Sunset Beach is a very small town located in the state of North Carolina. With a population of 4,521 people and just one neighborhood, Sunset Beach is the 196th largest community in North Carolina.
Sunset Beach real estate is some of the most expensive in North Carolina, although Sunset Beach house values don't compare to the most expensive real estate in the U.S.
Sunset Beach is a decidedly white-collar town, with fully 89.89% 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 (20.94%), maintenance occupations (13.07%), and management occupations (11.91%).
Also of interest is that Sunset Beach has more people living here who work in computers and math than 95% of the places in the US.
One interesting thing about the economy is that relatively large numbers of people worked from their home: 22.16% of the workforce. While this number may seem small overall, as a fraction of the total workforce this is high compared to the rest of the county. 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.
Another notable thing is that Sunset Beach is an extremely popular destination for tourists and seasonal residents. So much of the population is seasonal such that the town’s population swells significantly during the vacation season, and drops again when the season ends. Because of this, much of the local economy is centered around tourism; some businesses may be operated only during the high season. During the low season, year-round residents will notice that the city is a substantially quieter place to live.
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.
Being a small town, Sunset Beach does not have a public transit system used by locals to get to and from work.
The education level of Sunset Beach ranks among the highest in the nation. Of the 25-and-older adult population in Sunset Beach, 40.00% have at least a bachelor's degree. The typical US community has just 21.84% of its adults holding a bachelor's degree or graduate degree.
The per capita income in Sunset Beach in 2022 was $57,169, which is wealthy relative to North Carolina and the nation. This equates to an annual income of $228,676 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 Black or African-American. Important ancestries of people in Sunset Beach include Irish, English, German, Italian, and Scottish.
The most common language spoken in Sunset Beach is English. Other important languages spoken here include French and Spanish.
The way a neighborhood looks and feels when you walk or drive around it, from its setting, its buildings, and its flavor, can make all the difference. This neighborhood has some really cool things about the way it looks and feels as revealed by NeighborhoodScout's exclusive research. This might include anything from the housing stock to the types of households living here to how people get around.
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 38.0%, which is higher than 97.5% of all U.S. neighborhoods.
In addition, if you like the look and ambience of new homes and newly built neighborhoods, you will love the neighborhood. A whopping 72.2% of the homes and other residential real estate here were built after 1999, which is a higher proportion of new homes then you will find in 95.6% of the neighborhoods in the U.S. Everything here just feels new.
Astoundingly, NeighborhoodScout's research reveals that this single neighborhood has a higher concentration of married couples living here than 95.8% 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.
In addition, if you're nearing retirement age, or in retirement, the is an excellent choice for you to consider for top-quality retirement living. This neighborhood is rated by NeighborhoodScout as among the top 6.9% of retiree-friendly neighborhoods in North Carolina, combining peace and quiet, safety from crime, and offering diverse housing options from which retirees can choose. Maybe it's because of these amenities that a large proportion of the residents here are college educated seniors, mixed with other age groups. For these and other reasons, NeighborhoodScout identifies this neighborhood as a top-notch place to consider if you are thinking of or planning to retire in North Carolina.
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 middle-income, making it a moderate income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 51.1% of the neighborhoods in America. In addition, 5.1% 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 63.3% of America's neighborhoods.
A neighborhood is far different if it is dominated by enlisted military personnel rather than people who earn their living by farming. It is also different if most of the neighbors are clerical support or managers. What is wonderful is the sheer diversity of neighborhoods, allowing you to find the type that fits your lifestyle and aspirations.
In the neighborhood, 40.5% of the working population is employed in executive, management, and professional occupations. The second most important occupational group in this neighborhood is manufacturing and laborer occupations, with 31.4% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants (19.5%), and 8.6% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.
The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 96.9% of households.
Boston's Beacon Hill blue-blood streets, Brooklyn's Orthodox Jewish enclaves, Los Angeles' Persian neighborhoods. Each has its own culture derived primarily from the ancestries and culture of the residents who call these neighborhoods home. Likewise, each neighborhood in America has its own culture – some more unique than others – based on lifestyle, occupations, the types of households – and importantly – on the ethnicities and ancestries of the people who live in the neighborhood. Understanding where people came from, who their grandparents or great-grandparents were, can help you understand how a neighborhood is today.
In the neighborhood in Sunset Beach, NC, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as English (19.4%). There are also a number of people of Irish ancestry (14.8%), and residents who report Italian roots (12.5%), and some of the residents are also of German ancestry (12.5%), along with some French ancestry residents (4.7%), among others.
How you get to work – car, bus, train or other means – and how much of your day it takes to do so is a large quality of life and financial issue. Especially with gasoline prices rising and expected to continue doing so, the length and means of one's commute can be a financial burden. Some neighborhoods are physically located so that many residents have to drive in their own car, others are set up so many walk to work, or can take a train, bus, or bike. The greatest number of commuters in neighborhood spend between 15 and 30 minutes commuting one-way to work (38.8% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans.
Here most residents (68.7%) 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.