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

Johnsonville Rental Market Overview

Johnsonville is a small Florence County town of 1,378 residents (2020 Census), and its rental market is correspondingly thin -- thin enough that this guide could not confirm a single open-market apartment community operating inside town limits as of September 2026. RentCafe's own Johnsonville-scoped search returns "No rentals found near Johnsonville, SC" and directs prospective renters instead to Florence, Conway, Lake City, and Darlington. No other platform checked for this guide turned up an active listing inside town either. The one rental property this guide could positively identify, Johnsonville Apartments at 311 Liberty St, is Section 8 project-based housing administered through the Housing Authority of the City of Lake City -- not an open-market community, and its own aggregator listing (last verified in 2019, now seven years stale) publishes no dollar rent figure at all, only "Call for Rents." Separately, city-data.com's Census-modeled estimate puts Johnsonville's town-wide median gross rent at $913/month as of 2024 -- a statistical area-wide estimate drawn from American Community Survey data, not a figure quoted by any specific identified property, and worth treating as a rough benchmark rather than a real quote.

Common Lease Terms in Johnsonville

With no open-market rental community identified inside Johnsonville, no primary lease document is available to this guide to establish standard terms the way a larger city's guide can. What follows is what can be established from the one identified property and from statewide default rules:

• Johnsonville Apartments, the one rental property this guide identified, is income-restricted Section 8 project-based housing serving households at 30%, 50%, and 80% of area median income, with rent capped at 30% of a qualifying household's income rather than a fixed market rate
• Its own aggregator listing describes its waiting list as "likely long or closed," a routine condition for project-based Section 8 properties, and notes the listing itself was last verified in 2019
• For any other rental arrangement in or near Johnsonville -- most likely a privately owned single-family home or duplex, since no apartment community was identified -- South Carolina's Residential Landlord and Tenant Act supplies the default terms absent anything more specific negotiated in writing

Local Tenant Protections

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

• No rental-registration, landlord-licensing, or other landlord-tenant ordinance specific to Johnsonville could be located on Municode, eCode360, or any other public ordinance repository as of September 2026
• South Carolina law preempts local rent control statewide (S.C. Code §27-39-60) -- no South Carolina city or county, including Johnsonville, may enact an ordinance regulating the rent charged on privately owned residential property
• Checking Johnsonville's own geographic center against the Census Bureau's public geocoder confirms it resolves inside the incorporated City of Johnsonville -- but the town's one identified rental property, Johnsonville Apartments at 311 Liberty St, resolves to unincorporated Florence County land instead, despite carrying a "Johnsonville, SC 29555" mailing address, meaning county rather than town government holds zoning and code-enforcement authority over that specific parcel

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

Mandatory Fees at Johnsonville Communities

No fee schedule could be independently verified for an open-market rental in Johnsonville, since none was identified. What is published, for the one subsidized property this guide found, is income and rent-share information rather than a fee schedule:

• Johnsonville Apartments serves households up to roughly $14,800/year (30% AMI, one person), $24,650/year (50% AMI), and $39,350/year (80% AMI), with rent set at no more than 30% of a qualifying household's income -- these are income-eligibility figures, not rent or fee amounts
• No application fee, pet fee, security deposit amount, or administrative fee is published for Johnsonville Apartments; its own listing says only "Call for Rents," and the underlying data was last verified in 2019
• South Carolina law sets no statutory cap on application fees, pet fees, or administrative fees for a private-market rental -- whatever a specific lease states is what governs

A seven-year-old "verified" date on the only identified rental listing in town is a real limitation, not a formality -- income limits, waiting-list status, and management contact information can all change over that span, so confirming current figures directly with the Housing Authority of the City of Lake City before assuming anything published here still holds is worth doing.

What's Shaping Johnsonville's Rental Market

Johnsonville's Census-reported population has been essentially flat across three decades and modestly declining in the most recent one: 1,415 in 1990, 1,418 in 2000, 1,480 in 2010, and 1,378 in 2020 -- a real 6.9% drop in the most recent decade, following a small bump the decade before, for a net 2.6% decline since 1990. Unlike some other small South Carolina towns this guide has checked, there is no documented institutional-population mechanism (a prison, a group-quarters facility) behind this swing -- it reads as a genuine, if modest, decline in a small rural town's civilian population. City-data.com's 2024 Census-modeled estimates show a median household income of $46,889, well below South Carolina's $72,350 statewide figure, a 20.9% overall poverty rate (54.0% among Black residents and 14.8% among White residents, a stark disparity worth noting plainly), and an April 2026 unemployment rate of 4.0%. The town's largest employment sectors are retail trade (18.2% of employed residents), health care (17.1%), accommodation and food services (11.2%), and manufacturing (11.0%) -- a broad-based service and retail economy rather than one built around a single dominant employer.

Johnsonville was incorporated in 1913 near the site of the old Witherspoon's Ferry crossing on the Lynches River, and the town's name traces to the Johnson family, who operated a stagecoach-era ferry crossing there before the Civil War -- a post office called Johnsonville was already running at that Johnson's Ferry site by 1843. That same crossing carries a Revolutionary War claim to fame, cited as the place where General Francis Marion received his militia commission, which the town now marks with an annual Johnsonville Heritage Festival running since 2011. Broadway Street (SC Highway 341) is the town's main thoroughfare, and Johnsonville sits about 35 miles northwest of Florence, the county seat, and roughly 45 miles west of Myrtle Beach. One geographic reference source also credits a Wellman Industries fiber-processing and recycling plant at Johnsonville with having been, at some point in the past, the largest factory along the entire length of the Lynches River -- described in the past tense with no current operating status confirmed by this guide, so it's noted here as documented industrial history rather than a current employer.

Common Issues Renters Face in Johnsonville

These are the most notable considerations this guide's research turned up for anyone looking to rent in Johnsonville:

• No open-market apartment community could be confirmed operating inside Johnsonville as of September 2026 -- RentCafe's own search returns zero results and points to Florence, Conway, Lake City, and Darlington instead
• The one identified rental property, Johnsonville Apartments, is income-restricted Section 8 housing rather than an open-market community, and its published details were last verified in 2019
• That same property's own street address resolves to unincorporated Florence County land under the Census Bureau's geocoder, not the incorporated Town of Johnsonville, despite its "Johnsonville, SC" mailing address -- worth knowing before assuming town government has any zoning or code-enforcement authority over it
• A $913/month town-wide median gross rent figure from Census-modeled 2024 estimates is a statistical area average, not a quote from any specific identified property -- there is no real per-unit or per-community figure to compare it against

Negotiating Your Lease in Johnsonville

South Carolina is landlord-favorable with minimal statutory protections, and Johnsonville's near-total absence of a documented rental market means there is no published pricing to negotiate against or benchmark a specific offer.

• Confirming current income limits and waiting-list status directly with the Housing Authority of the City of Lake City is a reasonable first step for anyone considering Johnsonville Apartments, given the published figures are seven years stale
• Verifying which government -- the City of Johnsonville or Florence County -- actually holds zoning and code-enforcement authority over a specific rental address is more attainable before signing than after, given the confirmed mismatch found at this town's own identified rental property
• Comparing a quoted Johnsonville-area rent against Florence, about 35 miles away and with its own independently verified pricing, is a reasonable way to gauge whether a private-market figure is reasonable for the region

A town with no confirmed open-market rental listings isn't a red flag on its own -- Johnsonville is simply a very small town -- but it does mean there's no published figure to check a private landlord's asking rent against, so getting any fee or term in writing before signing matters more here than in a market with public comparables.