With about four months left in the year, here's our read on the Charleston real estate market in 2026, from the seat we actually sit in: a first-position lender writing short-duration loans on real property in the tri-county.

This isn't a forecast. We don't get paid to predict where prices go. We get paid to underwrite loans that hold up whether the market goes up, sideways, or down. So what follows is what we're seeing in the deals crossing our desk, and how it's shaping the loans we say yes to.

What the Charleston real estate market looks like in 2026

Three things stand out this summer, and none of them are dramatic. That's usually a good sign.

Inventory has loosened. Not a flood, but there are more homes sitting a little longer than they were a year ago. Buyers have marginally more room to negotiate. For a lender, looser inventory matters less than it does for a flipper: it changes how fast a finished home sells, not whether a conservatively underwritten loan gets paid back.

New-construction starts are running slower than this time last year. Higher financing costs and cautious builders have pulled some ground-up supply out of the pipeline. The knock-on effect is that move-in-ready, renovated homes are more competitive on the buyer side, because there's less brand-new product competing with them.

Right-priced product is still selling. The homes that move are the ones priced honestly for their finished condition and location. The ones that sit are the ones priced on last year's optimism. That gap, between honest pricing and hopeful pricing, is wider in 2026 than it was in the run-up years, and it's the single most useful thing to watch.

What it means for how we lend

Our model doesn't change with the weather, but the market does tell us where to be careful.

We lend first-position, every time. If a loan doesn't pay, we're first in line on the property, not behind a bank. In a choppier market, that seniority is the whole point.

We cap loan-to-value at 75% and average in the mid-60s. That cushion is what absorbs a soft sale or a price cut. When the finished-home market gets pickier, the LTV cushion is what stands between a slow sale and a loss.

We want a funded, credible exit before we wire a dollar. That has always been our first underwriting question, and in a year where honest pricing separates the deals that sell from the ones that stall, it matters more, not less. An operator who buys right and prices the exit realistically still has a clear path. An operator counting on the market to bail out a too-high purchase does not, and that's the loan we pass on.

The numbers behind the discipline

Since we started in April 2024, 890 Capital has deployed more than $56M across 150-plus first-position loans in the Charleston tri-county. Zero foreclosures. Average loan-to-value in the mid-60s against a 75% cap. Investors have received monthly distributions on time, by the 5th, every month since inception.

Deep into 2026, that record reads exactly the same as it did at the start of the year. In a business where "boring and predictable" is the goal, an unchanged record through a shifting market is the result we want.

Where the rest of 2026 goes

We're not going to pretend to know. What we do know is what we'll keep doing: lend first-position, keep LTV conservative, underwrite the Charleston tri-county block by block, and require a real exit before funding. A market that rewards discipline over optimism is, frankly, the market we prefer to lend into.

If you want to see how this translates into an income stream, our newsletter walks through the fund each month. Past market and fund updates live on the 890 Capital blog. Before investing in any private offering, it's worth reviewing the basics of private investments and accreditation at investor.gov. Accredited investors who want the full picture can request investor access.

For accredited investors only. Past performance does not guarantee future returns. See 890capital.com for full disclosures.