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

Perry Rental Market Overview

Perry is a roughly 1-square-mile town in Aiken County, South Carolina, within the Augusta, Georgia metropolitan area and about 32 miles from Columbia. As of October 2026, this guide's research could not identify a single named apartment or multi-family rental community operating inside town limits, but City-Data.com's 2024 Census American Community Survey estimate does publish a town-wide median gross rent figure of $1,005. The town was originally established as Wagener and renamed in 1888 for Benjamin Franklin Perry, South Carolina's provisional governor immediately after the Civil War -- a history that leaves its own small, SC-internal echo, since a separate and still-existing Town of Wagener sits nearby and is covered elsewhere on this site.

Common Lease Terms in Perry

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

• City-Data.com's 2024 ACS-based estimate puts Perry's median household income at $40,177 -- well below South Carolina's statewide median household income of $72,350, and up from $23,750 in the 2000 Census
• 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 Perry tenancy where the lease itself is silent
• Checked against the Census Bureau's public geocoder, Perry Town Hall (1075 E Railroad Ave N) resolves cleanly inside the incorporated Town of Perry -- a clean jurisdiction result, though only one address was available to test, since no second commercial or institutional address could be confirmed in town
• City-Data.com's 2024 estimate puts the town's median house value at $82,587 and the median resident age at 40.6 years -- both well below South Carolina's statewide median house value of $299,500, with the median age roughly in line with the state's 40.7

Local Tenant Protections

South Carolina law provides the baseline for tenant rights, but Perry 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 Perry, may enact an ordinance regulating the rent charged on privately owned residential property
• The Town of Perry's own website lists only two items in its public document center -- a water-quality Consumer Confidence Report and a compliment/complaint form -- with no zoning ordinance, business-license schedule, or municipal code posted online as of October 2026, a thinner public record than several other small South Carolina towns this guide has researched
• Perry is one of 19 places in the United States named Perry, including a considerably larger, more prominently indexed city in Georgia -- a general search for "Town of Perry" government or zoning information should be checked carefully for which state it actually describes before being relied on
• Perry's population has mostly declined since a 2000 Census count of 237, falling to 194 by 2020, though a 2024 current-year estimate of 209 suggests a partial rebound this guide could not independently confirm as a lasting trend

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

Mandatory Fees at Perry Rentals

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

• City-Data.com's housing profile publishes a town-wide median gross rent ($1,005) but no property-level application fee, pet fee, or deposit amount for any specific Perry property
• The Town of Perry's own document center lists no zoning ordinance or business-license schedule, so this guide could not confirm whether a residential-rental registration or business-license rule reaches a Perry landlord at all
• 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 Renamed Aiken County Town Honoring a Reconstruction-Era Governor, Sharing Its Name With 18 Other US Places

The U.S. Census Bureau's decennial counts show Perry declining for most of the past quarter-century: 237 residents in 2000, essentially flat at 233 in 2010, then down to 194 by 2020, a 16.7% drop in that final decade alone. City-Data.com's 2024 current-year estimate puts the town back up to 209 -- a 7.7% increase from the 2020 count, though still 11.8% below the 2000 level, and this guide could not confirm from the sources checked whether that recent uptick reflects a real, lasting change or a single year's statistical noise. The town occupies roughly 1 square mile in Aiken County, within the Augusta, Georgia metropolitan area, about 32 miles from Columbia.

Perry's own history carries a naming twist worth knowing on its own terms: the town was originally established and known as Wagener before adopting its current name in 1888, honoring Benjamin Franklin Perry, who served as South Carolina's provisional governor in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War. A separate, still-existing Town of Wagener -- a real, independently incorporated municipality, not a renamed duplicate -- sits nearby in the same part of Aiken County and is covered elsewhere on this site, an intra-state echo of the same renaming history. Students from Perry attend schools within the Aiken County Public School District, including Busbee Elementary, A.L. Corbett Middle School, and Wagener-Salley High School -- a school named for Perry's neighbors, not for Perry itself. East of town, on the Old Indian Trail and within a land tract dated to 1767, Indian Head Springs is documented as an ancient Native American and colonial-era activity site. City-Data's 2024 employment-sector breakdown shows manufacturing (24.4%) as the town's single largest current employment sector, followed by retail trade (16.8%), administrative and support services (13.5%), construction (9.3%), and finance and insurance (5.9%).

A specific finding from this guide's own research: Perry shares its name with 18 other incorporated places across the United States, per Wikipedia's own disambiguation listing -- including towns and cities in Georgia, Iowa, Oklahoma, Florida, Ohio, Texas, and a dozen more states. Perry, Georgia, a city of roughly 19,000 known as the "Crossroads of Georgia" and host to the Georgia National Fair, is almost certainly the most prominently indexed of the group, and a general search for "Town of Perry" or "City of Perry" government, zoning, or business information carries a real risk of surfacing a different state's Perry entirely rather than this roughly 200-person South Carolina town. This is a sharper version of the same-name-different-state naming trap this guide has documented in nearby Cameron, Carlisle, and Trenton, SC -- here spread across considerably more states than any of those three.

Common Issues Renters Face in Perry

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

• No apartment or multi-family rental community could be confirmed operating inside Perry from the sources this guide checked, so a prospective renter should not assume the town has no options at all -- only that none could be independently verified
• A general search for Perry's own government, zoning, or business-license information is genuinely easy to confuse with one of 18 other US places named Perry, most notably the much larger Perry, Georgia -- a renter or small business should confirm directly with Perry, SC's own Town Hall rather than trust the first search result
• The Town of Perry's own public document center lists no zoning ordinance or business-license schedule, a thinner public record than several other small South Carolina towns this guide has researched, where at least some form of zoning reference could be found online
• Perry's population has mostly declined since 2000, and while a 2024 estimate shows a partial rebound from the 2020 low, this guide could not confirm whether that uptick is a lasting trend or a single year's statistical noise

Negotiating Your Lease in Perry

South Carolina is landlord-favorable with minimal statutory protections, and Perry'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 Perry'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 Wagener, Salley, or Monetta, all covered elsewhere on this site and all within the same part of Aiken County, can help gauge whether a Perry rent or fee fits regional norms
• Confirming a specific address's actual jurisdiction using the Census Bureau's free public geocoder is worth doing for any Perry-area property, and confirming which state's "Town of Perry" a search result actually describes is worth doing for any government or zoning question -- this guide's own research found 18 other US places carrying the identical name

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.