FLORENCE — The number of homes for sale in Florence has soared in the past year, mainly from new builds needed to reach buyer demand.
For December, inventory jumped 76.3 percent to 386 homes compared to this time in 2023, according to preliminary data from South Carolina Realtors on Jan. 13. In the Pee Dee market — which includes 10 counties — inventory also rose 65.8 percent year over year with nearly 1,000 homes listed for sale.
Ashley Drayton, of Drayton Realty Group, said that the increase in housing comes mostly from new developments popping up in Florence to the east, south and west.
“We had a great December, and we’ve got a great January so far, so I don’t think demand has really slowed down,” Drayton said.
Florence has struggled to rebuild its housing inventory after people poured into South Carolina during the COVID-19 pandemic and depleted supply, said Joey McMillan of Coldwell Banker McMillan and Associates.
In mid-2018, for example, the Pee Dee region had more than 1,200 homes for sale. That number was halved by December 2021.
Home inventory is on the rise in Florence, due mostly to new construction being developed across the city.
Approximately 980 homes were actively listed at the end of 2024. While it’s an improvement, McMillan said the area could still stand to see the inventory grow to get back to those pre-pandemic numbers.
“This is not an indicator that the market’s bad or there’s a glut of inventory on the market,” he said. “It is that we’re still trying to recover from COVID.”
Part of the struggle to regain supply is fewer people are reselling their homes, but new construction is continuously coming online, boosting inventory.
DR Horton recently developed The Bluffs at Mill Creek in South Florence, and West Florence’s Summit at Oakdale will soon have a sister subdivision across the street.
The presidential election, high interest rates and the National Association of Realtors settlement all worked against the industry in 2024, but McMillan said Florence still ended the year with a healthy market.
The Pee Dee area’s closed sales were up 30.9 percent in December with 212 transactions. For Florence, sales were up 54.7 percent compared to 2023.
Regionwide, the Pee Dee median home price at the end of 2024 was $234,650, a 17.6 bump from the year prior. Florence’s median price notched up 5.7 percent to $269,000.
Looking ahead to 2025, Drayton and McMillan are optimistic about the current health of the market, especially as more supply comes online and spring nears — the high time of the year for real estate hunting.
“If you’ve got a resell, it’s a really good time to sell because the market is tight,” McMillan said.