South Carolina Feasibility Study: Lender-Grade SBA and USDA Studies

MMCG Invest, LLC prepares feasibility studies for South Carolina projects calibrated to five conditions this state alone creates. The Port of Charleston, the East Coast's deepest harbor at 52 feet, anchors an $87 billion statewide economic impact the South Carolina Ports Authority reports, so a logistics or lodging study near Interstate 26 prices demand against the port's own growth, not population. The Boeing 787 campus at North Charleston, the company's only 787 assembly site, anchors a $38.3 billion aerospace impact the South Carolina Department of Commerce reports, so nearby hotel and multifamily studies underwrite Boeing's own production cycle. BMW Spartanburg, which BMW calls the largest automotive exporter by value in the United States, anchors a $27 billion automotive impact the same Department reports, so Upstate housing and hospitality studies track BMW's capital calendar, not county projections. A pending Brookfield Asset Management deal would send Santee Cooper $2.7 billion toward the Santee Cooper debt its ratepayers still carry, Santee Cooper's own account states, so a project on Santee Cooper's grid underwrites a utility line apart from other territories. Fort Jackson trains 50 percent of all Soldiers entering the Army each year, the U.S. Army's own figure, so a Columbia extended-stay or senior housing study models that recurring population as floor demand. Every engagement is calibrated to the project address, the program of record, and the specific lender, CDC or USDA office carrying the deal.

Pricing starts at $4,900 with a 50/50 fee schedule. Delivery in 9 to 16 business days. A complimentary preliminary South Carolina market overview within one business day of submission.

The U.S. Small Business Administration serves South Carolina through one office rather than a divided territory. The South Carolina District Office's own page states it "services the entire state of South Carolina," with a main office at 1835 Assembly St., Suite 1425, Columbia, a virtual office in Charleston serving Williamsburg, Georgetown, Horry, Hampton, Dorchester, Berkeley, Charleston, Colleton, Beaufort and Jasper counties, and a third office at 1875 E. Main St., Duncan, serving Spartanburg, Greenville, York, Oconee, Pickens and fourteen other named counties, under District Director Melissa L. Lindler. Every South Carolina 7(a) and 504 approval is booked to this one office; MMCG's own cut of SBA's FOIA release, current as of June 30, 2026, confirms the same 927 fiscal year 2025 7(a) loans and $505,666,800 all carry the code for the South Carolina District Office, so a lender reading a South Carolina file never has to split a multi-state territory.

On that release, South Carolina's fiscal year 2025 activity totaled 927 7(a) loans for $505,666,800 in gross approvals across 106 distinct lenders, against 803 loans for $436,786,400 in fiscal year 2024, and 470 loans for $285,801,700 through the first three quarters of fiscal year 2026. SBA's own FYE25 7(a) Lender Activity Report, filtered to South Carolina projects, ranks the ten most active lenders by count: TD Bank, National Association with 133 loans for $25,177,900; Northeast Bank with 98 loans for $13,790,400; The Huntington National Bank with 76 loans for $32,075,900; Newtek Bank, National Association with 47 loans for $21,205,000; Readycap Lending, LLC with 37 loans for $11,223,500; Live Oak Banking Company with 34 loans for $30,890,000; Wells Fargo Bank National Association with 34 loans for $4,627,000; United Midwest Savings Bank, National Association with 26 loans for $8,476,000; BayFirst National Bank with 25 loans for $3,301,300; and Countybank, a Greenwood-based lender, with 22 loans for $11,092,000. Ranked instead by dollars, GBank leads with just 14 loans for $48,599,500, the largest average loan among the top names, ahead of Huntington's $32,075,900, Live Oak's $30,890,000 and First-Citizens Bank & Trust Company's 17 loans for $19,754,000. The pattern a South Carolina borrower should read is the same national lender concentration this firm sees in most states, TD Bank, Newtek, Readycap, Live Oak and GBank writing the larger real estate files, with Countybank and United Midwest the more locally rooted names on the list.

The 504 program is comparatively thin here: seven Certified Development Companies booked 43 South Carolina projects in fiscal year 2025 for $74,516,000 in approved debenture dollars, against $167,661,000 in the release's own "estimated support dollars" figure. Four of the seven are South Carolina based: Appalachian Development Corporation of Greenville led with 17 projects for $23,048,000, Provident Business Financial Services, Inc. of West Columbia followed with 11 projects for $21,669,000, Certified Development Corporation of South Carolina of Columbia approved 7 projects for $12,449,000, and Catawba Regional Development Corporation of Rock Hill approved 3 projects for $4,835,000; the remaining three each closed one or two South Carolina projects from an out-of-state desk. A South Carolina hotel or self-storage file large enough for the 504 program is, more often than not, written to a CDC headquartered inside the state.

