Bolivia is the seat of Brunswick County government and one of the smallest towns in the three counties we work. The Census Bureau’s Vintage 2024 estimates put it at 254 people as of July 1, 2024, up from a 2020 base of 152, and the county parcel layer holds 155 parcels inside the town limits. Town Hall, at 105 Danford Road SE, is open Tuesdays from 9 to 1. That is the town.

The address is a different thing. ZIP 28422 reaches from the US 17 corridor south and west to the Lockwood Folly River and Sunset Harbor, carrying subdivisions, acreage, golf and waterfront with no connection to those 155 parcels. When a listing says Bolivia it usually means the postal area, and the difference lands on the tax bill.

What gives the place its weight is government rather than a main street. The county complex, the community college, the school district’s central office and the county hospital are all here, which is why a town of 254 people has daytime traffic and county jobs but no grocery store.

The 389 active listings we counted on October 18, 2026 split 240 single family, 104 land, 22 manufactured, 20 townhouse and 3 condo. Across the 285 priced residential listings, asking prices ran from $145,000 to $1,370,000, median list price $324,999. The floor is a 924 square foot manufactured two bedroom on Marlin Drive SE. The ceiling is water, a house on Palm Street SE at Sunset Harbor. Between them Bolivia trades as a $275,000 to $425,000 market, and those 22 manufactured homes are a real part of it that lenders treat differently.

Two numbers set the tone. 128 of those 285 listings are new construction, about 45 percent, so a resale here is priced against a builder’s rate buydown whether its seller likes it or not. And the pace is slow: median days on market across the actives was 87, while our Brunswick County market update puts the county median sale price at $394,000 for the three months to September 2026, with 93 days on market against 64 a year earlier.

Land trades on its own terms: 104 lots from $23,900 to $6,489,900, median $78,500, and a lot near the bottom usually has a soil or access problem behind it. Against our Supply guide Bolivia costs a little more and sits closer to the hospital; against Southport, Oak Island or St. James Plantation you trade the water for money.

Daily life runs on the county campus, the college and a good golf course:

• Carolina National Golf Club, 1643 Goley Hewett Road SE, a 27-hole public club designed by Fred Couples, with the Winding River Grille
• Brunswick Community College, 50 College Road NE, with the Odell Williamson Auditorium and the Dinah E. Gore Sports and Aquatics Complex
• Brunswick County Botanical Garden, 25 Referendum Drive NE, on the government campus
• Brunswick Grill and Marketplace, 35 Courthouse Drive, lunch for the county complex
• Novant Health Brunswick Medical Center, on Highway 17, open since 1977, with 24/7 emergency, heart and vascular, and maternity care

What Bolivia does not have is a downtown. No walkable block, no restaurant row, no supermarket, so the grocery run is Shallotte, Southport or Leland. People choose it because land is affordable, the hospital is ten minutes out and the Oak Island bridge under twenty.

Bolivia is served by Brunswick County Schools. The district’s Attendance Areas lookup answered with a server error every time we tried it on October 18, 2026, so we read the zone maps in the district’s own 2025-26 Demographic Study, dated March 24, 2026, which label each zone by state school code:

• Bolivia Elementary School (PK-5), on US 17 Business, code 304.
• South Brunswick Middle School (6-8), code 335. The Bolivia Elementary zone sits wholly inside it on the district’s map.
• South Brunswick High School (9-12), code 334, by the same nesting.

The performance numbers are mixed and we would rather say so. In the Department of Public Instruction’s 2025-26 release, South Brunswick Middle carries a School Performance Grade of D with a growth status of Not Met and a growth index of -4.95, and sits on the state’s continually low-performing list for 2025-26 and 2023-24. Bolivia Elementary met growth at -0.51 and is off this year’s list, though it is continually low-performing for 2024-25 and 2023-24. South Brunswick High exceeded growth at 2.20 and is on neither. One caution matters more here than most places: the 28422 mailing area is larger than the Bolivia Elementary zone, so confirm the exact address with the district.

Bolivia runs on US 17 and its business route through town, with NC 906 at the junction and NC 211, the Southport-Supply Road, crossing the south of the ZIP. The distances below are approximate, from OpenStreetMap routing on October 18, 2026, and summer beach traffic runs longer. The hospital is about 6 miles and 10 minutes, the Oak Island bridge about 13 and 19, Southport about 15 and 24, Leland about 16 and 23, Shallotte about 16 and 25, the Holden Beach bridge about 18 and 27, downtown Wilmington about 19 and 28, ILM about 25 and 41. That is the quiet argument for Bolivia: closer to Wilmington than Supply or Shallotte, closer to the beach than Leland, nothing walkable.

One project will be in your windshield. NCDOT’s active construction service lists R-5021, contract C204123, widening NC 211 from SR 1500 (Midway Road) to NC 87, active since January 31, 2022 and 72.43 percent complete when we queried it today. Midway Road is in the Bolivia area.

Flooding here is a waterfront question, not a Bolivia question. We queried the FEMA National Flood Hazard Layer at 26 points on October 18, 2026. Twenty came back Zone X, an area of minimal flood hazard, including the town center, the county complex and the college. The exceptions were on the water: Palm Street SE at Sunset Harbor returned Zone AE with a base flood elevation of 12 feet, Herring Gull Court SE near the Waterway Zone AE at 11 feet. Inland Bolivia is largely out of the Special Flood Hazard Area; the water’s edge is not, so pull the determination on the parcel.

There are two tax rates and you need to know which one you are buying. Brunswick County bills 0.342 per $100 of value for 2026 and the Town of Bolivia adds 0.05, so inside the town limits the rate is 0.392 and outside it 0.342. The county calls 0.3420 its Fiscal Year 2025 rate, July 1, 2025 through June 30, 2026. The gap is about $162 a year on the median list price, and a listing will not always tell you which side of the line it is on.

Insurance is the line item that has moved. The Insurance Commissioner and the Rate Bureau settled the homeowners case on January 17, 2025: the Bureau asked 42.2 percent statewide, with as much as 99.4 percent in some areas, and the settlement approved 7.5 percent on June 1, 2025 and 7.5 percent a year later, nothing above 35 percent in any territory. On a rental or second home the dwelling side is worse, and the Department reported a Bureau request for a 68.3 percent statewide average on November 3, 2025. Quote the policy, and read the wind and hail deductible, before you remove due diligence.

Wells and septic are normal here. The town runs no water or sewer utility; Brunswick County Public Utilities serves the area where it reaches. The county’s mapped wells layer holds 323 points countywide and 136 of them sit within three miles of the Bolivia crossroads. The layer is partial, but the concentration tells you what to expect. Budget for a well and septic inspection. The town’s site still carried the county’s August 17, 2026 Stage 2 Mandatory Water Conservation Alert when we read it today.

Zoning depends on which Bolivia you are in. The town adopted its own zoning ordinance in December 2025, with R-20, R-15 and R-10 residential districts, manufactured home overlay and park districts, and an extraterritorial jurisdiction past the town line. It defines bed and breakfast and guest house but carries no short-term rental use. Outside that line the county ordinance applies, and inside Winding River Plantation an association as well.

Growth is real and so is the landfill. Census estimates put Brunswick County at 136,689 people in April 2020 and 167,112 by July 2024, and the school district’s 2026 demographic study calls it the sixth fastest growing county in the country from July 2024 to July 2025. What comes with it is traffic on US 17, and one thing is already here: the county landfill, at 172 Landfill Road NE in Bolivia.