Sunset Beach, NC population, income and ZIP codes

Sunset Beach town is a small town in North Carolina, with 4,326 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #195 of 777 ranked by population — larger than 75% of them. The median age here is 68.3 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 Sunset Beach town earn a median of $84,934 a year, 8.1% above the national figure of $78,538 and 39% above the $61,228 median for the 459 North Carolina cities we cover. Household income here is measured before tax and pooled across everyone at the address, which is why it reads higher than typical individual earnings in the same area. Poverty reaches 6% of residents here, less than half the 12.4% national rate.

The typical owner-occupied home in Sunset Beach town is valued at $354,300, 16.8% above the national figure and 61% above the $219,800 peer median, while median gross rent runs $541 a month, 61.5% below the national figure, or roughly $6,492 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 7.6% of gross pay toward that rent against the federal 30% cost-burden threshold, so renting here is cheap relative to what people here earn. The home-price-to-income ratio works out to 4.2×, against roughly 3.9× nationally, so buying is harder here than in the average US market. 87.4% 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. Gross rent folds in the utilities a tenant pays separately, so it is closer to the real monthly outlay than a headline rent figure.

A median age of 68.3 puts Sunset Beach 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.