South Carolina also carries its own disaster-recovery context a lender should know: the SBA declared a major disaster for Hurricane Helene, Declaration Number 24-704, issued October 1, 2024, opening physical and economic injury loans of up to $2,000,000 at 4 percent interest for businesses across thirteen counties in the Upstate and Piedmont, with economic injury loans only in thirteen further counties, a recovery context that travels with a file in any of those counties.

MMCG computed the table below from SBA's own 7(a) and 504 FOIA release, current as of June 30, 2026: every loan is filtered to a South Carolina project address, limited to disbursed loans approved between fiscal year 2010 and fiscal year 2026, and sorted into the NAICS categories this firm studies. That charge-off rate counts, by loan, what share of the loans that already reached payoff or default actually defaulted, and it is shown only for a cohort of 30 or more resolved loans. Across all industries, South Carolina's 7,283 disbursed 7(a) loans for $4,528,190,800 resolved 4,013 loans at a 10.0 percent charge-off rate, and its 505 disbursed 504 loans for $463,002,000 resolved 224 at 2.7 percent. Hotels and motels carry both the largest gross approval in the table and the cleanest large cohort: 380 7(a) loans for $861,306,800 resolved 235 loans with a 1.7 percent charge-off rate, and 41 504 loans added $99,708,000 more. Restaurants are the largest count at 571 7(a) loans, resolving 280 at 11.1 percent; fitness and recreational sports centers, at 157 loans, resolved 91 at 19.8 percent, the highest rate anywhere in the table; child day care services, 109 loans for $119,462,800, resolved 54 loans with not one charged off. Self-storage, 65 loans for $104,247,100, resolved 42 at 4.8 percent, and gas stations and convenience stores, 92 loans, resolved 60 at 1.7 percent. RV parks and campgrounds, assisted living and continuing care, and marinas each resolved fewer than 30 loans in this state and carry no published rate. One caution applies to every rate here: the June 2026 release marks every loan that is neither paid in full nor charged off as EXEMPT, whether it is current or in distress, so a charge-off rate only ever describes the loans that have already reached a terminal outcome.

USDA Rural Development runs South Carolina from the same downtown Columbia block as the SBA: the state office sits at 1835 Assembly Street, Suite 1007, Columbia, under State Director Jacob French, appointed by presidential announcement in May 2025, with Deputy State Directors George W. Hicks, Jr. and Chris O'Hagan. Eight area offices, grouped into four regions, cover the rest of the state, among them the Anderson Area Office serving Anderson, Oconee and Pickens counties near the Greenville-Anderson-Greer metro, the Aiken Area Office reaching into the Columbia metro through Lexington and Richland counties, and the Kingstree and Walterboro area offices, which between them serve Berkeley, Charleston, Dorchester, Horry and the rest of the coast.

This study's obligation figures come from the Treasury's own USASpending.gov, which records the same underlying award data the agency submits under the DATA Act. In fiscal year 2025, USDA obligated $155,585 across 6 Business and Industry guaranteed loans placed in South Carolina, against $392,735 across 2 loans in fiscal year 2024; because a guaranteed loan's obligated figure is its subsidy cost rather than its face value, the two guaranteed loans placed in South Carolina in fiscal year 2024 actually carried a combined $17,150,000 in guaranteed principal, and the six placed in fiscal year 2025 carried $77,792,302. Two of the named fiscal year 2025 loans reached hotel projects directly: HIO Surfside Hospitality LLC in Myrtle Beach drew a $23,560,302 guaranteed loan, and Kershaw Hotel LLC in Kershaw County drew $12,500,000; C & C Metal Recycling, LLC in Greenwood carried a third, $10,197,000. Fiscal year 2026 has already added a further $6,191,000 to Coastland Ventures LLC in Myrtle Beach and $6,500,000 to Edgefield Hotel JV, LLC.

The Rural Energy for America Program obligated $4,245,854 across 19 awards in South Carolina in fiscal year 2025 and $12,743,010 across 39 awards in fiscal year 2024, the state's largest USDA program by award count; named fiscal year 2025 grants reached Moderna Products America LLC in Gaffney for $997,532 and Enlightened Soil Corp for $899,859, and the program's one guaranteed loan of scale, $19,825,943 to Bishopville Solar, LLC in Lee County, closed in June 2025. Community Facilities obligated $1,227,392 across 6 awards in fiscal year 2025 against $5,516,063 across 36 awards in fiscal year 2024, a year that closed with five Direct Community Facility loans totaling $44,600,000 to Bridges Preparatory School in Beaufort. Water and Waste Disposal obligated $19,453,991 across 4 awards in fiscal year 2025, up sharply from $909,349 across 4 awards in fiscal year 2024, the year's two largest South Carolina grants going to the Lowcountry Regional Water System in Hampton for $7,499,000 and $6,406,000 in separate disaster-recovery water grants.

