Renting in Blacksburg? Here's What You Need to Know Before You Sign

Blacksburg Rental Market Overview

Blacksburg is a 1.87-square-mile town in Cherokee County, about 4 miles south of the North Carolina line and roughly 10 miles from Gaffney, the county seat, per Wikipedia's sourced geography. Its Census-reported population hasn't moved in one direction for long: 1,907 in 1990, 1,880 in 2000 (down slightly), 1,848 in 2010 (down further), and 1,889 in 2020 (a 2.2% rebound) -- a shallow U-shape with no single documented cause in either direction. Two outside mid-2020s estimates disagree meaningfully with each other: city-data.com's 2024 American Community Survey-based aggregate puts the town at 1,954, while DataUSA's separate 2024 estimate puts it at 2,063 -- a gap of more than 100 residents between two sources measuring the same small town the same year, worth treating as a signal of genuine estimate uncertainty rather than picking whichever number sounds better. Against that backdrop, this guide identified only three apartment communities operating inside Blacksburg town limits as of September 2026 -- Blacksburg Terrace, Mulberry Ridge Apartments, and Chestnut Hills -- and all three are subsidized, income-based properties accepting Section 8 vouchers, not conventional market-rate rentals with a published price. RentCafe, which tracks buildings of 50 or more units, lists Blacksburg's average rent as not available.

Common Lease Terms in Blacksburg

With every confirmed in-town rental operating on income-based pricing rather than a posted market rate, what's known about Blacksburg's rental terms has to come from townwide figures and the three confirmed properties themselves rather than a specific open-market listing:

• Median gross rent for the town was $899 as of 2024 American Community Survey estimates aggregated by city-data.com -- a townwide average across existing rented housing, not a quoted rate for any available unit
• DataUSA's 2024 estimate puts homeownership at 41.5% of occupied housing, meaning renters make up the local majority (roughly 58.5% of occupied units) in a town this small
• Median household income runs $32,000-$33,500 depending on the source (city-data.com vs. DataUSA, both 2024 estimates), against a 31.4% poverty rate cited by both -- and a cost-of-living index of 81.7 (where 100 is the national average), consistent with a below-national-average local cost structure
• Employed residents work predominantly in manufacturing (24.3% per city-data.com, higher countywide at 31.7% per Cherokee County's own profile), accommodation and food services, and retail trade -- though no specific manufacturer operating inside Blacksburg itself, as opposed to elsewhere in Cherokee County, could be independently confirmed for this guide
• Blacksburg Town Hall (105 S. Shelby St.) and all three identified rental communities (Blacksburg Terrace, Mulberry Ridge Apartments, Chestnut Hills, all on or near W. Carolina St. and Clairborne St.) check out cleanly inside the incorporated Town of Blacksburg against the Census Bureau's public geocoder -- so for a rental actually in one of those three properties, the jurisdiction question isn't in doubt; confirming income limits and wait-list status directly with each property is

Local Tenant Protections

South Carolina law provides the baseline for tenant rights, but Blacksburg may have additional local ordinances that affect your lease.

• South Carolina law preempts local rent control statewide (S.C. Code §27-39-60) -- no South Carolina city or county, including Blacksburg, may enact an ordinance regulating the rent charged on privately owned residential property
• This guide could not locate a Code of Ordinances for the Town of Blacksburg on Municode, eCode360, or American Legal (which returned an access-denied error) as of September 2026, so no town-specific rental-registration or landlord-licensing provision could be confirmed or ruled out
• The town's own website (townofblacksburgsc.com) does publish a Zoning & Planning Fee Schedule PDF, revised April 2022, but its readable content addresses development and permit costs rather than a residential-rental-specific fee or registration requirement
• All three apartment communities this guide identified inside Blacksburg -- Blacksburg Terrace, Mulberry Ridge Apartments, and Chestnut Hills -- checked out cleanly inside the incorporated Town of Blacksburg against the Census Bureau's public geocoder, a cleaner jurisdiction result than several neighboring small South Carolina towns this guide has checked
• The town operates under an administrator-council form of government, incorporated in 1888, and lies within the Cherokee County School District, per Wikipedia's sourced description

For full South Carolina statewide tenant rights, see our South Carolina tenant rights guide.

Mandatory Fees in Blacksburg

No conventional fee schedule could be independently verified for a Blacksburg rental, since every apartment community this guide confirmed operating inside town limits prices by income rather than a fixed market rate.

• Blacksburg Terrace, Mulberry Ridge Apartments, and Chestnut Hills are all listed as subsidized, income-based, Section 8-accepting properties -- their cost to a specific applicant depends on household income calculations, not a posted application, pet, or administrative fee
• No standard, market-rate apartment community was identified operating in Blacksburg as of September 2026, so no application fee, pet fee, or deposit figure could be confirmed one way or the other for a conventional lease
• South Carolina law sets no statutory cap on application fees, pet fees, or administrative fees for residential rentals -- whatever a specific lease states is what governs
• The town's own website lists a Zoning & Planning Fee Schedule PDF (revised April 2022) covering development and permit costs, and separately references a business-license framework, but this guide could not extract a rental-specific figure from either -- Town Hall directly is the more reliable source for that question

A town this size having no market-rate apartment complex isn't unusual -- but it does mean anyone looking for a conventional (not income-restricted) lease in Blacksburg is looking outside what any public source could confirm for this guide, and every figure needs asking about directly.

