Gaffney, South Carolina.
Typical home $190,119 (-2.1% in a year), asking rent $1,045 (-1.5%). Gaffney, SC metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$398 (+66%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Down $4,011 -2%
- $194,130$190,119 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Down $5,810 -3%
- $195,929$190,119 since Sep 2021
Monthly payment to buy the typical home
Home value × that month's 30-year mortgage rate, 20% down, principal and interest. This is the line households feel: prices and rates compound each other.
- Gaffney$998
- South Carolina$1,597
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, prices here aren't rising.
Typical home values in Gaffney, SC fell 2.1% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Gaffney, SC fell 1.5% over the past year — slower than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Gaffney runs $225/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $452 in Jan 2025.
That is $1,270 a month against $1,045 rent: a $998 mortgage payment, plus $69 property tax and $204 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Gaffney
The owning line is the typical home's monthly payment at that month's rate, plus property tax and insurance & upkeep; the renting line is the typical asking rent; the grey line is the mortgage payment on its own. Same homes, same months, both ways of paying for a roof.
- Owning all in$1,270
- Renting$1,045
- Mortgage only$998
Property tax · $69/mo 0.43% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Cherokee County, SC
Insurance & upkeep · $204/mo insurance, maintenance and repairs together, from the BLS Consumer Expenditure Survey — the national figure for mortgaged homeowners, scaled to this market's home value. BLS publishes the three bundled and they cannot be split.
Both are priced off the same month's home value, so they rise with the market. Neither is a quote — a specific home's bill depends on its assessment, its age and its insurer.
Living in Gaffney, Cherokee County, South Carolina
Gaffney is a city of 12,764 people in Cherokee County. Half its households earn more than $41,089 a year and half less, against $50,288 across Cherokee County; 29% of its people live below the poverty line. 50% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 50% are rented. Unemployment in Cherokee County was 5.4% in August 2026, and the county had 0.9% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then manufacturing.
Written by AI Claude Sonnet 5.5 wrote this on 23 October 2026 from the figures here, a list of nearby places and what it knows. It can be wrong or out of date.
What it’s like
The place. Gaffney is a small city in Cherokee County, South Carolina, with a younger population than most of the country and a smaller share of adults holding a four-year degree. Incomes run below the county's, and more residents live below the poverty line than many would expect for a place this size. Homeowners and renters are about evenly balanced, and the typical rent sits at a monthly rate that falls well under the typical home's price. Winters are cool, with January highs a little above the cold edge of the year and lows below freezing, while July brings hot days. Rain and melted snow add up to a fairly wet year.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, with manufacturing, transport and warehousing, and retail also employing a good share. Among the largest workplaces in Gaffney are Cherokee 01 Schools, Limestone University and Walmart. Across Cherokee County, unemployment is lower than it was a year ago, and the number of jobs has edged up. A typical commute is fairly short, and few people work from home.
Things to do. Cowpens National Battlefield, a Revolutionary War site, is a short drive away, as is the First Broad River, a good spot for time by the water. The Broad River Greenway, a protected area, is also a short drive away. Kings Mountain National Military Park, another historic battlefield, lies a longer drive off.
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- 4,635households
- 23%of adults have a degree
- 29%below the poverty line
- 19 mintypical commute
- 5%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Cherokee County had 18,221 jobs in 2025, 0.9% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 51° and lows near 26°; warmest in July, with highs near 88° and lows near 66°. About 45 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Ninety Nine Is weather station, 10 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Gaffney
- Cherokee 01 SchoolsSchool district1,253FTE
- Limestone UniversityUniversity or college390
- Cherokee County CouncilCounty commissioners374
- Limestone Charters Association SchoolsSchool district372FTE
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters353
- City of GaffneyExecutive offices, federal, state, and local158
- Lowe's Companies, INCHomecenter117
- Ingles MarketsSupermarkets and other grocery stores73
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 10 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 1,317 people in all. School districts come from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24) and colleges from IPEDS (NCES, 2023–24); FTE marks full-time equivalent staff. Not listed: many offices and banks, which need not report to OSHA; military bases, whose staff OPM withholds; and, in about half the states, city and county governments.
Natural hazards
- Ice stormsRelatively high
- Strong windRelatively high
- LightningRelatively high
- TornadoesRelatively high
- Inland floodingRelatively high
- Cold wavesrelatively high in parts of GaffneyRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Gaffney’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively moderate. It is meant for planning, not a substitute for a local risk assessment or a flood map: FEMA’s index.
From the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2020 census and its American Community Survey (2020–2024 five-year estimates), and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. A survey, so each figure has a margin of error, and figures it is not sure of are left out. More on Cherokee County and the Gaffney, SC metro.
Gaffney home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Gaffney$190,119
- South Carolina$304,319
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 4 Gaffney listings, and the typical home goes pending in 27 days — the market is cooling.
When this market ran hot
Each cell is that month's year-on-year home-value growth. Read left to right, top row is the latest year — the 2021–22 band is the boom.
Market heat, inside the city limits
Share of listings with a price cut
The early-warning dial: sellers cut when buyers stop reaching. Rising cuts cool a market months before prices notice.
- Gaffney28.06%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Gaffney27
- United States27
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Gaffney139
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Gaffney32
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Gaffney$211,574
- United States$371,407
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
- Gaffney96.39%
Zip codes with a Gaffney address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Gaffney — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.
Zip codes in Gaffney
| Zip activate to sort by Zip | Place activate to sort by Place | Population sorted descending, activate to sort ascending | Rent activate to sort by Rent | Home value activate to sort by Home value |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 29340 | Gaffney | 20,763 | $1,178 | $164,764 |
| 29341 | Gaffney | 20,647 | $980 | $227,134 |