The FY2025 OneRD Annual Notice set these terms for South Carolina files: an 80 percent guarantee on Business and Industry loans approved in fiscal year 2025, a 40-year maximum term, a 3 percent initial guarantee fee, a 0.55 percent annual retention fee, and a reduced 1 percent initial fee for qualifying projects; REAP guaranteed loans carry the same 80 percent guarantee and 40-year term with a 1 percent initial fee and 0.25 percent retention, loan guarantees up to 75 percent of eligible project cost and grants up to 50 percent, with Renewable Energy System grants running $2,500 to $1,000,000 and Energy Efficiency grants $1,500 to $500,000. Community Facilities direct loans scale their grant share to community size, from 75 percent in a town of 5,000 or fewer up to a 15 percent floor in a town of 20,000, and carried a first-quarter fiscal year 2025 interest rate of 4.500 percent at the Poverty tier, 4.875 percent Intermediate and 5.25 percent Market.

The rural-eligibility line runs at a city or town of 50,000 residents for Business and Industry and REAP, and 20,000 for Community Facilities. On the Census Bureau's Vintage 2025 estimates, nine South Carolina places exceed the 50,000-resident line and fall outside B&I and REAP eligibility in their own right: Charleston at 159,423, Columbia at 147,035, North Charleston at 129,245, Mount Pleasant at 95,469, Rock Hill at 75,911, Greenville at 75,310, Summerville at 53,177, Goose Creek at 52,010, and Greer, which crossed the line between the 2024 and 2025 estimates, rising from 46,595 to 50,007. Every other South Carolina city and town, including Sumter, Florence, Myrtle Beach and Spartanburg, each in the low forty thousands, remains eligible in its own right, and seven counties, Allendale, Bamberg, Barnwell, Calhoun, Hampton, Lee and McCormick, carried no population at all inside a Census-defined urban area in 2020, clearing the rural test statewide.

The state economic development authority is the South Carolina Department of Commerce, whose Jobs Tax Credit pays $1,500 to $25,000 per net new job by county tier for a five-year period starting in year two, with unused credit carrying forward 15 years, under S.C. Code Section 12-6-3360. Commerce's Fee in Lieu of Tax program, the Fee In Lieu Of Tax Simplification Act at Title 12, Chapter 44, lets a company investing at least $2.5 million, or $1 million in a high-unemployment county, negotiate an assessment ratio as low as 6 percent against the standard 10.5 percent for up to 29 years past first service, with a Super Fee ratio as low as 4 percent available above $400 million invested, or above $150 million with 125 net new jobs. Two rehabilitation credits sit beside it: the South Carolina Abandoned Buildings Revitalization Act pays 25 percent of rehabilitation expenses, as either a three-year income tax credit capped at $750,000 a year or an eight-year property tax credit, for a building at least 66 percent vacant for five years, sunsetting December 31, 2035, and the South Carolina Textiles Communities Revitalization Act pays the same 25 percent for an abandoned textile mill site at least 80 percent closed for a year.

The South Carolina Jobs-Economic Development Authority, a conduit bond issuer, runs an Industrial Revenue Bond Program for manufacturing facilities and 501(c)(3) borrowers, including nursing homes and assisted living facilities, at a $1,000 application fee and a 45 to 90 day processing window, and separately administers the state's $101.3 million State Small Business Credit Initiative allocation across three programs: a $50.3 million Loan Participation Program run through the Business Development Corporation of South Carolina, which purchases 10 to 25 percent (up to 49 percent) of a lender's loan of up to $20,000,000 in $50,000 to $1,000,000 increments over amortizations up to 25 years for owner-occupied real estate, equipment and construction financing; a $20.0 million Venture Capital Program and a $31.0 million InvestSC Co-Investment Program, both run through InvestSC, Inc. for equity investment in operating companies rather than real estate; and a further $3.1 million Technical Assistance allocation delivered through the South Carolina Small Business Development Center network.

The Enterprise Zone Act of 1995 funds Job Development Credits against withholding tax for up to 15 years where a business signs a revitalization agreement and creates at least ten new full-time jobs, and its State Rural Infrastructure Fund grants site and infrastructure money to counties the Department of Revenue designates Tier III or Tier IV, both administered by the Coordinating Council for Economic Development. Federal Opportunity Zones remain in force with no separate state credit on top; the Department of Commerce states the One Big Beautiful Bill Act made the federal program permanent effective July 4, 2025, with zones redesignated every ten years and a nomination window for up to 25 percent of the state's eligible census tracts opening July 1, 2026. A South Carolina housing tax credit under Section 12-6-3795 matches the federal Section 42 low-income housing credit dollar for dollar for a project placed in service between 2020 and 2030, administered with the State Housing Finance and Development Authority.

