Carolina Shores, NC population, income and ZIP codes

Carolina Shores town is a small town in North Carolina, with 4,843 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #170 of 777 ranked by population — larger than 78% of them. The median age here is 65.6 years against 39.1 nationally, a markedly older profile that usually tracks retirees staying put and younger households leaving for work. At this population the ACS sample is small, so the margin of error around every dollar figure below is wide — treat the numbers as a band, not a point, and expect them to move between annual releases without the place itself changing.

Households in Carolina Shores town earn a median of $74,310 a year, 5.4% below the national figure of $78,538 and 21% above the $61,228 median for the 459 North Carolina cities we cover. Median household income counts every pre-tax dollar arriving at an address — wages, self-employment, Social Security, pensions, interest and public assistance — for everyone living there, so multi-earner households pull the figure up even where individual pay is modest. Poverty reaches 3% of residents here, less than half the 12.4% national rate.

The typical owner-occupied home in Carolina Shores town is valued at $276,000, 9% below the national figure and 26% above the $219,800 peer median, while median gross rent runs $1,948 a month, 38.5% above the national figure, or roughly $23,376 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 31.5% of gross pay toward that rent against the federal 30% cost-burden threshold, so renting here is a stretch on median earnings. The home-price-to-income ratio works out to 3.7×, against roughly 3.9× nationally, so buying is easier here than in the average US market. 94.4% of occupied homes are owner-occupied versus 65% nationally, an owner-dominated market where rental listings are scarce and rent medians rest on a thin sample. Rent is reported gross — contract rent plus tenant-paid utilities — which is why it runs above the advertised price on a listing for the same unit.

Carolina Shores town is the unusual combination of expensive to rent and cheap to buy: rent takes 31.5% of median income while homes cost only 3.7× it. Where that pattern shows up, the gap is normally down to down-payment and credit barriers rather than price. A median age of 65.6 puts Carolina Shores town well into retirement-weighted territory, which pulls median household income down even where household wealth is high, because retirement draws are counted differently from wages.

Every value on this page is published directly by the Census for this area — nothing is modelled or interpolated. Small-area estimates still carry wider margins of error than state or national figures, so check the linked ACS tables before relying on them for lending, appraisal or legal work.