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

Fairfax Rental Market Overview

Fairfax, a town of 1,505 residents at the 2020 census (down from 2,025 in 2010 and 3,206 in 2000 -- a decline of roughly 25.7% in the most recent decade and about 53.1% since 2000), sits mostly in Allendale County, though its own municipal boundary, per Wikipedia's infobox for the town, extends into neighboring Hampton County as well -- one of relatively few South Carolina municipalities whose limits cross a county line. Research for this guide, checked September 2026, identified four rental communities carrying a Fairfax, SC 29827 address via the aggregator AffordableHousingOnline.com: Fairfax Garden Apartments (1914 Charleston Ave), Fairfax Apartments (772 Saluda Ave N, accepting Section 8 Housing Choice Vouchers), Fairfax Gardens Apartments II (401 Saluda Ave S, also accepting Section 8), and Boundary Apartments (7 Boundary Ave, listed as subsidized). None of the four discloses an open-market rent figure on its aggregator listing or on an independently confirmable management-company website. Checking the three geocodable addresses against the Census Bureau's public geocoder confirms all three sit inside the incorporated Town of Fairfax, on the Allendale County side of its split boundary; Boundary Apartments' 7 Boundary Ave address did not geocode at all, so neither its jurisdiction nor its exact location could be independently confirmed for this guide.

Common Lease Terms in Fairfax

No community in Fairfax publishes a full lease, application, or open-market fee schedule, so what's known has to be pieced together from each listing's own aggregator entry and the jurisdiction check run for this guide:

• Fairfax Garden Apartments (1914 Charleston Ave) geocodes inside the incorporated Town of Fairfax, on its Allendale County side, per the Census Bureau's public geocoder; its aggregator listing discloses no unit count, program type, or rent beyond a "Short Wait" and accessibility tag
• Fairfax Apartments (772 Saluda Ave N) accepts Section 8 Housing Choice Vouchers and is listed as subsidized with a short wait, per its own aggregator entry, and also geocodes inside Fairfax
• Fairfax Gardens Apartments II (401 Saluda Ave S) likewise accepts Section 8 vouchers and geocodes inside Fairfax -- a distinct property from Fairfax Garden Apartments above despite the near-identical name, worth double-checking which one a specific listing or application actually refers to
• Boundary Apartments (7 Boundary Ave) is listed as subsidized rent on its aggregator entry, but its address did not resolve on the Census Bureau's public geocoder, so this guide can't confirm it sits inside Fairfax town limits at all, let alone its unit count or program type

Local Tenant Protections

South Carolina law provides the baseline for tenant rights, but Fairfax 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 Fairfax, may enact an ordinance regulating the rent charged on privately owned residential property
• The Town of Fairfax's own website, fairfaxsc.gov, did not return accessible content to this guide's research request as of September 2026, and no code-of-ordinances library for the town could be confirmed reachable on Municode or elsewhere -- so a local rental-registration or landlord-licensing requirement beyond the state baseline can't be confirmed or ruled out
• Fairfax's own municipal boundary spans two counties, Allendale and Hampton, per Wikipedia's infobox for the town -- unusual among South Carolina's small towns and a reason a specific address's exact county, not just its city name, is worth confirming for anything that runs through county government rather than the town itself
• Checking the three geocodable rental addresses in this guide, plus Allendale Correctional Institution's own mailing address, against the Census Bureau's public geocoder found all three rentals confirmed inside the Town of Fairfax on its Allendale County side, while the prison's own 1057 Revolutionary Trail address -- carrying the identical "Fairfax, SC 29827" mailing label -- resolves instead to unincorporated Allendale County land outside the town's limits altogether

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

Mandatory Fees at Fairfax Communities

No fee schedule could be independently verified for any of the four identified Fairfax communities, as of September 2026.

• Fairfax Apartments and Fairfax Gardens Apartments II both accept Section 8 Housing Choice Vouchers per their own aggregator listings, but neither discloses an application fee, pet fee, or deposit amount independently of that listing
• Fairfax Garden Apartments' aggregator listing names no fee or rent figure at all beyond a "Short Wait" tag
• Boundary Apartments' address did not resolve on the Census Bureau's public geocoder, so even its basic location -- let alone a fee schedule -- couldn't be confirmed for this guide
• South Carolina law sets no statutory cap on application fees, pet fees, or administrative fees -- whatever a specific lease states is what governs

An aggregator listing isn't the same as a confirmed fee schedule -- confirming any deposit, application fee, or pet fee directly with the specific property, in writing, before applying is the only way to know the real total at any of these four communities.

