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

Ware Shoals Rental Market Overview

Ware Shoals is a roughly 4-square-mile former mill town straddling the Saluda River, with an incorporated boundary that crosses into Greenwood, Abbeville, and Laurens counties. Research for this guide, checked September 2026, identified 3 rental communities carrying a Ware Shoals mailing address via a public affordable-housing directory: Cedar Ridge Manor (2 Holloway Dr), Shoals Pointe Apartments (29 N Greenwood Avenue Ext), and Ware Shoals Inn (1 N Greenwood Ave). None publishes a specific rent figure. Checking each address against the U.S. Census Bureau's public geocoder produced the most consequential finding in this guide's research to date: Cedar Ridge Manor and Shoals Pointe Apartments both return no incorporated place at all, and a companion county-layer query confirms both sit on unincorporated Abbeville County land -- not inside the Town of Ware Shoals, and not in Greenwood County either. Only Ware Shoals Inn, along with Town Hall (8 Mill Street) and Ware Shoals High School (56 South Greenwood Avenue), geocode inside the incorporated town, itself sitting in Greenwood County. A "Ware Shoals, SC" mailing address, in other words, does not reliably mean a rental is inside the Town of Ware Shoals at all.

Common Lease Terms in Ware Shoals

No community identified in Ware Shoals publishes a full lease, application, or open-market fee schedule, so terms have to be pieced together from a public affordable-housing directory and this guide's own Census jurisdiction checks rather than a single primary lease document:

• Cedar Ridge Manor (2 Holloway Dr) is listed as income-based with subsidized rent, accepting Section 8 vouchers, with accessible units and a short wait list; no rent figure is published. Checked against the Census Bureau's public geocoder, this address returns no incorporated place -- it sits on unincorporated Abbeville County land, outside the Town of Ware Shoals
• Shoals Pointe Apartments (29 N Greenwood Avenue Ext) carries the identical program listing -- income-based, subsidized rent, Section 8 accepted, accessible units, short wait list -- and the identical jurisdiction result: unincorporated Abbeville County, not inside the town
• Ware Shoals Inn (1 N Greenwood Ave) is listed with a short wait list but no stated program type; unlike the other two, this address geocodes inside the incorporated Town of Ware Shoals, in Greenwood County
• The Rock Hill Housing Authority naming convention seen on some other small South Carolina towns' directory listings does not appear here; this guide could not independently confirm which agency administers Section 8 vouchers for the two Abbeville County communities, and that is worth confirming directly given they fall outside the town's own jurisdiction
• Because two of the three identified communities sit in unincorporated Abbeville County rather than inside the Town of Ware Shoals, questions about occupancy permits, code inspections, or business licensing for those two addresses would route to Abbeville County government, not Ware Shoals Town Hall

Local Tenant Protections

South Carolina law provides the baseline for tenant rights, but Ware Shoals 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 Ware Shoals, Abbeville County, or Greenwood County, may enact an ordinance regulating the rent charged on privately owned residential property
• The Town of Ware Shoals' own website (wareshoalssc.com) references a "Town Ordinances" section, but the specific ordinance text was not detailed enough in what this guide could access to confirm or rule out a town-specific rental-registration or landlord-licensing provision as of September 2026
• Two of the three identified rental communities -- Cedar Ridge Manor and Shoals Pointe Apartments -- sit on unincorporated Abbeville County land per the Census Bureau's public geocoder, meaning any applicable local ordinance for those two addresses would come from Abbeville County government, not the Town of Ware Shoals, regardless of their Ware Shoals mailing address
• Only Ware Shoals Inn, of the three identified communities, sits inside the incorporated Town of Ware Shoals -- confirmed alongside Town Hall and Ware Shoals High School against the same geocoder -- so it is the one community where a Ware Shoals town ordinance, if one exists, would actually apply

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

Mandatory Fees at Ware Shoals Communities

No fee schedule could be independently verified for any of the three identified Ware Shoals communities, as of September 2026.

• The public affordable-housing directory that lists Cedar Ridge Manor, Shoals Pointe Apartments, and Ware Shoals Inn states program type and basic amenities for two of the three, but publishes no application fee, pet fee, or deposit amount for any of them
• No rent figure is published for any of the three communities -- income-based and Section 8 programs price by household income rather than a posted market rate, and this guide found no source stating either program's actual figures
• The town-wide ACS median gross rent estimate ($903/month, city-data.com 2024) is a statistical average across all renter-occupied units in Ware Shoals, not a fee or rent figure for any specific community or unit
• South Carolina law sets no statutory cap on application fees, pet fees, or administrative fees -- whatever a specific lease states is what governs

A community with no independently verifiable pricing isn't automatically a red flag in a market built mostly around subsidized housing -- but it does mean every figure, program type, and wait-list status needs confirming directly with the property, and confirming which government (the town, or Abbeville County) actually has jurisdiction over that specific address before assuming a "Ware Shoals" address means dealing with Ware Shoals Town Hall.

