South Carolina property taxes are surprisingly low
One of the most often requested bits of information about a home for sale in Charleston is what the property taxes are. And more often than not if someone is considering relocating to Charleston from a state that has high property taxes, they are pleasantly surprised (if not amazed) to find out how surprisingly low South Carolina property taxes are.
Property taxes are billed by the county and vary depending on the tax district that you live in but generally Dorchester County is the highest, Berkeley County is the lowest and Charleston County is somewhere in the middle.
Having said that, you can use about one half of one percent (.5%) of the value of a home as a conservative rule of thumb if the property will be your primary residence but it will be significantly higher (more than double) if it is investment property.
There is also a homestead exemption for those folks over 65 on the first $50,000 of assessed value and a 15 percent cap on increases every 5 years at reassessment.
Now if you currently live in Charleston and you think that the assessed value is too high because home prices have declined in the past few years, you can always appeal but since governments are a little financially stressed and need all the revenue they can get, it might not be as easy as you'd hope.