Population Decline, a Two-County Border, and Fairfax's Local Economy

Fairfax's population has fallen in every census since at least 2000: 3,206 residents that year, 2,025 in 2010, and 1,505 in 2020 -- declines of roughly 36.8% and 25.7% across those two most recent decades, respectively, and about 53.1% total since 2000, per the Census Bureau's decennial counts as reflected on Wikipedia. A more recent American Community Survey-based estimate from DataUSA.io, dated 2024, puts the population at roughly 1,935 -- an increase over the 2020 count that runs counter to the two-decade decline and is more consistent with the wide margin of error built into ACS sampling for a town this small than with an actual rebound; this guide treats the decennial count as the more reliable figure and flags the DataUSA estimate as statistically noisy rather than as evidence of a reversal. That same DataUSA profile shows median household income at $40,649 (down 1.64% from the prior year), a poverty rate of 26.8% against a 12.5% national rate, and total employment of 812 people (down 3.1% year over year from 838), with retail trade (134 workers), manufacturing (107 workers), and health care and social assistance (93 workers) as the top local industries; the highest-paying sectors are transportation, warehousing, and utilities ($75,515 average) and educational services ($45,550). The same data shows a median home value of $63,000, a 50.8% homeownership rate, and an average commute of 41.2 minutes -- well above the 26.4-minute national average, consistent with a workforce commuting well outside town for jobs rather than working locally.

Fairfax sits mostly in Allendale County -- itself South Carolina's least populous county at 8,039 residents in the 2020 census, per Wikipedia -- but its own municipal boundary extends into neighboring Hampton County as well, an unusual arrangement among the state's small towns. Allendale County's economy remains substantially agricultural (cotton, soybeans, watermelon, cantaloupe, and timber for paper pulp, per Wikipedia), and the county's own Wikipedia profile names Atlantic Power Corporation, AZ Electronic Materials, Georgia-Pacific, the South Carolina Department of Corrections, and the University of South Carolina among its largest employers -- against a 2022 county GDP of about $317.5 million, or roughly $39,491 per capita, and county unemployment that fluctuated between about 4% and 8% from 2021 through 2024. The Department of Corrections entry on that employer list traces to Allendale Correctional Institution, a 1,090-capacity medium-security state prison opened in 1989 at 1057 Revolutionary Trail -- an address that carries a "Fairfax, SC 29827" mailing label but, checked against the Census Bureau's public geocoder for this guide, resolves to unincorporated Allendale County land rather than inside Fairfax's own town limits. Fairfax's most notable landmark predates the prison by more than a century: the Virginia Durant Young House, an 1881 Victorian cottage on U.S. Route 278, built for Virginia Durant Young, a journalist, novelist, and nationally recognized leader of South Carolina's women's suffrage movement, per Wikipedia. Willed to the town on her husband's death, the house today serves as the Fairfax Public Library and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1983.

Common Issues Renters Face in Fairfax

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

• None of the four identified communities -- Fairfax Garden Apartments, Fairfax Apartments, Fairfax Gardens Apartments II, or Boundary Apartments -- discloses an independently confirmed open-market rent, so comparing "Fairfax rent" to a neighboring city's published figures isn't possible from public sources alone
• Boundary Apartments' 7 Boundary Ave address did not resolve on the Census Bureau's public geocoder -- worth confirming the exact location and whether it sits inside Fairfax town limits directly with the leasing office before assuming anything from the mailing address alone
• Fairfax Garden Apartments and Fairfax Gardens Apartments II carry near-identical names but sit at two different addresses (1914 Charleston Ave and 401 Saluda Ave S) -- worth double-checking which one a specific listing, application, or lease actually names
• A "Fairfax, SC" mailing address doesn't reliably indicate which government has jurisdiction over a specific parcel -- the town's own boundary spans two counties, and Allendale Correctional Institution's identical mailing address sits on unincorporated county land entirely outside town limits
• Local economic data -- a 26.8% poverty rate and a 41.2-minute average commute, both per DataUSA.io's 2024 estimate -- is a meaningful backdrop for gauging what rent level is realistic and whether a specific job is actually reachable from a given unit

Negotiating Your Lease in Fairfax

South Carolina is landlord-favorable with minimal statutory protections, and Fairfax's rental market has no independently published market-rate price to benchmark against at any of its four identified communities.

• Requesting a written rent quote, fee schedule, and current Section 8 waitlist status directly from Fairfax Apartments and Fairfax Gardens Apartments II is worth doing before applying, since neither publishes pricing on its own aggregator listing
• Confirming Fairfax Garden Apartments' unit count, program type, and rent directly with its own leasing office is a reasonable first step, given its aggregator listing discloses neither
• Calling Boundary Apartments directly to confirm its actual street location -- and whether that location sits inside Fairfax town limits -- is worth doing before assuming anything, since the address on file did not resolve on the Census Bureau's public geocoder
• Comparing a quoted Fairfax figure against Allendale, Hampton, or Estill -- all nearby South Carolina markets documented in this guide -- can help gauge whether a specific quote is reasonable for the region
• Given the area's 26.8% poverty rate and 41.2-minute average commute, confirming a realistic rent-to-income expectation and commute distance to work with a specific leasing office is a reasonable step before signing anything

A community with no independently verifiable pricing isn't automatically a red flag in a market this thin -- but it does mean every figure, and in Boundary Apartments' case even the address itself, needs confirming directly with the leasing office before signing anything.