Holden Beach, North Carolina.
Typical home $914,269 (+5.3% in a year). Myrtle Beach-Conway-North Myrtle Beach, SC-NC metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$3,132 (+188%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $45,824 +5%
- $868,445$914,269 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $271,913 +42%
- $642,356$914,269 since Sep 2021
Monthly payment to buy the typical home
Home value × that month's 30-year mortgage rate, 20% down, principal and interest. This is the line households feel: prices and rates compound each other.
- Holden Beach$4,799
- North Carolina$1,743
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 10 years.
Typical home values in Holden Beach, NC rose 5.3% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Holden Beach, Brunswick County, North Carolina
Holden Beach is a town of 921 people in Brunswick County. Half its households earn more than $116,250 a year and half less, against $77,024 across Brunswick County; 5% of its people live below the poverty line. 95% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 5% are rented. Unemployment in Brunswick County was 3.9% in August 2026, and the county had 4.7% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Brunswick County work in schools and health care, then shops.
Written by AI Claude Sonnet 5.5 wrote this on 23 October 2026 from the figures here, a list of nearby places and what it knows. It can be wrong or out of date.
What it’s like
The place. Holden Beach is a small coastal town with a population well below that of most towns, and its residents are older than in most of the country. Nearly everyone owns the home they live in, and incomes run well above the county's, with few households living below the poverty line. Homes here are valued far higher than is typical, and a large majority of adults hold a four-year degree. Winters are mild, with January the coldest stretch of the year, while summers are hot, and the year brings plenty of rain.
Work. Residents work mainly in schools, hospitals and social care, in shops, in professional and business services, and in the building trades. Across Brunswick County, some of the largest workplaces are Brunswick County Schools, Brunswick County Government and Duke Energy. Unemployment in the county is lower than it was a year ago, and the county has added jobs over the past year. Commutes are of middling length, and a good number of residents work from home.
Things to do. The Lockwood Folly River is a short drive away and is the nearest of the places worth knowing. A longer drive brings you to Fort Fisher, a historic fort, and to Carolina Beach State Park, a protected area for walking and time outdoors. The Cameron Art Museum is also a longer drive away for an afternoon indoors.
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- 484households
- 70%of adults have a degree
- 5%below the poverty line
- 23 mintypical commute
- 24%work from home
What people in Brunswick County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Brunswick County had 43,201 jobs in 2025, 4.7% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 56° and lows near 36°; warmest in July, with highs near 87° and lows near 73°. About 57 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Shallotte Ag weather station, 4 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Brunswick County
- Brunswick County SchoolsSchool district1,687FTE
- Brunswick County GovernmentGeneral services departments, government1,405
- Duke EnergyNuclear electric power generation1,019
- VictaulicCouplings, hose, metal, manufacturing492
- Brunswick Medical CenterGeneral hospital472FTE
- Brunswick Community CollegeTwo-year college393
- Atlantic Telephone MembershipOn-line access service providers, using own operated wired telecommunications infrastructure379
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters369
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 92 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 12,087 people in all across the county; Holden Beach has none of its own. School districts come from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24), hospitals from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023) and colleges from IPEDS (NCES, 2023–24); FTE marks full-time equivalent staff. Not listed: many offices and banks, which need not report to OSHA; military bases, whose staff OPM withholds; and, in about half the states, city and county governments.
Natural hazards
- HurricanesVery high
- Coastal floodingVery high
- Ice stormsRelatively moderate
- Inland floodingRelatively moderate
- Winter weatherRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Holden Beach’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively high. It is meant for planning, not a substitute for a local risk assessment or a flood map: FEMA’s index.
From the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2020 census and its American Community Survey (2020–2024 five-year estimates), and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. A survey, so each figure has a margin of error, and figures it is not sure of are left out. More on Brunswick County and the Myrtle Beach-Conway-North Myrtle Beach, SC-NC metro.
Holden Beach home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Holden Beach$914,269
- North Carolina$332,159
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 4 Holden Beach listings — the market is cooling.
When this market ran hot
Each cell is that month's year-on-year home-value growth. Read left to right, top row is the latest year — the 2021–22 band is the boom.
Market heat, inside the city limits
Share of listings with a price cut
The early-warning dial: sellers cut when buyers stop reaching. Rising cuts cool a market months before prices notice.
- Holden Beach23.38%
- United States26.90%
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Holden Beach59
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Holden Beach8
Zip codes with a Holden Beach address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Holden Beach — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.
Zillow publishes no zip-level series with this city on the address.