Myrtle Beach Investment Strategy

Short-term vs long-term rental in Myrtle Beach.

Pick a side to open the matching tool, or read the full strategy breakdown below the cards.

The revenue side: what each strategy actually produces

A Myrtle Beach short-term rental earns its keep through average daily rate times occupancy, and both numbers swing hard with the calendar. Summer weeks on the oceanfront command premium nightly rates, shoulder seasons soften, and winter occupancy thins out everywhere except the snowbird buildings. Gross revenue on a well-located Airbnb or vacation rental can run well past what the same unit would collect on a lease, but gross is not the number that pays the mortgage.

A long-term rental trades that ceiling for a floor. A 12-month lease produces the same deposit every month, tenant demand comes from the year-round economy rather than tourism, and rent growth compounds quietly in the background. There is also a middle path many Grand Strand owners use: furnished monthly rentals to snowbirds from October through March, then weekly vacation rates in peak summer. That hybrid smooths the seasonality curve without committing to either extreme.

The expense stack nobody screenshots

Short-term rental listings get shared for their revenue, never their operating statement. Between full-service hosting, cleaning and turnover, utilities the owner carries, linens and furnishing replacement, platform fees, and accommodations taxes, all-in expense ratios on Grand Strand short-term rentals commonly land between 45 and 60 percent of gross before debt service.

Long-term rentals carry a lighter load. Taxes, insurance, maintenance, and management typically absorb 35 to 45 percent of collected rent, there are fewer moving parts to break, and a single annual turn replaces fifty checkouts. Net operating income is where the two strategies get honest with each other, and the gap is usually much narrower than the gross numbers suggest.

Financing: where DSCR loans fit, and the condotel wrinkle

Most Myrtle Beach investment purchases today are financed on DSCR loans, which qualify the property instead of the borrower. The lease income carries the application, no tax returns or DTI calculation enter the picture, and the loan can close in an LLC, which matters to investors building a portfolio or buying through a 1031 exchange. Short-term rental financing exists on similar rails, but the lender is underwriting a revenue projection rather than a signed lease, so reserves, experience, and pricing all get tighter.

The building itself can also pick your financing for you. Many oceanfront towers operate as condotels, and those fall outside conventional and standard DSCR guidelines entirely, which pushes buyers toward specialty lenders or cash regardless of which rental strategy they planned.

The metrics that settle it: cap rate, cash-on-cash, break-even occupancy

Run the same property through both lenses before writing an offer. Cap rate, the net operating income against the price, compares the property to every other use of the same money without financing noise. Cash-on-cash return tells you what your actual down payment earns once the DSCR loan is layered in. For the short-term scenario, add break-even occupancy: the occupancy level where revenue covers every operating cost plus the mortgage. If a unit needs 70 percent year-round occupancy just to tread water in a market that delivers seasonal troughs, the lease scenario is quietly outperforming it.

Rules, ordinances, and HOA fine print

Short-term rental permission on the Grand Strand is decided at three layers, and all three need checking before an offer, not after. Municipal ordinances differ between Myrtle Beach, North Myrtle Beach, Surfside Beach, and unincorporated Horry County, including zoning overlays and permit requirements. HOA documents add their own layer: minimum lease terms, rental caps, and owner-occupancy quotas appear in master deeds across the area, and they override whatever the city allows. Buyers trading in through a 1031 exchange should confirm rental-use rules early, since a failed strategy assumption inside an exchange window gets expensive.

Choosing for a specific property

Strategy debates end at the address level. Run the numbers both ways: the long-term rental analyzer returns DSCR, cap rate, NOI, and cash flow for any Grand Strand address, and the STR revenue atlas shows what short-term rentals actually gross around it, building by building. When both scenarios are on paper, speak to a licensed agent about the specific property and its rules.