Swansea, South Carolina.
Typical home $176,113 (+5.8% in a year). Columbia, SC metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$478 (+107%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $9,708 +6%
- $166,405$176,113 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $21,809 +14%
- $154,304$176,113 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.
- Swansea$924
- South Carolina$1,597
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 26 years.
Typical home values in Swansea, SC rose 5.8% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Swansea, Lexington County, South Carolina
Swansea is a town of 722 people in Lexington County. Unemployment in Lexington County was 3.8% in August 2026, and the county had 1.3% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Lexington County work in schools and health care, then professional services.
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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Swansea is a very small town in Lexington County, with far fewer residents than most towns people think of when they picture South Carolina. Homes here are valued well below what is typical in many parts of the country, and fewer adults hold a four-year degree than in many other places. Winters are mild and short, summers are hot, and rain falls steadily through the year.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, with others in professional and business services, shops and manufacturing. Across Lexington County, the largest workplaces include Lexington Medical Center, Lexington 01 Schools and Amazon. The typical commute is a long one, and a good number of people work from home.
Things to do. Congaree National Park is a national park a longer drive away, and Lake Murray is a large reservoir that is also a longer drive from town. Riverbanks Zoo and the Columbia Museum of Art, both in the Columbia area, round out a day trip, again a longer drive away.
Report a mistake
- 17%of adults have a degree
- 31 mintypical commute
- 14%work from home
What people in Lexington County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Lexington County had 134,271 jobs in 2025, 1.3% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 58° and lows near 34°; warmest in July, with highs near 93° and lows near 72°. About 55 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the North 5NE weather station, 7 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Lexington County
- Lexington Medical CenterGeneral hospital6,402FTE
- Lexington 01 SchoolsSchool district4,290FTE
- AmazonGeneral warehousing and storage3,362
- County of LexingtonExecutive and legislative office combinations1,819
- Michelin North America, US5Tires manufacturing1,735
- Lexington 02 SchoolsSchool district1,294FTE
- Midlands Technical CollegeTwo-year college1,162
- Michelin Tire Corporation (US7)Motor vehicle tires manufacturing984
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 266 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 47,435 people in all across the county; Swansea has one of its own. Hospitals come from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023), school districts 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
- TornadoesRelatively high
- DroughtRelatively moderate
- Ice stormsRelatively moderate
- HurricanesRelatively moderate
- Strong windRelatively moderate
- LightningRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Swansea’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively low. 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 Lexington County and the Columbia, SC metro.
Swansea home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Swansea$176,113
- 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.
Market heat, inside the city limits
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Swansea17
Zip codes with a Swansea address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Swansea — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.
Zip codes in Swansea
| 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 29160 | Swansea | 7,419 | — | $173,942 |
| 29112 | North | 3,847 | — | $124,778 |