Sunset Beach, North Carolina.
Typical home $438,278 (+0.2% in a year), asking rent $1,368 . Myrtle Beach-Conway-North Myrtle Beach, SC-NC metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,313 (+133%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $1,084 +0%
- $437,193$438,278 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $97,345 +29%
- $340,933$438,278 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.
- Sunset Beach$2,300
- North Carolina$1,743
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 14 years.
Typical home values in Sunset Beach, NC rose 0.2% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Sunset Beach, Brunswick County, North Carolina
Sunset Beach is a town of 4,175 people in Brunswick County. Half its households earn more than $81,976 a year and half less, against $77,024 across Brunswick County; 6% of its people live below the poverty line. 86% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 14% 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Sunset Beach is a small coastal town in Brunswick County, and its residents are considerably older than in most American communities. Nearly everyone lives in a home they own, and household incomes run above the county's, with relatively few people living below the poverty line. Winters are mild, with chilly but rarely harsh days in January, and summers are hot, with a good deal of rain through the year.
Work. Many residents work 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. A good share of people work from home, and those who commute have a fairly short trip to work.
Things to do. Little River, a river a short drive away, is the closest of the nearby places to explore. A longer drive brings you to the Grand Strand, a well-known stretch of beach, and to Lake Waccamaw State Park, a protected area built around a lake. Myrtle Beach State Park, also a protected area and also a longer drive away, rounds out the choices for time outdoors.
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- 2,381households
- 40%of adults have a degree
- 6%below the poverty line
- 20 mintypical commute
- 22%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, 7 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; Sunset Beach has two 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
- WildfireRelatively moderate
- Ice stormsrelatively high in parts of Sunset BeachRelatively moderate
- Winter weatherrelatively high in parts of Sunset BeachRelatively moderate
- Lightningrelatively high in parts of Sunset BeachRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Sunset Beach’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, very 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.
Sunset Beach home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Sunset Beach$438,278
- North Carolina$332,159
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 4 Sunset Beach listings, and the typical home goes pending in 72 days — the market is roughly in balance.
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.
- Sunset Beach25.87%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Sunset Beach72
- United States21
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Sunset Beach159
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Sunset Beach34
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Sunset Beach$362,334
- United States$371,407
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
- Sunset Beach96.36%
Zip codes with a Sunset Beach address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Sunset Beach — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.