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

Pelion Rental Market Overview

Pelion is a 3.77-square-mile town in southern Lexington County, part of the Columbia metropolitan area, incorporated in 1912 and named after Mount Pelion in Greece. As of September 2026, this guide's research could not identify a single apartment or multi-family rental community operating inside town limits. RentCafe's own market-rent tracker lists Pelion as "n/a," since its data covers only buildings of 50 or more units; Affordablehousing.com returned no listings page for the town at all; and Apartments.com and Zillow both blocked this guide's automated research before any inventory could be checked, so a small listing cannot be fully ruled out. A 2024 Census American Community Survey estimate, as presented by City-Data.com, puts Pelion's town-wide median gross rent at $940 a month -- a statistical model built from the town's existing housing stock rather than a published asking rent from any specific landlord or property.

Common Lease Terms in Pelion

With no identified apartment community or leasing office to source a specific lease from, what follows is pieced together from housing-stock data, county-level benchmarks, and a direct jurisdiction check rather than a single property's own paperwork:

• DataUSA's presentation of 2024 ACS data puts Pelion's homeownership rate at 90.1%, implying roughly 10% of occupied housing is renter-occupied -- one of the smallest renter shares this guide has found among comparable small South Carolina towns
• South Carolina's Residential Landlord and Tenant Act (S.C. Code Title 27, Chapter 40) supplies the default lease terms -- notice periods, entry rules, deposit handling -- for any Pelion tenancy where the lease itself is silent
• Checked against the Census Bureau's public geocoder, both of Pelion's Dollar General stores (7925 Edmund Highway and 1027 Pine Street) and Pelion High School (600 Lydia Drive) all resolve cleanly inside the incorporated Town of Pelion -- a fully clean jurisdiction result on every address this guide checked (see Local Tenant Protections below for how that compares to a neighboring town)
• City-Data.com's 2024 estimate puts the town's median house value at $182,494, while DataUSA's presentation of the same ACS program shows $156,700 -- a real disagreement between aggregators, consistent with the wider population-estimate dispute documented below

Local Tenant Protections

South Carolina law provides the baseline for tenant rights, but Pelion 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 Pelion, may enact an ordinance regulating the rent charged on privately owned residential property
• No searchable code of ordinances could be located for Pelion on Municode, eCode360, or American Legal as of September 2026 -- Municode's own library page for the town returned only a generic, JavaScript-rendered shell with no accessible ordinance text, and the town's own website (townofpelion.com) is itself built on a JavaScript framework that returned no readable ordinance, zoning, or business-license text to this guide's research tools
• Checked against the Census Bureau's public geocoder, both of Pelion's Dollar General stores (7925 Edmund Highway and 1027 Pine Street) and Pelion High School (600 Lydia Drive) resolve cleanly to "Pelion town" -- a fully clean result on every address this guide checked
• Worth knowing alongside that clean result: this guide's companion Swansea, SC page found a "Swansea, SC"-addressed Dollar General resolving instead into the surrounding "Pelion Census County Division" -- a broad U.S. Census Bureau statistical area that shares Pelion's name but extends well beyond the actual Town of Pelion's own 3.77-square-mile boundary. The risk that naming creates runs away from Pelion rather than through it: a property elsewhere in Lexington County carrying a different town's mailing address can still land inside the "Pelion" statistical label without being anywhere near the actual town

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

Mandatory Fees at Pelion Rentals

No fee schedule could be independently confirmed for a Pelion rental, since this guide could not identify any leasing office or managed rental community operating inside town, as of September 2026.

• RentCafe, Affordablehousing.com, Apartments.com, and Zillow all returned no usable property-level data for Pelion, so none publishes an application fee, pet fee, or deposit amount for any specific property in town
• No business-license fee schedule or rental-registration ordinance could be located for Pelion on Municode, eCode360, American Legal, or the town's own site
• South Carolina law sets no statutory cap on application fees, pet fees, or administrative fees -- whatever a specific lease states is what governs

A town with no identified rental community isn't automatically a red flag -- but it does mean every fee, deposit amount, and lease term is worth confirming directly with the landlord, in writing, before signing anything.

