King’s Grant is not a subdivision. The Census Bureau calls it Kings Grant CDP: 4.54 square miles and about 9,003 people in unincorporated New Hanover County, between Interstate 40 and North College Road on the west, Gordon Road on the north and Market Street on the southeast. Almost every address reads Wilmington 28405, so buyers assume they are looking at the city. They are not, and that one fact drives the tax bill and much of the value.

What you are buying is Wilmington’s postwar middle. The median year built is 1979. Of 4,445 housing units, 3,237 are single-family detached and 352 mobile or manufactured, per the American Community Survey for 2020 through 2024. From the air the pattern agrees: long curving loops off a few spine roads, deep lots, and fifty years of canopy.

Treat King’s Grant as a collection of pockets platted in waves by different developers. The section you choose changes the schools, the comparables, and sometimes whether there is an association at all. Of 4,256 occupied units, 2,735 are owner-occupied and 1,521 rented, so roughly a third is tenant-occupied.

On October 5, 2026 the Coldwell Banker King’s Grant page showed 25 active listings running $250,000 to $498,500, median asking price $390,000. Take out the two manufactured homes and the 23 houses and townhomes ran $299,000 to $498,500, median $394,700.

Put that against the county. Our New Hanover County market update puts the median sale price at $448,000 for the three months ending August 2026, down 3.5 percent year over year. The entire active range here sits at or below that. Few places in this county still start a three-bedroom house on a real lot under $300,000 fifteen minutes from downtown and the beach.

The American Community Survey for 2020 through 2024 puts the median value of owner-occupied homes here at $300,700, lower because it covers all existing stock across a five-year window. Active listings showed a median 44 days on market against 58 countywide, with county inventory up 10.2 percent year over year. Normal markets reward buyers who inspect carefully and negotiate.

King’s Grant is unusually well served by public parks for its price. All are county facilities:

• Kings Grant Park, 5027 Lord Byron Road, inside the neighborhood: full basketball court, multi-age playground, outdoor gym, practice field and one shelter seating 20. Open 8 am to sunset, no restrooms.
• Smith Creek Park, 633 Shenandoah Street off Gordon Road: a 35-acre spring-fed lake, a 1.3-mile paved trail, a kayak dock, catch-and-release fishing with a North Carolina license, a playground and restrooms. Phase 2 opened in August 2026, adding 85 acres and a one-mile paved perimeter trail off a new entrance at 251 Lake Emerald Drive East.
• Parkwood Park, 4827 Canetuck Road, just north: a half-mile paved loop, two shelters, playground and basketball.
• Ogden Park, 615 Ogden Park Drive, ten minutes east, carries the organized sport: three lighted baseball fields, soccer and football fields and an off-leash dog park.

Here is the honest part. King’s Grant has almost no commercial life of its own: no village center, no walkable block of restaurants, no grocery most residents can reach on foot. Dining and shopping sit on Market Street and North College Road. If walkability ranks high, look at Mayfaire or Historic Downtown and expect to pay more.

King’s Grant is served by New Hanover County Schools, and this is the most important thing to understand before you make an offer. An attendance boundary runs through the middle of the neighborhood, so two addresses a few streets apart can feed entirely different schools from kindergarten through twelfth grade. We ran 96 points through the district’s own locator on October 5, 2026, and the split was clean:

• East and central King’s Grant, 53 of 96 points: John J. Blair Elementary at 6510 Market Street, Emma B. Trask Middle at 2900 North College Road and New Hanover High School at 1307 Market Street. Listings on Lord Byron, Lord Tennyson, Lord Thomas, Spicewood, Dandelion, Plymouth and Patsy all fell here.
• Western King’s Grant, 43 of 96 points: Wrightsboro Elementary at 2716 Castle Hayne Road, Holly Shelter Middle and E. A. Laney High School at 2700 North College Road. Listings on Kings Drive, Kenningston Street and Glenlea Drive fell here.

Two cautions. The boundary layer behind the locator is dated 2022 to 2023, and boundaries in a growing county get redrawn. Run the exact address through the district’s own tool before you write an offer, and do not trust what a listing claims.

Location is the quiet argument for King’s Grant. By road routing calculated October 5, 2026 from the center of the neighborhood, downtown Wilmington is about 7.2 miles and 14 minutes, Wrightsville Beach about 6.8 miles and 14 minutes, Wilmington International Airport about 5.8 miles and 15 minutes, and Mayfaire Town Center about 3.9 miles and 12 minutes. Those are free-flow estimates, so add time at rush hour.

Few Wilmington neighborhoods put both downtown and the ocean inside fifteen minutes. Wrightsville Beach and Porters Neck sit closer to the water and cost considerably more. King’s Grant buys the middle position at a lower price, and the trade is that you live near the interchange rather than the beach.

Three roads do the work. North College Road, NC 132, runs the western edge up to Interstate 40. Market Street, US 17 Business, runs the southeast toward downtown one way and Ogden the other. Gordon Road crosses the north end. Market and College both back up at rush hour, which is why the project below matters so much here.

Flood risk is real but concentrated. We queried the FEMA National Flood Hazard Layer at 96 points across the neighborhood on October 5, 2026. Eighty came back Zone X, minimal hazard. Fourteen came back Zone AE, the special flood hazard area, two of them floodway, and two the 0.2 percent annual chance band. About one point in seven landed where a federally backed mortgage requires flood insurance, clustered along the creek corridors. Pull the determination for the parcel, and if it is AE, get a written quote before you waive anything.

Gordon Road is a construction zone, and the finished road will change your drive. NCDOT is widening exactly 2.5 miles of Gordon Road from Interstate 40 to Market Street under project U-6202, funded at $59 million for construction within an $81.1 million total. The finished section brings a 17.5-foot raised median, a 10-foot multi-use path on the north side, a 5-foot sidewalk on the south and a reduced conflict intersection, also called a superstreet. Read the raised median carefully: some left turns out of neighborhood streets go away, replaced by a right turn and a U-turn. The path is a real gain for a neighborhood with nowhere safe to walk along its northern edge.

Confirm water, sewer and the association. Cape Fear Public Utility Authority serves Wilmington, Wrightsville Beach and, in its own words, much of unincorporated New Hanover County. Much of is not all of, so confirm in writing that the address is on public water and sewer rather than a well or septic field. King’s Grant is also not one master-planned community with one set of covenants, so ask which subdivision the parcel sits in and read its documents.

Plan for the age of the house. The median home here was built in 1979, so about half the stock is older and a substantial share predates the 1978 federal lead-based paint threshold. Budget for roofs, HVAC, original windows and aging plumbing, and do not skip the sewer lateral. Separately, 352 of the 4,445 housing units are mobile or manufactured, which affects the comparables an appraiser can use and the loan products a lender will write.

Two things to see for yourself. Wilmington International Airport sits immediately west of the neighborhood, close enough that its runways appear in the second photograph above. Visit the street at several times of day before deciding how you feel. And New Hanover is a coastal county, so expect a windstorm or named storm deductible set as a percentage of dwelling coverage rather than a flat dollar amount.