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

Swansea Rental Market Overview

Swansea is a 2.08-square-mile town (2.14 square miles including water) in southern Lexington County, sitting close to the Orangeburg County line -- Wikipedia's own geography entry lists Gaston and North as Swansea's neighboring communities, and North sits in Orangeburg County, not Lexington. As of September 2026, this guide's research identified one real apartment community operating inside Swansea: Elm Creek, at 295 North Lawrence Avenue, which checks out via the U.S. Census Bureau's public geocoder as sitting inside the incorporated Town of Swansea rather than unincorporated county land. Per its AffordableHousing.com listing, Elm Creek has four units available across one-, two-, and three-bedroom floor plans starting at $796+ a month. RentCafe's own market-rent tracker still shows no average for the town, since its data covers only buildings of 50 units or more and Elm Creek appears to be smaller than that. A 2024 Census American Community Survey estimate, as presented by City-Data.com, separately puts Swansea's town-wide median gross rent at $907 a month -- above Elm Creek's advertised starting rate, though that figure is a statistical model built from the town's full housing stock rather than one property's own pricing.

Common Lease Terms in Swansea

With one confirmed apartment community and otherwise no identified leasing office, what follows leans on that single property plus town-wide housing-stock data rather than a broad sample of local paperwork:

• Elm Creek's advertised units start at $796+ a month across one-, two-, and three-bedroom layouts, with in-unit laundry, a dishwasher, a fitness room, and a pet-friendly policy, per its AffordableHousing.com listing checked September 2026
• DataUSA's presentation of 2024 ACS data puts Swansea's homeownership rate at 61.8%, implying roughly 38% of occupied housing units are renter-occupied -- consistent with a real rental population, even if Elm Creek is the only community this guide could confirm
• 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 Swansea tenancy where the lease itself is silent
• No application fee, pet fee, deposit amount, or administrative charge is published on Elm Creek's own listing beyond its advertised monthly rent, and no other rental property in Swansea could be identified to check a fee schedule against

Local Tenant Protections

South Carolina law provides the baseline for tenant rights, but Swansea 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 Swansea, may enact an ordinance regulating the rent charged on privately owned residential property
• The Town of Swansea's own website hosts a genuine code of ordinances -- numbered chapters 1 through 29 and 31 -- including a dedicated Zoning Map PDF, a separate Animal Code of Ordinance, an Animal Control provision (Chapter 5, amended August 2024), and a Drought Management Plan, a materially more complete published record than this guide found for several other small Lexington-area towns
• Checked against the Census Bureau's public geocoder, both Town Hall (300 W Third St) and Elm Creek apartments (295 North Lawrence Avenue) resolve cleanly inside "Swansea town" -- a cleaner result, with an actual confirmed rental property, than this guide found in some neighboring small South Carolina towns
• The chapter index for Swansea's code of ordinances lists numbers only, not titles, so this guide could not confirm from the index alone whether a specific chapter sets a business-license fee schedule or a rental-registration requirement

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

Mandatory Fees at Swansea Rentals

Elm Creek's own listing does not itemize an application fee, pet fee, or administrative charge beyond its advertised monthly rent, and this guide could not identify any other managed rental property in Swansea to check a fee schedule against, as of September 2026.

• Elm Creek's AffordableHousing.com listing publishes unit pricing ($796+ a month across its four available units) but no separate application, pet, or administrative fee schedule
• RentCafe tracks no buildings for Swansea at all, so it publishes no fee or pricing data of its own for the town
• The Town of Swansea's own code of ordinances does not, from its numbers-only chapter index, appear to publish a business-license fee schedule online, unlike Gaston, a nearby Lexington County town this guide has covered, whose 2024 Business License Ordinance and fee schedule are published directly
• South Carolina law sets no statutory cap on application fees, pet fees, or administrative fees -- whatever a specific lease states is what governs

Confirming Elm Creek's actual fee schedule directly with its leasing office, in writing, before signing is the only way to know the true move-in cost, since none is itemized in its own online listing.

