Waterfront is the one thing the Lowcountry cannot make more of, and the price reflects it. What that price is depends heavily on which water you mean.
On Kiawah Island, single-family homes reached a median of $3.4 million in 2025, up from $2.98 million the year before, with most sales landing between $2 and $5 million. True oceanfront runs well past that, into the $10 million range and higher. Buyers who want a foothold rather than an estate look at villas and condos, where the January 2026 median was about $1.33 million, itself up sharply from $995,000 a year earlier.
Palmetto Bluff tells a parallel story on the river instead of the ocean. Its January 2026 sales averaged $3.2 million, and the community reported $63.2 million in homes and homesites under contract heading into spring. The waterfront there means the May River and its tidal creeks, with private docks and marsh views, released slowly enough that demand stays ahead of supply.
The pattern underneath the numbers
Across both markets, the same thing holds: the closer a home sits to the water, the less its price bends. Interior lots and inland neighborhoods trade on ordinary terms. Riverfront and oceanfront parcels hold their value through soft stretches because there is no way to build more of them.
For a buyer, that turns the search into a waiting game. The strong parcels rarely sit, and when one lists, the decision window is short. For a seller with water frontage, it means pricing power that inland owners simply do not have.