Southern Shores, NC population, income and ZIP codes

Southern Shores town is a small town in North Carolina, with 3,119 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #253 of 777 ranked by population — larger than 67% of them. The median age here is 57.4 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 Southern Shores town earn a median of $116,859 a year, 48.8% above the national figure of $78,538 and 91% above the $61,228 median for the 459 North Carolina cities we cover. The median is the midpoint household, not an average, so a handful of very high earners cannot drag it upward the way they distort a mean. Poverty reaches 0.8% of residents here, less than half the 12.4% national rate.

The typical owner-occupied home in Southern Shores town is valued at $621,100, 104.7% above the national figure and 183% above the $219,800 peer median, while median gross rent runs $2,018 a month, 43.5% above the national figure, or roughly $24,216 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 20.7% of gross pay toward that rent against the federal 30% cost-burden threshold, so renting here is within the standard affordability guideline. The home-price-to-income ratio works out to 5.3×, against roughly 3.9× nationally, so buying is harder here than in the average US market. 87.9% 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.

A median age of 57.4 puts Southern 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.

No figure on this page is estimated by us; each one comes straight from the published ACS tables for this area. 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.