South Carolina's buyer help runs on two parallel tracks, and which one fits you depends less on your income than on a map. SC Housing — the state's housing finance authority, now at schousing.sc.gov — offers a traditional, income-limited Homebuyer Program with forgivable down payment assistance, and a broader Palmetto Home Advantage program that skips the first-time-buyer test entirely. Both run through participating lenders rather than the agency itself.

Figures below are current as of mid-2026; SC Housing updates its limits each June, so confirm against the agency's posted limits before planning around any single number.

The County Rule That Decides Who Counts

The Homebuyer Program splits the state's 46 counties into two groups, and the difference is not cosmetic. In twelve non-targeted counties — Aiken, Anderson, Charleston, Greenville, Greenwood, Lancaster, Lexington, Oconee, Pickens, Richland, Spartanburg, and York — you must be a first-time buyer, meaning no ownership interest in a principal residence in the past three years. In the other thirty-four targetedcounties, that rule vanishes: you only need to not own a home on the day your new loan closes.

The practical effect: someone who sold a house two years ago qualifies in Sumter, Florence, or Beaufort, and does not qualify a county over in Columbia's Richland. Targeted counties also carry higher income limits — the designation exists to pull investment into those areas, and the program is genuinely more generous there.

The Homebuyer Program

The core offer is a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage — FHA, VA, USDA, or conventional — with $10,000 of down payment assistance attached. The assistance is a 0% second mortgage with no monthly payment, forgiven if you stay through its 15-year term; leave, sell, or refinance earlier and it comes due. That structure is worth pausing on, because it is more generous than many states — Georgia's equivalent, for contrast, must be repaid in full no matter how long you stay.

The requirements, as of mid-2026: a minimum 640 credit score for every loan type, a purchase price of $450,000 or less anywhere in the state, county-based income limits (roughly $95,800 for a 1–2 person household in the Columbia-area counties, $106,400 in Greenville, $117,500 in Charleston, and up to $141,000 in targeted counties like Berkeley and Dorchester — higher for larger households), and a homebuyer education course, which your lender arranges, before any assistance is approved.

Palmetto Home Advantage

The second track drops most of the gatekeeping. Palmetto Home Advantage has no first-time-buyer requirement in any county, no purchase price limit, and one statewide income test: $140,000 of borrower income — the borrower's, not the whole household's, and independent of family size. The same 640 score applies.

Its assistance works differently: 3% or 4% of the loan amount (or none, in exchange for a lower rate) as a forgivable second mortgage on a 10-year term. On a $300,000 loan, 4% is $12,000 — more than the bond program's flat $10,000, forgiven in two-thirds the time. For buyers who clear both programs' doors, the comparison is worth running in both directions with a lender who writes both.

Gone as of June 30, 2026: the SC Mortgage Tax Credit (MCC), which converted 30% of annual mortgage interest into a federal tax credit of up to $2,000 a year, has sunset and is closed to new buyers. Existing certificate holders keep their credit. A lot of “South Carolina first-time buyer” articles still list it — check the date on anything you read, including this page.

The Programs With Windows

SC Housing also runs smaller initiatives that open, fill, and close. Palmetto Heroes offers teachers, nurses, first responders, EMS, corrections officers, and veterans $10,000 of forgivable assistance plus a below-market rate — the 2026 round opened in mid-March and was fully reserved within a month. A first-generation buyer initiative pairs $10,000 with a reduced rate for buyers whose parents never owned. Made It Home! reaches up to $25,000, forgiven after ten years. And County First extends special financing into 31 rural counties for first-time and move-up buyers alike. None of these is a plan you can count on being open the month you shop — they are a reason to ask a participating lender what currently has funding.

Putting It Together

Every SC Housing product rides on a standard federal loan, so the mechanics — FHA's insurance, VA's funding fee, conventional PMI — are the ones covered in the federal programs guide. The state adds the rate, the assistance, and the forgiveness clock.

And before the assistance decides anything, look at the whole payment. The South Carolina mortgage calculator carries the state's property tax and insurance defaults, so you can see what a $450,000-limit house actually costs per month versus the smaller one that leaves room to breathe.