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Sunset Beach, NC

This is a small community in a single neighborhood. As throughout the site, some neighborhood-level data are reserved for subscribers.





Overview


Sunset Beach is a very small town located in the state of North Carolina. With a population of 4,391 people and just one neighborhood, Sunset Beach is the 196th largest community in North Carolina.

Sunset Beach home prices are not only among the most expensive in North Carolina, but Sunset Beach real estate also consistently ranks among the most expensive in America.

Occupations and Workforce

Sunset Beach is a decidedly white-collar town, with fully 90.26% of the workforce employed in white-collar jobs, well above the national average. Overall, Sunset Beach is a town of sales and office workers, professionals, and service providers. There are especially a lot of people living in Sunset Beach who work in sales jobs (23.12%), healthcare (13.09%), and maintenance occupations (12.87%).

A relatively large number of people in Sunset Beach telecommute to their jobs. Overall, about 14.81% of the workforce works from home. While this may seem like a small number, as a fraction of the total workforce it ranks among the highest in the country. These workers are often telecommuters who work in knowledge-based, white-collar professions. For example, Silicon Valley has large numbers of people who telecommute. Other at-home workers may be self-employed people who operate small businesses out of their homes.

Setting & Lifestyle

Another notable thing is that Sunset Beach is an extremely popular vacation destination. A significant portion of the population is seasonal. During the vacation season, the town experiences a large influx of people who take up residence in second homes they own in the area. As the vacation season ends, the population drops again, leaving behind a substantially quieter and smaller town.

The town is relatively quiet, having a combination of lower population density and few of those groups of people who have a tendency to be noisy. For example, Sunset Beach has relatively fewer families with younger children, and/or college students. Combined, this makes Sunset Beach a pretty quiet place to live overall. If you like quiet, you will probably enjoy it here.

Sunset Beach is a small town, and as such doesn't have a public transit system that people use to get to and from their jobs every day.

Demographics

The citizens of Sunset Beach are among the most well-educated in the nation: 41.37% of adults in Sunset Beach have a bachelor's degree or even advanced degree, whereas the average US city has 21.84% holding at least a bachelor's degree.

The per capita income in Sunset Beach in 2022 was $54,410, which is wealthy relative to North Carolina and the nation. This equates to an annual income of $217,640 for a family of four. However, Sunset Beach contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.

The people who call Sunset Beach home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Sunset Beach residents report their race to be White, followed by Asian. Important ancestries of people in Sunset Beach include German, Irish, English, Italian, and Scottish.

The most common language spoken in Sunset Beach is English. Other important languages spoken here include French and Spanish.

Notable & Unique Neighborhood Characteristics

When you see a neighborhood for the first time, the most important thing is often the way it looks, like its homes and its setting. Some places look the same, but they only reveal their true character after living in them for a while because they contain a unique mix of occupational or cultural groups. This neighborhood is very unique in some important ways, according to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive exploration and analysis.

People

Of note is NeighborhoodScout's research finding that the neighborhood has some of the lowest rates of children living in poverty of any neighborhood in the United States. In a nation where approximately 1 in 4 children are living in poverty, the community truly stands out from the rest in this regard.

In addition, astoundingly, NeighborhoodScout's research reveals that this single neighborhood has a higher concentration of married couples living here than 98.8% of all U.S. neighborhoods. Whether they have school-aged children or not, married couples are the rule in the neighborhood. If you are a married couple, you may find many people here with a similar lifestyle, and perhaps common interests. But if you are single, you might not find many other singles here.

Also, if you are planning to retire in North Carolina, this neighborhood should be on your must-see list. For many reasons, may be considered a retiree's dream neighborhood. According to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis and metrics, it's peaceful and quiet, has above average safety from crime compared to other neighborhoods in North Carolina, while also offering a diverse range of housing options. This, along with the vibrant mix of very educated seniors and other age groups who choose to live here, makes the neighborhood more retiree-friendly than 98.3% of neighborhoods in NC. If a North Carolina retirement is in your future, this neighborhood should be one of the places you visit.

Real Estate

Despite all of the residential real estate here in the neighborhood, NeighborhoodScout has discovered that much of it is vacant. In resort or second-home vacation areas, this naturally occurs because homes and apartments are seasonally occupied, and empty for a portion of the year. In non-vacation or resort areas, however, this can be an indicator of property abandonment or a weak real estate market. The vacancy rate here is 41.0%, which is higher than 97.7% of all U.S. neighborhoods.

Diversity

Did you know that the neighborhood has more Scots-Irish and English ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 3.5% of this neighborhood's residents have Scots-Irish ancestry and 21.4% have English ancestry.

The Neighbors

There are two complementary measures for understanding the income of a neighborhood's residents: the average and the extremes. While a neighborhood may be relatively wealthy overall, it is equally important to understand the rate of people - particularly children - who are living at or below the federal poverty line, which is extremely low income. Some neighborhoods with a lower average income may actually have a lower childhood poverty rate than another with a higher average income, and this helps us understand the conditions and character of a neighborhood.

The neighbors in the neighborhood in Sunset Beach are upper-middle income, making it an above average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 64.0% of the neighborhoods in America. In addition, 0.0% of the children seventeen and under living in this neighborhood are living below the federal poverty line, which is a lower rate of childhood poverty than is found in 100.0% of America's neighborhoods.

What we choose to do for a living reflects who we are. Each neighborhood has a different mix of occupations represented, and together these tell you about the neighborhood and help you understand if this neighborhood may fit your lifestyle.

In the neighborhood, 33.3% of the working population is employed in manufacturing and laborer occupations. The second most important occupational group in this neighborhood is executive, management, and professional occupations, with 30.2% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants (25.8%), and 10.7% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.

Languages

The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 98.0% of households.

Ethnicity / Ancestry

Culture is the shared learned behavior of peoples. Undeniably, different ethnicities and ancestries have different cultural traditions, and as a result, neighborhoods with concentrations of residents of one or another ethnicities or ancestries will express those cultures. It is what makes the North End in Boston so fun to visit for the Italian restaurants, bakeries, culture, and charm, and similarly, why people enjoy visiting Chinatown in San Francisco.

In the neighborhood in Sunset Beach, NC, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as English (21.4%). There are also a number of people of German ancestry (14.6%), and residents who report Italian roots (12.5%), and some of the residents are also of Irish ancestry (11.0%), along with some Polish ancestry residents (4.9%), among others.

Getting to Work

Even if your neighborhood is walkable, you may still have to drive to your place of work. Some neighborhoods are located where many can get to work in just a few minutes, while others are located such that most residents have a long and arduous commute. The greatest number of commuters in neighborhood spend between 15 and 30 minutes commuting one-way to work (44.8% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans.

Here most residents (82.4%) drive alone in a private automobile to get to work. In a neighborhood like this, as in most of the nation, many residents find owning a car useful for getting to work.


Real Estate includes:
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Economics & Demographics include:
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Household Types
Commute To Work
Migration & Mobility
Race & Ethnic Diversity
Employment Industries & Occupations
Income & Unemployment Rate
Higher Education Attainment
Crime includes:
Neighborhood Crime Index
Crimes Per Square Mile
Property Crime Comparison
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Schools include:
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