A State Ranked First. Your Price Band Was Not on the Ballot.

In moveBuddha's mid-year 2026 read, published in July, South Carolina posted 2.02 searches to move in for every one search to move out. That is first among all fifty states, on track for a seventh straight year at the top, out of 97,706 moving-cost searches logged in the first half of the year. The headline is real. The number is also blended, and the blend is the part a buyer at the top of the market has to see before it moves a price.

Look at where the searches concentrate. Myrtle Beach posted a 2.60 ratio and ranked seventh among all cities in the country. A retirement-priced coast is doing a large share of the state's lifting. That is a different household from the one shopping Kiawah, or the Cliffs at Keowee, or a waterfront lot in Pickens County. Average the coast and the luxury tier together and you get a figure that describes neither.

So the caution writes itself. When someone quotes the statewide 2.02 at you as proof the luxury market is running hot, they are reading a blended average as if it were a segment. The state figure is not wrong. It is just not yours. Inbound interest measured against a Myrtle Beach condo tells you very little about demand for a dockable lot on Lake Keowee or a house on Augusta Road, and it cuts both ways. A seller who prices to the state narrative can overreach. A buyer who writes off a specific market because the coast is what is really moving can miss the one that fits.

None of this argues against the Upstate or the lakes. Inbound interest that ranks at the top of the country for seven straight years is a genuine tailwind, and search intent tends to reach a closing table a year or two after it reaches a search bar. The discipline is to read the number at the right altitude. A state ratio is a state fact. Before you let it set your price, ask for the cut that matches your actual market: the county, the price band, the segment you are buying or selling in. That is the number that binds.

If you are buying or selling in a specific Carolinas market and want the migration data cut to your county and price band instead of the statewide headline, that read is complimentary.