A Company Town Built on a Dam, and Ware Shoals' Local Economy

Ware Shoals exists because of a hydroelectric dam. State senator Nathaniel B. Dial first conceived damming the Saluda River for power; Benjamin D. Riegel acquired the project and, in 1902, founded both the Ware Shoals Manufacturing Company and the town of Ware Shoals itself -- the company and the town were, quite literally, the same undertaking. The powerhouse was completed in 1904, generating 4,800 horsepower, and the town grew from two maintenance workers that year to roughly 2,000 residents by 1916, once a first textile mill opened in 1906 with 30,000 spindles and a second followed in 1916 with 70,200 spindles and 1,300 looms. The company -- renamed Riegel Textile Corporation -- ran its own bank, railway, ice factory, cotton gin, and retail store alongside the mills, which by the 1960s employed 5,000 people. Katherine Hall, a $40,000 community center built with a theater, library, and recreation space, and Riegel Stadium, built in 1931 and used for high school football, baseball leagues, and professional exhibition games, both survive from that era, as does the town's Historic High School building, constructed in 1926 and still in service today as Ware Shoals High School (56 South Greenwood Avenue) -- one of three schools in the Ware Shoals School District, all three designated Title I due to high poverty rates. The mill has since closed; this guide could not confirm an exact closure year from the public sources checked, but the town bought the old company store building and moved its own Town Hall there, now at 8 Mill Street.

Ware Shoals' current economic indicators still carry that industrial contraction. A 2024 estimate puts median household income at $38,142, against South Carolina's $72,350 statewide median, with per capita income at $17,919 and a median home value of $92,494 against the state's $299,500. The poverty rate was 32.1% in the 2020 Census and an estimated 38.2% in 2024 -- among the highest of any small South Carolina town this guide has researched -- and April 2026 unemployment ran at 4.1% against the state's 3.6%. Manufacturing remains the largest reported employment sector at an estimated 22.4% of the workforce, ahead of health care and social assistance (15.7%), administrative and support services (12.7%), other services (10.6%), and transportation and warehousing (8.4%), though this guide could not independently confirm a specific manufacturer of scale physically located inside the town's own roughly 4-square-mile limits today. Educational attainment reflects the same long industrial-decline pattern common to former mill towns: 78.0% of adults hold a high school diploma or higher, but only 8.3% hold a bachelor's degree or higher.

Common Issues Renters Face in Ware Shoals

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

• No community identified in Ware Shoals -- all three findings point toward income-based, Section 8, or otherwise subsidized housing -- publishes independently verifiable market-rate pricing, so comparing "Ware Shoals rent" to a neighboring town's published figure isn't possible from public sources alone
• Two of the three identified rental communities carry a Ware Shoals mailing address but sit on unincorporated Abbeville County land, outside the Town of Ware Shoals entirely -- worth knowing before assuming Ware Shoals Town Hall, rather than Abbeville County government, is the right office to call about code enforcement, permits, or a local ordinance question at either address
• Ware Shoals' population decline was real and severe across three straight decades (1990-2020, roughly -31.9% cumulative) but a 2024 estimate (1,716) sits essentially flat against the 2020 Census count (1,701) -- one data point isn't a confirmed trend reversal, but it does mean the decline may no longer be accelerating
• The town's poverty rate (32.1% in 2020, an estimated 38.2% in 2024) and below-state-median household income (roughly half the statewide figure) are real, current economic indicators worth weighing against any assumption of a "typical" South Carolina rental market
• The town's incorporated boundary spans Greenwood, Abbeville, and Laurens counties, but per Wikipedia's own county-population breakdown, sourced to Census Bureau data, 100% of the town's Census-counted population lives in the Greenwood County slice -- the Abbeville and Laurens County slices of the town's own boundary currently show zero residents, a genuinely unusual jurisdictional shape for a town this small

Negotiating Your Lease in Ware Shoals

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

• Requesting the current income limit, voucher-acceptance status, and wait-list length directly from Cedar Ridge Manor, Shoals Pointe Apartments, or Ware Shoals Inn is the only way to confirm eligibility and price, since none publishes a rent figure online
• Confirming which government -- the Town of Ware Shoals or Abbeville County -- actually has jurisdiction over a specific address is a reasonable clarifying question before applying, since two of the three identified communities sit outside the town's own limits despite their mailing address
• Comparing a quoted Ware Shoals figure against nearby Greenwood, the county seat with a larger and better-documented rental market, or against Laurens or Abbeville, is more attainable than benchmarking against Ware Shoals' own ACS town-wide average rent ($903/month), which describes the whole renter-occupied stock rather than any specific unit
• Asking Ware Shoals Town Hall directly whether a codified rental-registration or landlord-licensing ordinance exists is worth doing, since this guide could not confirm or rule one out from what the town's own website made accessible

A community with no independently verifiable pricing isn't automatically a red flag in a market built mostly around subsidized housing -- but it does mean every figure needs confirming directly with the leasing office or housing authority before signing anything.