Both have a Wilmington 28411 mailing address on US 17, but Scotts Hill is unincorporated Pender County at a combined 0.9250 per $100 and Porters Neck is unincorporated New Hanover County at 0.3785, so the same value carries more than double the tax bill on the Scotts Hill side. Scotts Hill is where you get newer construction and an entry price in the $280,000s; Porters Neck is where you get established neighborhoods, deep water and a median asking price near $717,000.
This is one of the few head to head questions in our market where the county line does most of the work. The two areas sit next to each other on US 17 north of Wilmington, share a mailing city and a ZIP code, and look alike from the road. The tax bill, the school bus and the water meter are not alike at all.
We see buyers get this wrong in one direction almost every time: they tour a new house with a Wilmington address, assume New Hanover County schools and taxes, and find out at closing that they bought in Pender County. Neither answer is wrong. Buying the wrong one by accident is.
What is actually for sale on each side?
On October 23, 2026 we counted 34 active listings at Scotts Hill addresses for our Scotts Hill community guide, using a Coldwell Banker Sea Coast Advantage search of Hive MLS listings for ZIP 28411: 31 houses and townhomes asking $279,999 to $965,000, plus three vacant parcels at $965,000 and $975,000. Twenty-five of the 34 sit in new construction communities, so that range is closer to a builder price sheet than a resale market. Entry is a Blake Farm townhome from $279,999, detached new construction opens at $419,900, and the top of the house market is $749,988 for a five bedroom at 2,913 square feet. Above that you are buying land.
Porters Neck is a different market. A Coldwell Banker Porters Neck search read on October 16, 2026 held 91 listings, 64 of them active homes, median asking price $717,265, range $475,000 to $3,995,000, with the middle half between $620,000 and $899,000. Exactly one active home was under $500,000. We counted that search by hand for our Porters Neck price breakdown, and the short version is that there is almost nothing at the entry level in it.
- Scotts Hill: 34 active listings, 31 houses and townhomes $279,999 to $965,000 Coldwell Banker Sea Coast Advantage IDX search of Hive MLS listings for ZIP 28411, October 23, 2026
- Porters Neck: 64 active homes, median asking $717,265, range $475,000 to $3,995,000 Coldwell Banker Porters Neck search, October 16, 2026
- Scotts Hill tax rate 0.9250 per $100: county 0.7375 plus EMS 0.0925 plus Scotts Hill fire 0.0950 Pender County fiscal 2026-2027 budget ordinance
- Porters Neck tax rate 0.3785 per $100: county 0.3060 plus fire services 0.0725 New Hanover County fiscal 2026-2027 rates, reported by Port City Daily, July 10, 2026
- Pender County median sale price $499,000, 83 days on market; New Hanover $464,000, 61 days Our Pender County and New Hanover County market updates, three months ending September 2026
How much does the county line cost you?
Run $600,000 both ways. In Scotts Hill, at 0.9250 per $100, the annual property tax is about $5,550. In Porters Neck, at 0.3785, it is about $2,271. That is roughly $273 a month, every month, on identical value. Over a seven year hold it is about $23,000.
Now put the purchase price back in. At the 7.32 percent 30-year average Freddie Mac reported for the week ending October 22, 2026, principal and interest on a $499,000 house with 20 percent down run about $2,742 a month, and on the $717,265 Porters Neck median about $3,942. Our Pender County market update and New Hanover County market update put the county medians at $499,000 and $464,000 for the three months ending September 2026. The price gap between the two areas is larger than the tax gap, which is why the Scotts Hill side still wins on monthly cost for most buyers under $600,000 even with the higher rate. Above that, the advantage narrows quickly.
Two more cost lines separate them. Scotts Hill is served by a dedicated Scott’s Hill Water and Sewer District run by Pender County Utilities, whose posted schedule effective July 1, 2023 sets a residential base fee of $27.50 a month plus $6.50 per 1,000 gallons, with a $3,432 system development fee and a $1,925 tap fee on a three quarter inch meter, and the county fiscal 2026-2027 budget funds a 13.2 percent water rate increase. County sewer does not reach every lot, so on older houses off Scotts Hill Loop Road the well test and septic inspection belong in due diligence. And the Pender rate of 0.7375 held this year only because Senate Bill 889 delayed use of the January 1, 2026 revaluation values, so the reassessment reset is still ahead of Scotts Hill buyers.
Schools, growth and the roads
Schools are the cleanest difference. Scotts Hill is Pender County Schools. We ran four real Scotts Hill addresses through the district assignment tool on October 23, 2026, on Scotts Hill Loop Road and in Blake Farm, Scotts Hill Village and Scotts Hill Bluff, and all four returned South Topsail Elementary, Topsail Middle and Topsail High, every one of them six to nine miles up US 17 in Hampstead. On the 2024-25 North Carolina School Report Cards, South Topsail Elementary carries a B at 71 and met growth, Topsail Middle a B at 71 and did not meet growth, and Topsail High a B at 82 and exceeded growth. There is no school in Scotts Hill itself.