A Welsh Name, a School-District Hub, and a County Whose Growth Sits Further North

Swansea's own name traces to Swansea, Wales, per its Wikipedia entry, and the Town of Swansea's own website describes the community as founded in the late 1800s, with deep roots in agriculture and local enterprise. The U.S. Census Bureau's decennial counts show a genuinely volatile population arc for a town this size: 239 residents in 1900, a peak of 950 by 1940, a decline to 527 by 1990, a rebound to 827 by 2010, and then a 12.7% drop to 722 by 2020. The town's own website markets Swansea as a place where "small-town charm meets steady growth" -- a framing the last full Census decade's -12.7% change does not straightforwardly support, though the two most recent 2024 current-year estimates (771 per City-Data.com, 744 per DataUSA) both sit above the 2020 count and agree with each other more closely than in some neighboring small South Carolina towns this guide has covered, suggesting a possible turnaround since 2020 rather than a continuing decline.

Swansea sits roughly 19 miles (straight-line) south of Columbia and about 19 miles south of the town of Lexington, the county seat, and its own decade-over-decade trend runs notably weaker than Lexington County towns closer to Columbia that this guide has also covered: Pine Ridge, directly part of the Columbia metro area, grew 5.0% from 2010 to 2020, while Gaston, roughly 8 miles (straight-line) from Swansea, declined a comparatively modest 2.2% over the same decade. Swansea's own 12.7% decline is the steepest of the three, consistent with Lexington County's documented growth concentrating closer to Columbia and Lexington itself rather than reaching this far south toward the Orangeburg County line.

Economically, 2024 ACS-based estimates show health care and social assistance as Swansea's largest employment sector by a clear margin -- 19.2% of employed residents per City-Data.com, or 53 of roughly 274 employed residents per DataUSA -- ahead of finance and insurance (13.6%/38 workers), educational services (12.6%/36 workers), construction (11.2%), and manufacturing (9.8%). Finance and insurance registering as Swansea's second-largest sector is a higher share than this guide has found in comparable small Lexington-area towns, though this guide could not identify a specific named employer behind that figure. Median household income sits at $59,032 (City-Data.com) or $58,250 (DataUSA), both below South Carolina's roughly $72,350 statewide figure, with a poverty rate both sources put at exactly 27.4% -- an unusually precise agreement between independent aggregators, and a rate well above the state's overall level -- and an April 2026 unemployment rate of 3.1%, slightly better than South Carolina's own 3.6% average. Beyond its housing and employment data, Swansea anchors six schools serving the wider area -- an Early Childhood Center, Swansea Primary School, Sandhills Elementary School, Sandhills Middle School, Swansea High Freshman Academy, and Swansea High School -- and its Wikipedia entry credits the town as home to writer Julia Elliott, World War II flight nurse Juanita Redmond Hipps, and professional football players Bryant McNeal and Victor Riley.

Common Issues Renters Face in Swansea

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

• Only one apartment community, Elm Creek, could be confirmed operating inside Swansea, so a renter who wants a second in-town option to compare against is likely dealing with an individual property owner instead, with no published rent roll to check
• The town's own marketing describes "steady growth," but the most recent full Census decade shows a 12.7% population decline (827 to 722), even though two more recent 2024 estimates both point back upward from that 2020 count
• Swansea's 27.4% poverty rate, agreed on by two independent aggregator sources, is notably higher than South Carolina's statewide rate, worth knowing as general local context even though it says nothing about any specific rental property or landlord
• The Town of Swansea's own code of ordinances lists chapter numbers but not titles, so confirming whether a specific chapter covers business licensing or rental registration requires contacting Town Hall directly rather than reading the online index alone

Negotiating Your Lease in Swansea

South Carolina is landlord-favorable with minimal statutory protections, and Swansea's rental market has exactly one confirmed apartment community to benchmark a specific offer against.

• Comparing Elm Creek's advertised $796+ starting rate against the town-wide $907 median gross rent estimate (City-Data.com, 2024 ACS) is a reasonable starting point before evaluating a specific unit and floor plan
• Comparing a specific quote against nearby Gaston, Lexington, or West Columbia, all covered elsewhere on this site, can help gauge whether a Swansea rent or fee fits regional Midlands norms for a similar unit type
• Confirming a specific address's jurisdiction using the Census Bureau's free public geocoder is worth doing near the town line, given Swansea's proximity to the Orangeburg County boundary -- the same check this guide ran on Town Hall and Elm Creek itself
• Requesting Elm Creek's full fee schedule directly from its leasing office, in writing, before signing is worth doing since none is itemized in its own online listing

A market with only one confirmed rental property isn't automatically a red flag -- but with no second in-town listing to compare against, confirming every fee, deposit amount, and lease term directly with the landlord, in writing, matters more here than in a market with more competition.