On the $974,000 median asking price for a detached house at Holden Beach, property tax at the combined 0.482 rate runs about $4,695 a year, and that is the small, predictable part of the bill. Wind, hail and flood insurance, the island construction rules and the cost of carrying a house through a 126 day selling season are what actually decide whether the number works for you.
Buyers ask this question because the listing price is the only figure anyone hands them. On an eight mile barrier island in Brunswick County with one bridge, the carrying cost is a different animal from a mainland house at the same price. We would rather show you the lines before you write the offer than explain them during due diligence.
Everything below comes from our Holden Beach community guide, the town and county, and the state insurance filings, with the date next to each number. Where we cannot source a figure, we say so instead of estimating it.
What are the fixed annual costs?
Property tax is the easy one. Brunswick County tax tables for 2026 put the county rate at 0.342 and the Town of Holden Beach at 0.14 per $100 of value, a combined 0.482. On the $974,000 median asking price of the 54 active detached houses, that is roughly $4,695 a year. On a $450,000 condo it is about $2,169. Those are rate calculations on an asking price, not a tax bill, and the county bills on its assessed value rather than what you pay.
The town provides both water and sewer, so you are not buying a well and a septic system the way you would in parts of Supply or Bolivia on the mainland. Brunswick County Public Utilities still showed a Stage 1 Voluntary Water Conservation Alert in effect when we checked on October 13, 2026, which tells you something about mainland supply pressure in a fast growing county.
There is no island wide homeowners association. Condos and some townhome regimes carry their own dues, and those are the documents to ask for early. We do not publish a dues figure for a specific building unless we have pulled that building budget, because the numbers on listing feeds are often stale.
- Combined property tax rate 0.482 per $100: county 0.342 plus town 0.14 Brunswick County Tax Office rate tables, 2026 column, read October 13, 2026
- 61 active houses, condos and townhomes asking $399,900 to $3,300,000, median $929,900; the 54 detached houses alone, median $974,000 Coldwell Banker Holden Beach listings, October 13, 2026
- Median 126 days on market on those 61 listings, one of them 562 days Coldwell Banker Holden Beach listings, October 13, 2026
- Brunswick County median sale price $394,000, up 3.7 percent year over year, 93 days on market Our Brunswick County market update, three months ending September 2026
- 30-year fixed mortgage average 7.32 percent Freddie Mac Primary Mortgage Market Survey, week ending October 22, 2026
Put the loan next to the tax line and the shape of the budget shows up. At $974,000 with 20 percent down, principal and interest on a $779,200 loan run about $5,353 a month at 7.32 percent, the average Freddie Mac reported for the week ending October 22, 2026. Property tax adds roughly $391 a month. Insurance is the line we are about to spend the rest of this article on, because it is the one that moves.
What does insurance actually cost here?
We will not quote you a premium. Anyone who gives you an average for a barrier island without seeing the elevation certificate, the roof age, the distance to the water and the carrier is guessing. What we can give you is the structure of the market you are buying into, which is unusual enough that it changes what you should ask for.
Holden Beach sits south and east of the Intracoastal Waterway, inside the Beach Area defined in G.S. 58-45-5. That puts it in the territory served by the state insurance pool, the market of last resort, which caps residential building coverage at $1,000,000. With 54 active houses asking a median $974,000, that ceiling is not theoretical, and a buyer at the top of the market needs to know whether the private market will write the house at all before relying on the pool.
Rates have moved twice in two years. The North Carolina Department of Insurance settlement table dated January 13, 2025 approved base homeowners increases of 16 percent on June 1, 2025 and 15.9 percent on June 1, 2026 for Territory 120, the beach areas of Brunswick and four other coastal counties, against a Rate Bureau request of 99.4 percent. If the house will not be your primary residence, note the separate track: the Department settled dwelling rates, which cover homes that are not owner occupied, on April 22, 2026 at an average 5 percent a year for two years, with the first increase effective October 1, 2026.
Flood is a second policy with its own ceiling. Federal flood insurance caps building coverage at $250,000, which on a $974,000 house is a fraction of the replacement cost, and excess flood coverage is a private market question. The town flood brochure dated June 19, 2023 states that all properties in Holden Beach are in a special flood hazard area, and our own check agrees: of 795 points we queried in the Brunswick County GIS flood hazard layer inside the town limits on October 13, 2026, 508 landed in Zone AE and 181 in VE, the coastal high hazard zone. Our coastal insurance guide works through what a percentage wind and hail deductible costs after a named storm, which is the number most buyers have never seen written down.
