menu

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 4,521 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 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.

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.

As is often the case in a small town, Sunset Beach doesn't have a public transportation system that people use for their commute.

Demographics

The citizens of Sunset Beach are among the most well-educated in the nation: 40.00% 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 $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.

Notable & Unique Neighborhood Characteristics

Many things matter about a neighborhood, but the first thing most people notice is the way a neighborhood looks and its particular character. For example, one might notice whether the buildings all date from a certain time period or whether shop signs are in multiple languages. This particular neighborhood in Sunset Beach, the neighborhood, has some outstanding things about the way it looks and its way of life that are worth highlighting.

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 38.0%, which is higher than 97.5% of all U.S. neighborhoods.

In addition, homes built from 2000 through today make up a higher proportion of the neighborhood's real estate landscape than 95.6% of the neighborhoods in America. When you are driving around this neighborhood, you'll notice right away that it is one of the newest built of any, with the smell of fresh paint, and the look of young landscaping nearly everywhere you look. In fact, 72.2% of the residential real estate here is classified as newer.

People

Priests and therapists would like to think they know the secrets to a truly successful marriage, but according to NeighborhoodScout's research, the folks of the neighborhood may actually hold the key. 69.3% of its residents are married, which is a higher percentage than is found in 95.8% of the neighborhoods in America.

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.

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 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.

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, 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.

Languages

The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 96.9% 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 (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.

Getting to Work

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.


Real Estate includes:
Average Home Values
Rental Market
Housing Market Details
Neighborhood Setting
Economics & Demographics include:
Lifestyle & Special Character
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
Violent Crime Comparison
Schools include:
School Ratings
Schools In District
Public School Test Scores
School District Enrollment
Educational Expenditures

comparable neighborhoods nearby