Two land listings sit two miles apart on Highway 9 near Longs. Both are a little under two acres. Both are priced within a few thousand dollars of each other. One has county water at the road and sewer close enough to tap. The other has no utilities of any kind and a locked gate across the access road. Nothing on the price sheet tells you which is which. You find out during due diligence, usually after you have already put down earnest money.
That gap is the real story behind land pricing in Longs right now, and it is bigger than the headline average suggests.
The Average Price Per Acre Is Averaging Two Different Products
Land marketplace listings covering the Longs area currently put the average price per acre at roughly $37,251, based on hundreds of acres of active inventory as of this September. That number is accurate and almost useless on its own, because it blends parcels that are ready to pull a building permit tomorrow with parcels that would need a rezoning application, a passing soil test, and a five-figure septic install before anyone breaks ground.
Horry County's zoning categories are doing most of the work here, and they show up constantly in current Longs listings:
- FA (Forest Agriculture) is the baseline rural zoning across much of unincorporated Longs. It allows farming, forestry, and a single home, but multifamily, commercial, or higher-density residential use typically requires a rezoning request to the Horry County Planning Commission.
- CFA is a more flexible commercial-agricultural designation that shows up on some Longs tracts already zoned to allow commercial, agricultural, residential, apartment, and even church or institutional use without a rezoning fight.
- MSF10 permits mobile, modular, and stick-built homes on the same lot type, which matters if your plan involves anything other than a conventional site-built house.
A CFA-zoned tract and an FA-zoned tract can list for nearly identical dollars per acre. Only one of them lets you build what you're picturing without a public hearing first.
What "Water at the Road" Actually Buys You
Utility access is the second variable hiding inside that average, and current listings show just how wide the range is. One nearly 50-acre FA-zoned tract off Highway 905 near Longs advertises county water already at the road and sewer within about 100 feet of the property line, a combination that removes most of the guesswork around a future build. A separate 4.86-acre commercial tract on Water Tower Road, zoned CFA, is marketed on similar terms: paved access and a location inside one of the county's more active development corridors.
Compare that to a gated, fully timbered tract in the same general area, marketed openly as having no utilities to the site at all. It's priced to reflect the timber and the hunting access, not a building lot. That's a legitimate product for a buyer who wants recreational acreage. It is a very different financial proposition for a buyer who assumes "land near Longs" means a lot they can build on within a year.
The lesson isn't that one zoning type or utility profile is better. It's that the acre price cannot tell you which product you're buying. You have to ask.
The Perc Test Is the Second Closing Nobody Budgets For
If a parcel doesn't have access to public sewer, and much of rural Longs does not, septic costs become part of the financial decision. This is the step that turns a land purchase into a two-stage financial decision.
Nationally in 2026, a standard perc test runs $750 to $1,900, with most landowners paying toward the middle of that range depending on soil conditions and the number of test holes the county requires. That's the manageable number. The one that changes the math is what happens if the soil doesn't pass. A conventional septic system installs for roughly $7,000 to $15,000. If the soil is dense clay or sits over a high water table, which is not unusual in parts of coastal Horry County, the fallback is an engineered mound system running $15,000 to $30,000, or an aerobic treatment unit at $10,000 to $20,000 up front plus $200 to $500 a year in maintenance.
Put plainly: a five-acre tract priced attractively per acre can absorb an unplanned $20,000 to $25,000 in site costs before the first stud goes up, and that gap almost never shows up in the listing price comparison a buyer runs before making an offer.
Why the Highway 9 Corridor Is Repricing Ahead of the Road Itself
There's a timing story layered on top of the zoning story, and it centers on Highway 9 itself. Horry County's own project page for the SC Highway 9 East widening, which strengthens the connection between Loris and the Highway 66 intersection, listed construction wrapping in spring 2026. Several months past that target, the corridor is already showing what builders expect once the wider road settles in.
Beazer Homes has a community called Timber Grove planned at the intersection of Long Acres Drive and Highway 905, near Highway 9 in Longs. The land use for that site was changed to "Rural Communities" in August 2024, and encroachment permits for grading and utility work were pulled in May 2025. As of this September, Beazer hasn't announced a start date for home sales, but the infrastructure work is already underway. Timber Grove sits next to an existing community called The Villages at Longs, close to Ivy Woods off Castlers Heights Road, and near another Beazer project called Marshwood. That's four named residential developments clustered along the same few miles of road, all moving forward while the highway project itself was still finishing.
Builders don't file grading permits on a corridor they expect to stay quiet. The parcels with direct frontage on Highway 9 or Highway 905 are being priced and pursued as if the wider road is already a fact on the ground. Land a half mile off that corridor, holding identical FA zoning and identical soil, has not seen the same pressure yet. That's the arbitrage window for a buyer who understands the difference between a road that's finished and a road that's about to change what gets built next to it.
A Short Checklist Before You Write an Offer
- Confirm the current zoning designation and ask the county directly what it permits, rather than relying on the listing description
- Request any prior perc test results, and if none exist, make your offer contingent on a passing test
- Ask specifically where the nearest public water and sewer connections are, in feet, not in general terms like "nearby"
- Find out if the parcel has road frontage on a state highway or is accessed by an easement, since that affects both utility runs and future resale
- If the property backs to timber or wetland, ask whether that acreage is included in the buildable area or exists mainly as a buffer
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Longs have public sewer available? Some corridors do, particularly newer sections along Highway 905 and near active developments, while other parcels rely entirely on septic. Availability varies lot to lot, which is why confirming utility distance in writing matters more than the general area's reputation.
How long does a rezoning request take in Horry County? Rezoning requests go through the Horry County Planning Commission before any county council vote, and timelines depend on the commission's meeting schedule and whether neighboring property owners raise concerns. Buyers who need a rezoning to build their intended use should plan for a process measured in months, not weeks, and should not assume approval.
Is land directly on Highway 9 worth paying a premium for? Frontage on a state highway generally supports higher commercial and development value, and the current wave of permitted residential activity along Highway 9 and Highway 905 in Longs suggests builders are already pricing that in. Whether the premium is worth it depends on your intended use and your timeline, since frontage parcels also draw more scrutiny during permitting.
If you're weighing a parcel in Longs against something closer to the coast, or trying to figure out what a specific tract's zoning actually allows before you make an offer, that's exactly the kind of question worth a direct conversation. Liat Edri works residential and commercial transactions across the Grand Strand, including land and investment property in Longs, and can help you read a listing for what it actually is before you're the one paying for the perc test.
This article is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Consult a qualified professional about your situation.