Porters Neck is New Hanover County Schools, with Porters Neck Elementary inside the area, and our Porters Neck guide walks the sub-areas street by street. Assignment on this side varies by street and the district has adjusted boundaries before, so run the exact address through the New Hanover County Schools locator rather than trusting a listing. We will not publish a grade for a school a particular house may not actually feed.
Capacity is a live issue on the Pender side. WECT reported on August 11, 2026 that seven of the district 17 schools are over capacity this year, including all three Topsail schools, and Port City Daily reported on August 6, 2026 that the district has begun redistricting with the Institute for Transportation Research and Education at NC State, with new boundaries intended for 2027-28 when J.H. Lea Elementary and Middle School opens in Hampstead for more than 2,000 students. If you buy in Scotts Hill for a specific school, understand the lines are being redrawn while you are moving in.
Growth cuts the same way on housing. Pender County fiscal 2026-2027 budget says the Blake Farm development in Scotts Hill, more than 3,300 units, has broken ground, and puts the county population at 74,072 in 2026, up 22 percent since 2020. Meanwhile NCDOT is building the US 17 Hampstead Bypass, a roughly $490 million project that began construction in fall 2025, with the first segment from NC 210 to Sloop Point Loop Road expected in late 2027 and the full bypass in 2030. The southern end ties into NC 140 at Scotts Hill back door. Relief and disruption are arriving together, and for the next three years the disruption is the part you will drive through.
The boundary between these two areas is not a line on a map that anyone agrees on, and the listing search will not settle it for you. Porters Neck has no legal boundary at all, and the brokerage search we counted on October 16, 2026 included builder homes on Pandion Drive, a street our Scotts Hill research found on Pender County address points when we queried the county flood layer on October 23, 2026. Same street, two labels, two counties, two tax rates. Before you fall for a house, pull the parcel record and read which county is billing it. We do that on every address we show in this corridor, and it is the only reliable answer.
Related questions people also ask
Is Scotts Hill in Wilmington or in Pender County?
Both, in a sense that costs money. Scotts Hill addresses carry a Wilmington mailing address in ZIP 28411, but the land is unincorporated Pender County. The Pender County E911 address file, read October 23, 2026, lists 2,031 address points in the Pender portion of that ZIP, every one unincorporated and every one with a Wilmington mailing address, all inside the Scotts Hill fire tax district. That means Pender County taxes, Pender County Schools and Pender County Utilities, not New Hanover County versions of any of them.
Which has the shorter commute into Wilmington?
Porters Neck, by a few minutes. Routed from Scotts Hill Loop Road at US 17 on October 23, 2026 in free flowing traffic, downtown Wilmington is about 15 miles and 29 minutes, the airport 17 miles and 28 minutes and Wrightsville Beach 13 miles and 24 minutes. Porters Neck sits about seven miles closer in along the same corridor. The practical difference is smaller than it looks because both depend on the same stretch of US 17 and the Market Street corridor behind it.
Is there more new construction in Scotts Hill than Porters Neck?
Proportionally, yes. Of the 34 active Scotts Hill listings on October 23, 2026, 25 sat in new construction communities including Indigo at Abbey Preserve, Scotts Hill Village and Blake Farm. Porters Neck has builder inventory too, and on October 16, 2026 four builder streets accounted for 29 of the 89 homes in that search, ranging from about $575,000 to about $832,000. The difference is the entry point: the Scotts Hill builders start in the $280,000s for a townhome, and nothing in the Porters Neck search started that low.
Pick the two or three specific addresses you are weighing and let us pull the county, the tax record, the school assignment and the flood determination on each one before you tour. In this corridor that single sheet of paper changes more minds than a weekend of showings. If you want us to run it, or to compare a builder incentive in Blake Farm against a resale in Porters Neck, talk it through with our team.
Sources: Our Scotts Hill community guide, read October 25, 2026, with data gathered October 23, 2026. Our Porters Neck community guide and our Porters Neck price post, with the Coldwell Banker Porters Neck search counted October 16, 2026. Coldwell Banker Sea Coast Advantage IDX search of Hive MLS listings for ZIP 28411, October 23, 2026. Pender County fiscal 2026-2027 budget ordinance and E911 address file, October 23, 2026. Senate Bill 889. Pender County Utilities Scott’s Hill Water and Sewer District rate schedule effective July 1, 2023. New Hanover County fiscal 2026-2027 tax rates, reported by Port City Daily, July 10, 2026. North Carolina School Report Cards, 2024-25. WECT, August 11, 2026. Port City Daily, August 6, 2026. NCDOT US 17 Hampstead Bypass project information. Our Pender County and New Hanover County market updates, three months ending September 2026. Freddie Mac Primary Mortgage Market Survey, week ending October 22, 2026.
