MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. (WBTW) — The city of Myrtle Beach’s rental market is seeing a downward trend in costs, but its home values are up, according to Zillow.com

New properties are constantly popping up along the Grand Strand, like a new apartment complex that’s coming to The Market Common.

One property manager, Riesa Best, said the market is now seeing a higher amount of housing supply than demand.

“Now, there is a lot more homes than there is tenants. And two years ago, it was a whole different outcome,” Best said.

Best said that for the past six months, she’s noticed rental rates trending downward — a trend that property owners who want to rent homes will have to adjust to.

“You have to be able to price it where it’s going to rent,” she said. “Because a year ago, we were in such a different market.”

Over the past year, the average rent in Myrtle Beach is down nearly 10%.

At this point in 2022, from January to August, rents had increased nearly 12%.

In August 2021, the city saw rent prices increase more than 30% since January of that year.

Now, eight months into 2023, rents have fallen more than 2%. Those numbers are according to Apartment List.

“There’s about 2,800 rentals in this area and that’s unheard of. We’ve never seen anything like that,” Best said. “I go on and check it daily. And usually there’s 300-500. We’ve never seen this kind of market.”

A Grand Strand real estate agent, Wendy Hodges, said the amount of people buying homes is also slowing down. Whereas, when rent was surging, people turned to buying homes from a more cost-effective housing situation.

Now, Hodges has noticed new construction coming with incentives for buyers.

“They’re offering bonuses, they’re offering buy downs for buyers,” she said. “So, they may buy your rate down by two points and that really helps people to get in for a couple of years and pay a lower rate.”

Where there used to be more demand than supply in the city’s housing market, it seems as though the tables are turning.

“Where a house would rent in 24 hours, now it can take 30 days,” Best said.

Currently, data shows rent growth remains pretty flat since last month.