Assisted living and memory care are licensed under a single category, the Community Residential Care Facility, Regulation 60-84, renumbered from the former 61-84 and transferred to the Department of Public Health effective May 23, 2025 following the 2023 restructuring act that split the former Department of Health and Environmental Control. The department's own live facility roster counted 428 active licensed Community Residential Care Facility permits statewide as of September 2026. No certificate of need applies: Section 44-7-160 requires a Certificate of Need only from a nursing home, or, until it sunsets January 1, 2027, from a hospital, and a community residential care facility meets neither statutory definition. The annual licence fee is $10 per bed or $75, whichever is greater, and a new facility must pass the department's pre-licensing inspection and hold plan approval before construction begins and before it admits its first resident.

No statewide hotel operating licence was found; every South Carolina lodging stay instead carries the state accommodations tax under Section 12-36-920, 7 percent split into a 5 percent Sales Tax and a 2 percent Accommodations Tax, before any local layer. That local layer differs sharply by metro: the Department of Revenue's own municipal rate chart lists no local sales tax at all for the City of Greenville, a combined 9 percent for the City of Columbia before its own separate 3 percent Tourism Development Fee under a 1996 city ordinance, and a stack in Charleston that the city's own Revenue Collections page states directly, 14.0 percent total inside the Charleston County portion of the city and 12.0 percent inside the Berkeley County portion, while Myrtle Beach's own 10 percent Department of Revenue rate carries a further 0.5 percent city accommodations tax and 1 percent hospitality fee on top, and Horry County layers its own hospitality fee at 1.5 percent inside city limits or 3 percent outside them.

A car wash answers to South Carolina's Pollution Control Act, Title 48, Chapter 1: Section 48-1-100 requires a construction and discharge permit before a new or increased discharge to state waters, now administered by the Department of Environmental Services created in the same 2023 restructuring act. No car-wash-specific water-reclamation or drought-exemption statute was found in that chapter or in the state's separate surface water and groundwater acts; in practice a new car wash is gated by its water utility's own tap and impact fee schedule rather than a state water-use permit, since a retail customer on a municipal connection does not itself hold a state withdrawal permit. An RV park or campground is licensed at the county level under Title 45, Chapter 7, the "Tourist Camps and Roadhouses" statute: the county governing body recommends the application, the clerk of court issues a one-year licence for a $10 annual fee, and operating without one is a misdemeanor carrying a fine of $20 to $100.

Real property in South Carolina is assessed under S.C. Code Section 12-43-220: 6 percent of fair market value for most commercial real estate, 10.5 percent for manufacturer or utility property, on a countywide reassessment that Section 12-43-217 sets once every five years, with any resulting increase in value capped at 15 percent within that five-year period under Section 12-37-3140. Every deed transfer carries the state's Deed Recording Fee under Title 12, Chapter 24, $1.85 per $500 of value, split $1.30 state and $0.55 county, a rate fixed by statute the same in every county with no local add-on; a mortgage separately carries a flat $25 statutory filing fee.

A South Carolina credit committee reads the study in the order of the programs above. For a 7(a) or 504 file under SOP 50 10 8, it wants the market area drawn to the parcel, the demand case built from public series the underwriter can check, and the stabilized-year cash flow at the required coverage, with the state's one CDC field, four of the seven active names South Carolina based, named by the office that will carry the file. For a Business and Industry, REAP or Community Facilities file the Columbia office reviews, it wants the rural-area determination against the 50,000 or 20,000 line at the parcel, the guarantee percentage and fee schedule the OneRD notice sets for that fiscal year, and a market study to the standard in 7 CFR Part 5001. For every South Carolina file it wants the state layer named in the lender's own vocabulary: the CRCF licence and the absence of a certificate of need, the accommodations tax stack the metro actually collects, the Pollution Control Act permit a car wash carries, the county tourist camp licence, the five-year reassessment cycle and the county millage the parcel will carry, and the Deed Recording Fee due at closing. A study that carries each of those with the source named in the sentence is the study a South Carolina underwriter can lift into the memo without a second round.

South Carolina's underwriting turns on five named facilities: Charleston Harbor's 52 feet of depth, Boeing's only 787 assembly site anywhere, BMW Spartanburg's rank as the largest automotive exporter by value in the United States, Santee Cooper's potential $2.7 billion toward its reactor debt, and Fort Jackson's training of 50 percent of all Soldiers entering the Army each year. Each moves more of the state's economy than the seven-category checklist a templated report recycles state to state.

The Port of Charleston, the East Coast's deepest harbor at 52 feet, anchors an $87 billion statewide economic impact the South Carolina Ports Authority reports. A logistics, distribution or extended-stay study near Interstate 26 or the inland ports at Greer and Dillon prices demand against the port's own container and rail growth, not a population-driven forecast.