A Greek Mountain's Name, a 94-Year Growth Run, and a Festival This Guide Couldn't Confirm

Pelion's own name traces to Mount Pelion in Greece, per its Wikipedia entry, and the town has had its own post office since 1900, four years before its 1912 incorporation. The U.S. Census Bureau's decennial counts show a genuinely dramatic growth arc for a town this size: from 184 residents in 1920, Pelion held roughly flat through the mid-20th century (233 in 1960, 213 in 1980) before more than tripling between 1980 and 2010 -- 336 by 1990 (up 57.7%), 553 by 2000 (up 64.6%), and 674 by 2010 (up 21.9%) -- then reversing to 631 by 2020, a 6.4% decline. Current-year estimates for 2024 disagree far more sharply than usual: City-Data.com's presentation of ACS data shows 623 residents, roughly continuing the 2020 decline, while DataUSA's presentation of the same ACS program shows 985 -- a 362-person spread, equal to more than half the town's actual 2020 population, wider than this guide has found almost anywhere else in South Carolina. The town's median age of 48.0 years, well above South Carolina's statewide 40.7, is at least consistent with a population that has aged in place since its 1990s-2000s growth years rather than one in active expansion today.

A reputation for an annual "Peanut Party" festival circulates informally about Pelion, but this guide's research -- the town's Wikipedia entry, its own website, and broader web search as of September 2026 -- could not confirm any documented festival by that name, or any other named annual town festival. That does not rule out a small, lightly-publicized local event this guide's tools could not surface, but it means the claim should not be repeated as settled fact without confirming directly with the town. What Wikipedia's entry does confirm: Pelion is home to Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, is served by Lexington County School District One's Pelion High School, Middle School, and multiple elementary schools, and counts actor Paul Benjamin, NFL player Dalton Freeman, and radio personality Michael Graham among its notable natives.

Economically, 2024 ACS-based estimates show manufacturing as Pelion's largest employment sector by a wide margin -- 29.6% of employed residents per City-Data.com, or 153 of roughly 513 employed residents (29.8%) per DataUSA -- a notably higher concentration than this guide has found in several comparable small Lexington-area towns (Swansea's largest sector, health care, is 19.2%). Educational services (12.3%-12.5%) and construction (10.6%-10.9%) follow. This guide could not identify a specific named manufacturer or address behind that concentration. Median household income runs $59,455-$60,253 depending on the aggregator, both below South Carolina's roughly $72,350 statewide figure, with a 12.9% poverty rate (both sources agree exactly) -- notably lower than several other small South Carolina towns this guide has covered -- and an April 2026 unemployment rate of 3.1%, better than the state's 3.6% average.

Common Issues Renters Face in Pelion

These are the most frequent lease-related considerations identified for Pelion, based on the research for this guide:

• No apartment or multi-family rental community could be confirmed operating inside Pelion, and two of the four listing sources this guide checked blocked automated research outright, so a prospective renter should not assume the town has no options at all -- only that none could be independently verified
• Current population estimates for Pelion disagree by 362 people for the same year (2024), among the widest spreads this guide has found anywhere in South Carolina, worth knowing before treating any single cited current figure for the town as precise
• A reputation for an annual "Peanut Party" festival could not be confirmed by this guide's research, worth checking directly with the town rather than assuming it as settled fact
• Pelion's own addresses checked out cleanly against the Census Bureau's geocoder, but the "Pelion Census County Division" name this guide's companion Swansea page found attached to a property well outside Swansea's own town limits is a reminder that a small town's name, used as a broader Census statistical label, doesn't track incorporated boundaries

Negotiating Your Lease in Pelion

South Carolina is landlord-favorable with minimal statutory protections, and Pelion's rental market has no identified apartment community or leasing office to benchmark a specific offer against.

• A full written lease, rather than a verbal or partial agreement, is especially worth requesting in a market like Pelion's, where the counterparty is more likely an individual property owner than a company with a standard template already in place
• Comparing a specific quote against nearby Swansea ($907 median gross rent, per this guide's own research) or Gaston, both covered elsewhere on this site, can help gauge whether a Pelion rent or fee fits regional Lexington County norms
• Confirming a specific address's actual jurisdiction using the Census Bureau's free public geocoder is worth doing for any Pelion-area property, given how differently that same check has resolved for other small Lexington County towns this guide has covered

A market with no identified rental community isn't automatically a red flag -- but with no comparison listing to check a quote against, confirming every fee, deposit amount, and lease term directly with the landlord, in writing, matters more here than in a market with visible competition.