Iron City, Two Kings Mountains, and a Casino Across the State Line

Blacksburg's founding story runs through a failed farm and a railroad. The settlement was originally known as "Stark's Folly" after an agricultural venture by a man named Stark that didn't pan out. It was the Black family, led by Confederate veteran John G. Black, who persuaded the Charlotte, Columbia and Augusta Railroad to route its line through the settlement, and the town incorporated as Black's Station in 1876 before being renamed Blacksburg in 1888. Major John F. Jones, a railroad superintendent originally from Massachusetts, donated funds for the town's early schools and buildings. When large iron-ore deposits were found nearby in the 1890s, Blacksburg briefly became known as "Iron City" and installed the first electric streetlights anywhere in Upstate South Carolina during that boom -- a level of infrastructure ambition unusual for a town this size at the time.

The town's own website describes Blacksburg today as positioned between the Broad River and "the historic battlefield of Kings Mountain State Park" -- and checking that claim surfaces a genuine complication worth untangling rather than glossing over. There are two separate, differently governed Kings Mountain sites near Blacksburg, not one. Kings Mountain National Military Park, the National Park Service site preserving the actual October 7, 1780 Revolutionary War battle where American militia defeated Loyalist forces under Patrick Ferguson, sits by coordinates about 7 miles from Blacksburg -- the park itself spans both York and Cherokee counties, meaning part of it sits inside Blacksburg's own county. Kings Mountain State Park, a separate 6,885-acre South Carolina state park accessed via SC 161 near Blacksburg, sits about 9.6 miles away and lies entirely within York County -- a different county from Blacksburg's own Cherokee County. Both are real, verifiable, and meaningfully closer to Blacksburg than the state's more nationally famous Revolutionary War namesake to the south.

That comparison matters because Cowpens National Battlefield, the site most associated with the town of Cowpens roughly 25 miles southwest, is actually the more distant of the three sites from Blacksburg -- about 17 miles by coordinates, farther than either Kings Mountain site -- and checking its own National Park Service mailing address (338 New Pleasant Road) against the Census Bureau's public geocoder finds it resolves to no incorporated place at all: unincorporated land. That unincorporated land sits in Cherokee County, which is Blacksburg's own county, not Spartanburg County, where the Town of Cowpens itself is actually incorporated. So by county, not by distance, Cowpens National Battlefield has more in common with Blacksburg than with its own namesake town -- even though it sits roughly twice as far from Blacksburg's Main Street as it does from Cowpens' own downtown. A fourth landmark worth naming for completeness, and for a clean jurisdictional contrast: the Catawba Nation's Two Kings Casino Resort, which opened as a temporary facility in 2021 about 10 miles from Blacksburg in Kings Mountain, North Carolina -- a different state entirely, with its own tax base and regulatory framework, and no confirmed bearing on any South Carolina lease or on Blacksburg's own limited Main Street commercial footprint.

Common Issues Renters Face in Blacksburg

These are the most frequent considerations this guide's research turned up for renters in Blacksburg:

• No standard, market-rate apartment community or property-management office was confirmed operating inside Blacksburg town limits -- the three rentals actually confirmed in town (Blacksburg Terrace, Mulberry Ridge Apartments, Chestnut Hills) are all income-based, so there's no public source to benchmark a "typical" open-market rent against
• The town's population has moved in a shallow U-shape rather than a clear trend (1,907 in 1990 down to 1,848 in 2010, then a 2.2% rebound to 1,889 by 2020), and two mid-2020s outside estimates disagree with each other by more than 100 residents -- treat either as approximate, not settled
• Blacksburg's own tourism identity draws on two differently governed Kings Mountain sites (a national military park and a separate state park, in two different counties) plus a well-known casino across the state line in North Carolina -- none of which sits inside Blacksburg's own boundary, worth knowing before assuming any of that traffic reaches in-town Main Street businesses
• No Code of Ordinances for the Town of Blacksburg could be located on Municode, eCode360, or American Legal as of September 2026, so a renter with a code-related question is better served calling Town Hall directly than searching for a published town ordinance online

Negotiating Your Lease in Blacksburg

South Carolina is landlord-favorable with minimal statutory protections, and every rental this guide could confirm operating inside Blacksburg is income-based rather than open-market, which changes what "negotiating" even means here.

• For the three income-based communities actually confirmed in town, requesting current income limits and wait-list status directly from each property is the practical first step, since none publish an open-market price to negotiate against
• Requesting a written rent, deposit, and fee breakdown directly from any private landlord is commonly the only way to confirm a real cost for a conventional Blacksburg lease, since no market-rate community or property-management office was confirmed operating in town to compare against
• Comparing a quoted Blacksburg figure against Gaffney, the Cherokee County seat about 10 miles away, or against the broader Charlotte-Gastonia-area rental market roughly 45 miles north, can help gauge whether a specific quote is reasonable for the area
• Confirming which government covers a specific address is generally not the open question in Blacksburg that it is in some nearby small towns -- Town Hall and all three researched communities resolve cleanly inside town limits -- but it's still worth checking for any address near the town's edges, given how close Blacksburg sits to both the York County line and the North Carolina state line (about 4 miles north)

A town with no confirmed market-rate apartment community isn't automatically a red flag -- but it does mean every figure on a Blacksburg lease needs confirming directly with the owner before signing anything.