The Boeing 787 campus at North Charleston, the company's only 787 assembly site anywhere, anchors a $38.3 billion aerospace economic impact the South Carolina Department of Commerce reports, with production lifting to 10 airplanes a month in 2026. A hotel, extended-stay or multifamily study nearby underwrites that single-employer production cycle, not a generic population trend.

BMW Spartanburg, which BMW itself calls the largest automotive exporter by value in the United States, anchors a $27 billion automotive economic impact the South Carolina Department of Commerce reports. Housing, hotel and self-storage demand along Interstate 85 between Greenville and Spartanburg should track BMW's own capital calendar, an active electrification build-out, not county population projections.

A Fairfield County reactor deal under negotiation with Brookfield Asset Management would send Santee Cooper $2.7 billion toward the Santee Cooper debt its ratepayers still carry once a final investment decision is reached, Santee Cooper's own account states. A project served directly or through a cooperative buying Santee Cooper's wholesale power carries a utility cost line to underwrite apart from other territories.

Fort Jackson at Columbia trains 50 percent of all Soldiers entering the Army each year, the U.S. Army's own figure, with roughly 35,000 soldiers rotating through Basic Combat Training annually. A Columbia extended-stay or senior housing study should model that recurring population as a floor demand figure, not the metro's growth rate.

A South Carolina study runs to the sections a lender's file expects, each calibrated to the state. The engagement letter and scope name the program of record, the lender or CDC, and, for a USDA file, the area office covering the county. The site and market area section places the parcel in its county, states the rural-area determination against the 50,000 or 20,000 line, and draws the trade area from the road network rather than a radius. The demand section builds from the public series this page cites: Census Bureau population and migration estimates, Bureau of Labor Statistics jobs data, Ports Authority and airport volumes, County Business Patterns, and SBA's FOIA release for the state's own lending record in the asset class. The competitive set section names the operating properties, their scale and their position. The regulatory section carries the CRCF licence sequence, the accommodations tax stack for the metro, the Pollution Control Act permits a car wash carries, and the county tourist camp licence for an RV park or campground. The financial section runs the stabilized year, the ramp, operating expenses, reserves and a discounted cash flow at the lender's coverage, with the property tax line built from the 6 percent assessment ratio, the county's own millage and the five-year reassessment cycle, and the Deed Recording Fee priced into closing costs; no statewide per-square-foot construction cost benchmark is published for South Carolina by a state agency, so the study prices construction from the project's own bids rather than a public index. The risk section names what could move the numbers, a metro's airport passenger trend, the SBA record for the asset class, and the reassessment group the parcel sits in, and says what the sponsor has done about each. The lender package closes with the comparable-loan evidence from the FOIA release and a statement of the standards the study was prepared under.

The method is set out in full in MMCG's feasibility study methodology.

South Carolina counted 5,570,274 residents on July 1, 2025, up from 5,490,316 a year earlier, an increase of 79,958, and migration is almost the entire story: natural change added only 564 (59,681 births against 59,117 deaths), net international migration added 12,930, and net domestic migration added 66,622. A state gaining residents almost entirely from other states and abroad, rather than from births, is a demand case for the visitor economy, senior housing and household turnover rather than a growth pro forma built on natural increase.

The labor market runs slightly ahead of the national trend: the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports total nonfarm employment of 2,414.5 thousand for July 2026, up 1.3 percent over the year, an unemployment rate of 4.2 percent, leisure and hospitality employment of 284.7 thousand, and education and health services employment of 324.9 thousand, up 3.5 percent, the fastest-growing of the sectors this page tracks. Census County Business Patterns for 2023 counts 1,131 hotels and motels statewide, by far the largest of the six asset classes on this page, with 26,778 employees and $857.8 million in annual payroll.

Two public demand engines carry the state's logistics and lodging files. The South Carolina Ports Authority moved 2,566,764 TEUs in fiscal year 2025, container volumes up 3 percent that year on the authority's own account, with Inland Port Greer setting a fiscal year record of 205,523 rail moves; fiscal year 2026 slipped to 2,441,000 TEUs, down 4.90 percent. The authority states its own operations support one in nine South Carolina jobs and an $87 billion annual statewide economic impact. On the visitor side, the Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism's own filed report states $23.8 billion in direct travel expenditures for calendar 2024, $15.0 billion of it on hotel, motel and short-term rental stays, and a statewide Accommodations Tax base of $121.4 million collected in the state fiscal year that ended June 30, 2025, up 4.4 percent; Horry County alone generated $6.2 billion of the state's direct travel spending, 26 percent of the statewide total.

