Hilton Head saw a surge of long-term visitors in the past 4 months, data show
People from across the country fled to Hilton Head Island during the first phase of the coronavirus pandemic, new data appear to show.
The number of temporary change-of-address requests filed with the U.S. Postal Service by people who wanted their mail sent to the area spiked in March, April, May and June.
Temporary COAs allow people to switch their mailing address for up to 364 days.
Last year, 143 temporary COA requests were filed in March by those planning to route mail to Hilton Head. In comparison, 273 requests were filed in March 2020, according to data obtained by The Island Packet under the Freedom of Information Act.
A similar year-over-year increase was recorded during each of the past three months, including in June.
South Carolina reported a major rise in new coronavirus cases last month.
The Postal Service would not identify the originating zip codes of people temporarily forwarding mail to Hilton Head, citing a privacy policy enacted when Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast in 2005.
The policy prohibits the disclosure of originating zip codes if fewer than 10 people from a single zip code temporarily switch to another specific zip code over a given period of time.
Real estate agents in Beaufort County previously told the newspaper that residents of cities and suburbs hit hard by COVID-19 flocked to the local area in May.
Andy Twisdale, of Charter One Realty, said he noticed people from the Northeast leasing property on Hilton Head during the first few weeks of the pandemic. Later, some of them decided to buy.
“We live in a want-to-live place, not a need-to-live place,” added Christian Sherbert, an agent at Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Bay Street Realty Group. “People have sat in Tysons Corner or Philadelphia … and talked about moving for so long, and now the COVID virus hit and they’re like, ‘I can work from anywhere, I need to get out of here.’”
