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

Clinton Rental Market Overview

Clinton, a Laurens County city of 7,633 residents as of the 2020 census, is an unusually thin private rental market: housing-search directories name ten multi-unit rental communities inside city limits, and as of September 2026 none of the ten operates an independent website with posted pricing. Every one is described by the directories that list it with badges like subsidized, income-based, or voucher-accepting -- Colony Square Apartments (201 Elizabeth Street) and Colony Square Apartments II (210 Elizabeth Street), Clinton Manor Apartments (100 Clinton Manor Drive), Tallwood Apartments (113 Tallwood Drive), Landau Apartments (1321 South Broad Street), Glendale Manor Apartments, Belle Ville Apartments (100 Jefferson Street), Clinton Green (South Broad Street), J. Press Apartments (Main Street), and Westchase Apartments (590 Phillips Street). This guide does not publish rent figures from those directories, since none could be confirmed against the community's own site or its management company's own page. Every address checked against the Census Bureau's federal geocoder that could be matched at all confirmed Clinton city jurisdiction, not unincorporated Laurens County land.

Common Lease Terms in Clinton

None of the ten identified communities publishes a lease, application, or fee schedule on an independent website, so typical lease length, deposit amount, and application fee can't be stated with a source behind them the way this guide can for a market-rate city.

• All ten communities are described by the housing directories that list them with badges like subsidized, income-based, or voucher-accepting, meaning rent is calculated per household rather than posted as a single market figure
• Two directory entries near Clinton -- one listed as "Countryside Townhouses" and one listed only as "Idia, Inc." -- did not resolve to a confirmable address or clearly describe a rental property, so this guide leaves them out of its count rather than repeating an unverifiable listing

Local Tenant Protections

South Carolina law provides the baseline for tenant rights, but Clinton 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 Clinton, may enact an ordinance regulating the rent charged on privately owned residential property
• The City of Clinton's Inspections and Planning department names a Property Maintenance Code Enforcement Officer and links out to a general municipal code library, but as of September 2026 publishes no rental-registration requirement, fee schedule, or landlord-specific code-enforcement program
• No local landlord-tenant ordinance beyond South Carolina's statewide Residential Landlord and Tenant Act has been identified for Clinton

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

Mandatory Fees at Clinton Communities

No fee disclosure could be verified for any Clinton community, because none of the ten identified properties publishes an independent website listing application fees, pet fees, or other recurring charges. That itself is a data point: unlike a market-rate community that lists an application fee on its own leasing page, an income-restricted property's fee structure (if any) typically comes from the administering agency's own paperwork, not a public listing.

• Colony Square Apartments, Colony Square Apartments II, Clinton Manor Apartments, Tallwood Apartments, Landau Apartments, Glendale Manor Apartments, Belle Ville Apartments, Clinton Green, J. Press Apartments, and Westchase Apartments disclose no fee amounts on any primary source found for this guide
• Housing-search directories describe several of these as accepting Housing Choice Vouchers, which typically caps a tenant's contribution as a share of income rather than charging a market application or move-in fee -- but no community's own paperwork confirming that structure was found

A property with no published fee schedule isn't necessarily fee-free -- getting any application, pet, or administrative charge in writing from the leasing office itself, before applying, is the only way to know the real total at any of these communities.

Population Decline, Presbyterian College, and Clinton's Economic Base

Clinton's population fell from 8,490 at the 2010 census to 7,633 in 2020, a decline of roughly 10.1% -- a steeper drop than either Laurens (+2.1% over the same decade) or Greenwood (-2.9%), the other two county seats in this part of the Upstate. The city's economy centered for over a century on the Clinton Cotton Mill, established in 1896 by Mercer Silas Bailey, and the Lydia Cotton Mill that followed in 1902; both mills stayed a vital source of local prosperity until their 2001 closure, which brought years of economic hardship the area is still working through, per Wikipedia's sourced history of the city. The Clinton Commercial Historic District is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, anchoring what remains of the city's downtown identity after the mill-era economy ended.

Presbyterian College, a private liberal-arts college at 503 South Broad Street in Clinton, reported 1,095 total students (853 undergraduate, 242 graduate) as of fall 2024, per the U.S. Department of Education's College Navigator database -- a stable presence that anchors a student-adjacent rental submarket distinct from the rest of the city's income-restricted housing stock. On the industrial side, Laurens County's own economic-development site reports that R.E. Michel Company, a wholesale distributor of HVAC, refrigeration, plumbing, propane, and industrial supplies, began operations on March 9, 2026 at a new 600,000-square-foot distribution center in Clinton -- though the announcement discloses no investment amount or job count, unlike the county's Aptiv Services US and Suniva announcements the same year, which are sited elsewhere in Laurens County.

Common Issues Renters Face in Clinton

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

• No apartment community in Clinton publishes independent pricing, so comparing "Clinton rent" to a neighboring city's published figures isn't possible from public sources alone -- a phone call to the specific property is the only way to get a real number
• A double-digit population decline over one census decade is unusual for a South Carolina city this size, and it's worth weighing against any pitch that frames Clinton as a fast-growing market
• Two directory entries near Clinton (one under a name that reads more like a company than a property, one with an address that would not resolve on the federal geocoder) are exactly the kind of listing worth confirming directly with a leasing office rather than taking at face value

Negotiating Your Lease in Clinton

South Carolina is landlord-favorable with minimal statutory protections, and Clinton's rental market is dominated by income-restricted housing that runs on its own application process rather than a standard market-rate lease.

• Confirming the current name, managing agency, and program (public housing, Section 8 voucher, USDA Rural Development, or another) directly with the leasing office is worth doing before submitting an application at any of these communities, given how much directory listings can drift from what's actually on-site
• Building extra lead time into a moving timeline is typical when a property runs on an income-based waitlist rather than the same-week turnaround common at a market-rate complex
• Comparing a Clinton lease against Presbyterian College's own off-campus housing guidance, where one exists, is a reasonable check for a student or student-adjacent renter, since campus-area demand doesn't always track the rest of the city's market

A community with no published price and no independent website isn't automatically a red flag in a market this small -- but it does mean every figure needs confirming directly with the leasing office or administering agency before signing anything.