Charleston-North Charleston is the state's fastest-growing large metro: its population reached 889,263 in 2025, up 10.68 percent from 803,468 in 2020, and its population aged 65 and over grew 22.99 percent over the same five years, the fastest senior growth of the state's three largest metros. Two named employers drive that growth: the South Carolina Ports Authority's Charleston Harbor, the East Coast's deepest at 52 feet, behind an $87 billion statewide economic impact the authority itself reports, and Boeing's North Charleston 787 campus, lifting production to 10 airplanes a month in 2026 on Boeing's own account. The City of Charleston's own 2025 millage card puts the combined countywide and municipal rate at 298.1 mills, and North Charleston's own municipal rate brings its combined total to 307.6 mills; the city's own Revenue Collections page states a short-term rental inside the Charleston County portion of the city carries 14.0 percent in combined accommodations taxes, against 12.0 percent in the smaller Berkeley County portion. Charleston County's own 2025 traffic counts put the busiest segment in either metro this page tracks on Interstate 26 approaching North Charleston, station 2191 between Ashley Phosphate Road and Aviation Avenue at 170,500 vehicles a day. The Census Bureau's Building Permits Survey recorded 5,799 single-family permits worth $2,153,346,000 and 101 buildings of five units or more, 1,337 units worth $140,043,000, in calendar 2025, with multifamily value up 34.3 percent even as the unit count slipped, meaning the buildings that did reach permit carried materially higher value each. The City of Charleston's own open-data registry of vested developments counts, across every stage from committee review to completion, 19 hotel projects totaling 631,530 square feet and 18 industrial projects totaling 1,157,986 square feet inside city limits alone. Charleston International Airport carried 6,341,145 total passengers in calendar 2025.

MMCG models this metro's hotel, self-storage and multifamily markets from our own market data: trailing twelve-month occupancy, rate and revenue per available room for the hospitality submarket the port and passenger growth above are pulling toward North Charleston, street rate and occupancy for climate-controlled and non-climate-controlled self-storage units, and multifamily asking rent and vacancy against the permit counts above. Those figures are priced into the engagement, not published here.

Greenville-Anderson-Greer is the state's most populous metro at 1,014,101 residents in 2025, up 8.96 percent from 930,749 in 2020. Along Interstate 85 toward Spartanburg, BMW Spartanburg anchors a $27 billion automotive economic impact the South Carolina Department of Commerce reports, and BMW Group's completed $1.7 billion electrification build-out at Plant Spartanburg and Plant Woodruff is now driving Upstate supplier and contractor demand. The City of Greenville's own 2025 millage sheet puts the combined county, school and municipal rate at 331.5 mills, the highest single-city combined rate this page found in the state, and the Department of Revenue's own municipal rate chart lists no added local sales tax for the city, so a Greenville hotel or restaurant collects the 7 percent state accommodations tax alone. Greenville County's own 2025 traffic counts put three of the busiest highway segments in the whole state on the Interstate 85 and Interstate 385 interchange, led by station 2301 at 146,800 vehicles a day. The Census Bureau's Building Permits Survey recorded 7,317 single-family permits worth $2,809,663,000 and 31 buildings of five or more units, 703 units worth $159,676,000, in calendar 2025, with the core county's own multifamily valuation rising 22.3 percent even as the metro total slipped. Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport carried 3,043,621 total passengers in calendar 2025, up 5.70 percent. No development impact fee applies here under the state Development Impact Fee Act; the real system-development charge is Greenville Water's own schedule, which runs from $2,780 for a small commercial meter to $44,160 for a 3-inch meter plus an $800 commercial plan review fee. Appalachian Development Corporation, the state's most active 504 CDC, is headquartered in Greenville.

MMCG models the Upstate's hotel and self-storage markets from our own market data: trailing twelve-month occupancy, rate and revenue per available room for the hospitality market around the Interstate 85 and Interstate 385 corridor, self-storage street rate and occupancy by submarket, and capitalization rates by property type. Those figures are priced into the engagement, not published here.

Columbia is the state's slowest-growing large metro by percentage, at 879,918 residents in 2025, up 5.98 percent from 830,251 in 2020, but its single-family building permits grew fastest of the three metros, 4,969 permits worth $1,332,370,000 in calendar 2025, up 11.2 percent in count and 16.7 percent in value. Fort Jackson, which the U.S. Army calls the largest Initial Entry Training center in the Army, training 50 percent of all Soldiers entering the Army each year, sits at Columbia and trains roughly 35,000 soldiers in Basic Combat Training and 8,000 more in Advanced Individual Training each year, alongside 3,500 active-duty personnel, 12,000 military family members, 3,500 civilian employees and more than 46,000 retirees who draw on base services, a floor demand figure independent of the metro's population growth rate. USDA's own state office and the SBA's own district office sit in the same downtown Columbia building, 1835 Assembly Street, a few floors apart. The City of Columbia's own millage runs differently depending on which of three school districts a parcel falls in even within city limits: the Richland County Auditor's own 2025 schedule puts a Richland School District One parcel inside the city at 530.4 combined mills and a Richland School District Two parcel at 634.2 mills. Richland County's own 2025 traffic counts put the busiest Midlands segment on Interstate 26 between Saint Andrews Road and Interstate 20 at 143,900 vehicles a day. The University of South Carolina reported systemwide Fall 2025 enrollment of 58,906 students. The City of Columbia's own fiscal year 2024-2025 annual report counted 8,130 permits worth $1,033,166,406.13 and 699 new multifamily units citywide, and Columbia Metropolitan Airport carried 1,371,977 total travelers in calendar 2025, a second consecutive record year.

