Charleston, South Carolina's housing market continues to exhibit growth and competitiveness.

I'm really looking forward to your blog and hearing about your experiences in these markets.

The house was on the market for a few weeks, I submitted my offer after the seller reduced the price to $24K.

What we found was only one other person contracted under $200 per square foot for clients and they also built within the city of columbus. the numbers have a much higher premium the closer you get to downtown. if you can't get the numbers to work my recommendation would be to get closer to downtown. we do build to rent development and single family home development and every line item is broken out. on the triples we have to build exterior staircases etc there are some things you can't really understand unless you build a lot. hope that helps but no one is going to build you for 110 a square foot. the lowest cost homes in our market at cost without a profit barely dip into 140 a square and we are in one of the cheapest construction markets and states in the country. 

Quote from @Katie Accashian: I am looking to take money from my retirement that I accumulated from my previous employer and move it into a self directed IRA to buy a real estate investment.

Also, I don't know anything about the property but if it's under rented it may not be in market rent condition.

As someone else mentioned, insurance here is generally less costly than in Florida and other beach markets. 

If it was on the MLS or is in disrepair and no one else is bidding on the property (say an off market motivated seller) then yes sometimes.

If they tenant is $300 below market, that's costing you $3,600 a year.

We just ran the new build comps for our market in Columbus Ohio and saw a pricing premium of more than 40% in the urban core for infill work.