the Oasis

Affordability is a many-layered thing. If it feels like you’re not getting ahead, there could be a lot of reasons.

By Scott Morgan, Managing Editor
March 11, 2026

Say the word ‘affordability’ in 2026 and you’re all but guaranteed to hear the word ‘crisis’ immediately after.

It hardly needs mentioning that the 20s has been a pretty trying decade so far. Halfway through and so far we’ve seen the end of sub-4% mortgage rates, trade wars, tariff wars, actual wars, runaway inflation, and the lingering effects of the Covid pandemic on pricing on housing materials. 

And that doesn’t even factor in how quickly South Carolina’s housing market has escalated. From 2021 to 2025, the median sale price of a home in this state rose from $275,000 to just shy of $400,000, according to South Carolina Realtors. 

That’s the same time period during which the average mortgage interest rate went from 2.96% to 7.79% and back to 6.1%. For quick math, if your mortgage loan is $100,000 with a 2.96% interest rate, your monthly payment would be about $850 per month. At 6%, you’d pay about $1,050.

It’s also the same time period over which the state’s average cost for a two-bedroom apartment in South Carolina went from about $785 to about $1,095.

Meanwhile, outside the home, we are seeing prices ebb and swell at the gas pump. Following U.S. military action in Iran, though, the average cost for a gallon of regular gas in South Carolina went from $2.61 (mid-February) to $3.26 (mid-March). Diesel went from $3.84 to $4.78 per gallon over that same time period.

Grocery bills that swelled during the pandemic have yet to come back down. Nationally, “since 2019, the average monthly cost of groceries has risen by 32 percent, while earnings growth trailed slightly at 29 percent,” according to Urban Institute. 

Urban’s data show that it’s been even more exaggerated in South Carolina. Since 2019, the average monthly price tag for groceries in the state rose from $731 to $1,050.

And if you have healthcare insurance, it’s also getting pricier. In 2020, according to the National Institutes of Health, the average American with healthcare benefits spent $5,600 on their plans. 

That’s per person, by the way, not per family. 

By October of 2025, KFF reported that the average worker with healthcare benefits paid $6,850. Family coverage plans, on average, spiked to more than $27,000 a year.

Kiplinger, meanwhile, is projecting average healthcare costs in South Carolina will increase by 22% this year, to $657.

All of this is leading to questions of whether rising insurance premiums will soon help make retirement a quaint memory. It’s also contributing to increased debt issues.

According to the Federal Reserve bank of New York, debt in the U.S., in every category, increased in between Q3 of 2024 and Q3 of 2025. The biggest spikes were in student loan debt, which increased by 14.26% – and which, according to consumer advocacy group Protect Borrowers, could increase further under new stipulations in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

The second biggest increase was in credit card debt, which is usually telling as a measure of necessities spending and often masks medical debts (because hospitals don’t have to take payments in installments and a lot of people put medical bills on their credit cards in order to have monthly payments they can more afford).

Meanwhile, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, revolving home loan totals – HELOCS, mainly – have been on the rise for a year-and-a-half. The total value of these loans written started rising in late 2023 and have increased in a nearly straight line to more than $281 billion in late February. That’s about where totals hit in 2020 and are far lower than where they were in the decade following the 2008 recession.

Ten years ago, extremely low mortgage and HELOC rates spurred a boom in renovations and flipping. In the U.S. in 2025, flip activity was weak. In South Carolina, according to ATTOm Data Solutions, gross flipping profit at ROI on flips were both down in the state last year, as they were in numerous states. A study published by the Mortgage Bankers Association last year shows an uptick in homeowners using home equity loans to consolidate other debts.

Homeowners’ insurance premiums are also rising, here and across the country. From personal experience, I can vouch that my monthly mortgage rate in April will rise by about $20, entirely because of the rise in my homeowner’s insurance.

A report by the National Association of Realtors last summer shows that the average homeowners’ insurance premium in South Carolina could increase between $3,000 and $5,000 per year. According to Bankrate, South Carolinians pay about $200 more per year than the national average.

And then, of course, there is the rise in utilities. Forbes reports that the average total monthly cost for utilities in South Carolina hit $453 in 2024. One of South Carolina’s major energy providers, Dominion, is petitioning to raise its rates by 12.43%. That would increase the company’s revenue by about $836 million through 2028, according to the Center for American Progress.
Utilities industry salaries saw the largest jump, percentagewise, in Q3 of 2024 – up $425 per week, compared to the quarter before, according to data from the South Carolina Department of Workforce and Employment.

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