What are the island specific costs nobody mentions?
Three rules change the math on an older cottage. The town requires all construction, wherever it occurs on the island, to meet V zone elevation standards with two feet of freeboard from the lowest horizontal structural member, per that same June 19, 2023 brochure. The federal 50 percent rule applies: a structure damaged or improved to 50 percent or more of its market value has to be brought up to current standards. Together those turn a kitchen and bath renovation on a 1980s cottage into a conversation about lifting the house. Price that before you buy, not after the contractor walks it.
If the plan is to rent, there are three more lines. North Carolina vacation rentals run under the Vacation Rental Act, Chapter 42A of the General Statutes, which governs the form of the agreement and how you handle a tenant in place. Brunswick County has levied a 1 percent room occupancy tax on rentals of fewer than 15 days since January 1, 1998. And guests pay to park: $5 an hour, $20 a day or $175 a year in the marked spaces, enforced 9 am to 5 pm, with street parking otherwise prohibited and a permit required for every vehicle. None of that kills a rental plan. It does mean the gross rent figure a seller shows you is not the number to underwrite.
Then there is the cost of time. Those 61 active listings carried a median 126 days on market on October 13, 2026, against 93 days countywide in our Brunswick County market update for the three months ending September 2026. If you buy here and need to sell in two years, plan on carrying the house for a season with the mortgage, the tax and both insurance policies running.
The real variance on this island is insurance, and we cannot narrow it for you from a desk. Two houses on the same street with different elevations, different roof ages and different distances to the ocean can quote thousands of dollars apart, and the Beach Plan ceiling of $1,000,000 in building coverage is a hard stop for the upper end of the market rather than a cushion. If a buyer needs a predictable annual number, a mainland house in Supply or Shallotte with the same square footage will give them one, and we have told buyers exactly that. The honest move here is to get written quotes for both the wind and the flood policy during due diligence, on the specific address, before the due diligence date passes.
Related questions people also ask
Do I need flood insurance at Holden Beach if I pay cash?
No lender means no federal requirement, but the exposure does not change. The town flood brochure dated June 19, 2023 says every property on the island is in a special flood hazard area, and a county GIS query of 795 points inside the town limits on October 13, 2026 returned Zone AE at 508 of them and VE at 181. Paying cash only removes the requirement, not the water. Most cash buyers we work with carry the policy anyway and treat the $250,000 federal building cap as the floor rather than the plan.
How much are property taxes on a Holden Beach house?
The combined rate is 0.482 per $100 of assessed value, which is Brunswick County at 0.342 plus the Town of Holden Beach at 0.14, from the county tax tables for 2026 read on October 13, 2026. On a $974,000 value that is about $4,695 a year, and on a $450,000 condo about $2,169. The bill is calculated on the county assessed value rather than your purchase price, so check the current assessment on the parcel before you budget.
Is Holden Beach a good place to live year round?
It is a quiet place to live year round and a long way from everything else. The North Carolina Office of State Budget and Management certified 1,125 year round residents as of July 1, 2025 against 2,894 address points mapped inside the town limits in the Brunswick County GIS on October 13, 2026, so most of the island is dark in January. There is no hospital, no school and no grocery store on the island, and routed from Town Hall on October 13, 2026 the nearest hospital in Bolivia is about 19 minutes, Shallotte 18 minutes and downtown Wilmington about 55.
Before you tour, pick two or three addresses and let us pull the flood determination, the elevation certificate if the town holds one, and the current tax record for each. Then take those to an agent for written wind and flood quotes while you still have due diligence left. If you want help running that on a specific street at Holden Beach, talk it through with our team.
Sources: Our Holden Beach community guide, read October 25, 2026, with island data gathered October 13, 2026. Brunswick County Tax Office rate tables, 2026. Coldwell Banker Holden Beach listings, October 13, 2026. Brunswick County GIS flood hazard layer, queried October 13, 2026. Town of Holden Beach flood brochure, June 19, 2023. North Carolina General Statutes 58-45-5 and Chapter 42A. North Carolina Department of Insurance homeowners rate settlement, January 13, 2025, and dwelling rate settlement, April 22, 2026. Brunswick County room occupancy tax, effective January 1, 1998. North Carolina Office of State Budget and Management certified population, July 1, 2025. Our Brunswick County market update, three months ending September 2026. Freddie Mac Primary Mortgage Market Survey, week ending October 22, 2026.
