, or even a past criminal offense based on what we believed to be an otherwise strong candidate and based, also, on our sense of mission and calling. Do all that you can to build your strengths — your credit, your employment, your references, your relationships — so that those strengths can “bear witness” to a more important vision of who you are, rather than presenting simply a past weakness, flaw or mistake. Allow decision makers to see the whole person, not simply a negative.

Of course, the making of a building into a home requires more than simply the basic shelter of four walls and a roof. To paraphrase Joyce Maynard a good home must be made, not bought or rented. A home — and a culture too —is made by its people. Each of us must do the very best we can to build homes where we all enjoy the warmth of the “sun at home.”

Nancy Baldwin is the founder and CEO of SouthLand Properties, a local independently owned provider of rental housing in Greenville. For further conversation, contact her at linkedin.com/in/nancylandbaldwin or through SouthLand’s website.