MMCG models the Midlands' hotel and multifamily markets from our own market data: trailing twelve-month hotel occupancy, rate and revenue per available room near Fort Jackson and the University of South Carolina, and multifamily asking rent, vacancy and units delivered or underway by school-district submarket. Those figures are priced into the engagement, not published here.

Myrtle Beach-Conway-North Myrtle Beach is the state's tourism metro, and Horry County alone generated $6.2 billion of the state's $23.8 billion in direct travel spending in calendar 2024, 26 percent of the statewide total, the largest single-county share in the state. Myrtle Beach International Airport is the one airport in this page's four metros running against the statewide passenger trend: the Federal Aviation Administration's preliminary count puts calendar 2025 enplanements at 1,743,132, down 8.01 percent from 1,894,929 in calendar 2024, a caution specific to this coastal market even as the Department of Revenue's own rate chart shows the City of Myrtle Beach carrying a 10 percent combined sales tax rate, a point above Conway and North Myrtle Beach's 9 percent. On top of that base rate, the city's own 0.5 percent local accommodations tax and 1 percent hospitality fee apply, and Horry County layers its own hospitality fee at 1.5 percent inside city limits or 3 percent in the unincorporated county. Two of the state's largest named USDA Business and Industry loans landed here: HIO Surfside Hospitality LLC drew $23,560,302 for a hotel project in fiscal year 2025, and Coastland Ventures LLC drew $6,191,000 in fiscal year 2026. Nearby, Coastal Carolina University's Conway campus set a program-record 112,526 fans across its 2026 baseball season, up 33.3 percent from the prior record, a visitor draw distinct from the beach itself.

MMCG models the Grand Strand's hospitality market from our own market data: trailing twelve-month occupancy, rate and revenue per available room, and hotel square footage under construction, set against the airport's passenger trend above. Those figures are priced into the engagement, not published here.

Census County Business Patterns for 2023 counts 1,131 hotels and motels in South Carolina (NAICS 721110), 320 self-storage operators (531130), 288 car washes (811192), 195 assisted living facilities (623312), 101 continuing care retirement communities (623311) and 54 RV parks and campgrounds (721211). Read against the SBA record above, hotels stand out on every measure: the largest establishment count and payroll in the table, $857.8 million, paired with the cleanest large SBA cohort, a 1.7 percent charge-off rate on 235 resolved loans, and backed by $15.0 billion in 2024 hotel, motel and short-term rental spending and record airport traffic in three of the state's four metros. Senior housing pairs 195 assisted living facilities and 101 continuing care communities, roughly $478.6 million in combined payroll, with a statewide population aged 65 and over that grew 19.98 percent from 2020 to 2025 and grew even faster in Charleston-North Charleston, 22.99 percent, and with a licensing regime that carries no certificate of need. Self-storage, a small class by CBP payroll, sits behind a state gaining 79,958 residents in a single year, 66,622 of them from domestic migration, the household-turnover signal a storage study is written to. Restaurants and fitness centers, at 11.1 percent and 19.8 percent charge-off rates, are the classes a South Carolina lender will underwrite hardest, and child day care services, at a 0.0 percent charge-off rate on 54 resolved loans, is the SBA record's cleanest small class. RV parks and campgrounds, licensed county by county for a nominal $10 annual fee, follow the coast and the Upstate lake and mountain counties rather than the state's population centers.

