Ruffin, South Carolina.
Typical home $200,331 (+4.8% in a year).
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$598 (+132%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $9,259 +5%
- $191,072$200,331 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $32,131 +19%
- $168,200$200,331 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.
- Ruffin$1,051
- South Carolina$1,597
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 20 years.
Typical home values in Ruffin, SC rose 4.8% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Ruffin, Colleton County, South Carolina
The Census does not count Ruffin on its own, so the figures here are Colleton County's. Half the county's households earn more than $51,114 a year and half less; 20% of the county's people live below the poverty line. 73% of the county's homes are lived in by their owners and 27% are rented. Unemployment in Colleton County was 4.8% in August 2026, and the county had 2.2% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Colleton County work in schools and health care, then manufacturing.
Written by AI Claude Haiku 5.5 wrote this on 22 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Ruffin is a small community in Colleton County, in the coastal plain of South Carolina. Across the county, most homes are lived in by their owners, and the typical resident is in middle age. Many households have incomes below the county's typical level, and more residents live below the poverty line than across the country as a whole.
Work. Schools, hospitals and social care, manufacturing, building trades and retail shops employ many of the county's residents. Unemployment has eased in recent months, but the county has lost some jobs over the latest year. Fewer adults hold a four-year degree than across the country, and a commute of more than the national average is typical, with few people working from home.
Things to do. The Salkehatchie River, a river a longer drive away, is one of the larger waterways in the area. Colleton State Park, a protected area also a longer drive away, offers a quiet place to spend a day outdoors. Old Sheldon Church Ruins, an archaeological site a longer drive away, shows the remains of an older colonial-era church.
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- 16,408households
- 42.0median age
- 17%of adults have a degree
- 20%below the poverty line
- 35 mintypical commute
- 6%work from home
What people in Colleton County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Colleton County had 10,059 jobs in 2025, 2.2% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 58° and lows near 35°; warmest in July, with highs near 90° and lows near 71°. About 51 inches of rain a year, and little or no snow.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Walterboro Southwest weather station, 10 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Colleton County
- Colleton 01 SchoolsSchool district864FTE
- Colleton County GovernmentExecutive and legislative office combinations532
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters340
- Advantage Veterans ServicesNursing homes261
- Colleton Medical CenterGeneral hospital255FTE
- J. H. Hiers ConstructionDirt moving for construction254
- PruittHealth walterboroSkilled nursing facilities144
- Food LionGrocery store91
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 19 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 2,567 people in all. School districts come from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24) and hospitals from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023); 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
- HurricanesRelatively high
- EarthquakesRelatively moderate
- Coastal floodingRelatively moderate
- Strong windRelatively moderate
- LightningRelatively moderate
- Ice stormsRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms across Colleton County, 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 Colleton County.
Ruffin home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Ruffin$200,331
- South Carolina$304,319
- United States$366,157
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.
Zip codes with a Ruffin address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Ruffin — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.