Midland, SC

We have moved to a nice campground in Swansea, which is a tiny town near Columbia, the capitol. The campground has lots of cool activities scheduled for kids- including a chocolate slip and slide! Wish I could have seen that, but we were on a real estate hunt today…

This is the middle of the state, and so they call it “Midland” (Greenville is “upstate”, and Charleston is “low country”– the things you learn!

We found a brand new development in the tiny town of Santee (population 1,160), which is on Lake Marion, the largest lake in South Carolina. The lake is huge! And there were a lot of boats taking advantage of the great weather today (89 degrees, a small breeze and 40% humidity). It looked like a lot of fun! Here is a picture of the lake:

There is a long bridge across it, and it goes on and on in both directions.

We spent a lot of time at the new development, McCord’s Ferry at Lake Marion:

This new development is currently building it’s first 2 phases, with another 9 to go- they figure it will take 10-20 years to complete. It will contain a clubhouse, pool and pickleball courts, and will also have a boat launch, dock and boat/RV storage. There are currently about 20 houses built, so this is truly the ground floor! We met with the developer who gave us a tour of the area that will be the first 4 phases, plus 2 model homes and a couple that have been sold but haven’t closed escrow yet. Our 2 favorites were the Mercer (left) and Putnam (right):

The floorplans were very similar (except reversed) and the Putnam was larger. Here are some pictures from inside the Putnam:

The great room with the dining room and kitchen, and the kitchen by itself- it was gorgeous!

The main bedroom was quite large, and the en suite bathroom had a huge vanity and closet (at the end) and a linen closet.

We really liked both of these houses! There are some wooded lots available but we weren’t crazy about any of them. There was one that was cleared and ready for building:

It backs up on a small pond. I liked this lot, but we are concerned that the back yard would be small because they set the houses back quite a bit.

We also went to an older established development and saw a lot that was .56 acre and priced really well:

This development has a golf course, pool and gym, but it is definitely older, with some of the houses looking like they were from the 60s or 70s. It didn’t feel very open either- probably because it has mature trees and some of the houses are closer together.

So we are very excited about these options, but have a couple concerns- Santee is such a small town, it is about an hour (in opposite directions) of 2 major cities, and will this be too far from medical care as we get older? There is a 50+ development nearby, so they should have some doctors for old people nearby, shouldn’t they? And the University of South Carolina Medical Center, which is a major hospital and the best in the state is about 56 miles away, so maybe that is close enough? So much to research and consider…