Beyond the classes above, MMCG produces SBA, USDA and conventional-grade feasibility studies for the full range of commercial property types financed in South Carolina. Restaurants are the largest count in the FOIA table, 571 7(a) loans for $359,124,700, at an 11.1 percent charge-off rate. Gas stations and convenience stores, 92 loans for $93,187,200, follow the interstate corridors this page's traffic counts trace through Greenville, Columbia and Charleston. Industrial and logistics files follow the South Carolina Ports Authority's 2,566,764 fiscal year 2025 TEUs and the inland ports at Greer and Dillon; medical office files follow education and health services employment, up 3.5 percent over the year, the fastest-growing sector this page tracks. Retail and multifamily files follow the Building Permits Survey's metro counts and the Department of Housing and Urban Development's own Fair Market Rents, from $1,032 in Columbia to $1,787 in Charleston-North Charleston. Glamping and short-term rental files carry the accommodations tax stack the metro actually collects and, where the site is a campground, the county's Title 45 tourist camp licence. Marinas, nine 7(a) loans for $13,219,100 on the FOIA release, are written to the coast and the season. Community Facilities Program files for nonprofit and public borrowers are written to the Columbia office's standard, on the pattern of the five-tranche, $44,600,000 loan it closed for Bridges Preparatory School in Beaufort.

Standard delivery is 9 to 16 business days from data receipt, and rush turnaround is available from 5 business days. The seven steps below are what happens in that window, from the project brief to lender review.

MMCG delivers South Carolina feasibility studies in 9 to 16 business days from data receipt, with a complimentary preliminary market overview within one business day of submission. Pricing starts at $4,900 with a 50/50 fee schedule. Reports are formatted for SBA, CDC, USDA and conventional lender file submission and incorporate the analytical layers South Carolina credit committees expect: the South Carolina District Office's own FOIA cohort by asset class, the 50,000 and 20,000-resident rural-area tests and the Columbia state office's guarantee terms, the Commerce, JEDA and SSBCI stack, the CRCF licence with no certificate of need, the accommodations tax stack the metro collects, the Pollution Control Act permit a car wash carries, the county tourist camp licence, and the five-year reassessment cycle with the county's own millage. Sponsor inquiries that involve a Myrtle Beach seasonal property, a Fee in Lieu of Tax negotiation or a multi-parcel Charleston project typically require the upper end of the standard range.

Engagements typically begin with the project address, asset class, capital stack, sponsor experience, and the specific lender, Certified Development Company or USDA office carrying the deal. From there, MMCG calibrates scope to the program of record, whether SBA 7(a), SBA 504, USDA Business and Industry, REAP, Community Facilities or conventional.

Send the project address. Receive a free South Carolina market overview within one business day. Pricing starts at $4,900 with a 50/50 fee schedule. Delivery in 9 to 16 business days. A senior analyst responds within 12 business hours.

MMCG Invest, LLC is a commercial real estate feasibility consulting firm specializing in SBA and USDA feasibility studies across asset classes including hotels, assisted living, car washes, self-storage, RV parks, gas stations, restaurants and agritourism. Our analyses serve lenders, CDCs, investors and developers seeking institutional-quality market intelligence for underwriting and investment decisions. Engagements are led by Michal Mohelsky, J.D., Practicing Affiliate of the Appraisal Institute. Feasibility studies are prepared under USPAP discipline, aligned with SBA SOP 50 10 8 for 7(a) and 504 loans and with 7 CFR Part 5001 for USDA Business and Industry, REAP and Community Facilities financing. Engagements start at $4,900 with fixed-fee scoping. Standard delivery is 9 to 16 business days, with rush turnaround available from 5 business days. A senior analyst responds to proposal requests within 12 business hours from the firm's San Francisco office.

Every state page MMCG publishes is listed on the state index; the neighbouring states are linked at the end of this page. The South Carolina cities and counties served:

The Upstate: Greenville, Spartanburg, Anderson, Greer, Mauldin, Simpsonville, Easley, Clemson, Seneca, Pickens, Laurens, Union, Gaffney, Chester, Lancaster, York, Rock Hill, Fort Mill, Newberry.

The Midlands: Columbia, West Columbia, Cayce, Lexington, Irmo, Sumter, Camden, Orangeburg, Aiken, North Augusta, Bamberg, Barnwell, Newberry, Chester.

The Lowcountry and coast: Charleston, North Charleston, Mount Pleasant, Summerville, Goose Creek, Hanahan, Moncks Corner, Walterboro, Beaufort, Hilton Head Island, Bluffton, Hampton.

The Pee Dee and Grand Strand: Myrtle Beach, Conway, North Myrtle Beach, Florence, Darlington, Hartsville, Georgetown, Kingstree, Marion, Dillon, Bennettsville, Cheraw.

Counties: Abbeville, Aiken, Allendale, Anderson, Bamberg, Barnwell, Beaufort, Berkeley, Calhoun, Charleston, Cherokee, Chester, Chesterfield, Clarendon, Colleton, Darlington, Dillon, Dorchester, Edgefield, Fairfield, Florence, Georgetown, Greenville, Greenwood, Hampton, Horry, Jasper, Kershaw, Lancaster, Laurens, Lee, Lexington, Marion, Marlboro, McCormick, Newberry, Oconee, Orangeburg, Pickens, Richland, Saluda, Spartanburg, Sumter, Union, Williamsburg, York.