Best PlacesFolly Beach, SC Best Neighborhoods
2026–2027 edition · Data updated July 2026
Every neighborhood in and around Folly Beach, scored on 40 measures of daily life and ranked to fit what matters to you. Local pay runs high here, and housing takes the biggest bite out of it. To work out which city fits you best, start with the best places to live tool.
Folly Beach ranks 8,932nd of 50,333 U.S. towns on the BestNeighborhood index. It scores highest on health care access by a wide margin, and an overheated housing market is the weak spot.
The best neighborhoods in Folly Beach
BestNeighborhood is the only ranking that scores 40 measures of daily life neighborhood by neighborhood and lets you re-weight every one of them yourself.
Folly Beach's strengths and weaknesses
Where Folly Beach ranks high
- Healthcare accessBetter than 99% of towns
- Household income$156,065 median, better than 98% of towns
- Educational attainmentBetter than 98% of towns
- Voter turnoutBetter than 97% of towns
- Cost of living vs incomeBetter than 96% of towns
Where Folly Beach ranks low
- Housing crash safetyBetter than only 1% of towns
- Disaster safetyBetter than only 2% of towns
- Heat safetyBetter than only 3% of towns
- Crime safetyBetter than only 3% of towns
- Low vacancyBetter than only 10% of towns
What it costs to buy a home in Folly Beach
A household needs to earn about $244,000 a year to comfortably buy the median Folly Beach home, at 20% down and today's 30-year rate. That runs well above the area's median income of $156,065, so buying stretches a typical household.
Where the monthly payment goes
Assumes a 20% down payment, a 6.6% 30-year fixed rate, and a 28% share of income going to the payment. The rate is the 2026-07-23 30-year fixed average, series MORTGAGE30US from the St. Louis Fed, which publishes Freddie Mac's weekly survey. Against the median home value, property tax uses Folly Beach's effective rate of 0.35%, and insurance is estimated at 0.4% of home value a year.
Renting versus buying
At today's prices and rents, renting stays cheaper than buying across the first 10 years here, so the case for buying rests on staying much longer or on prices rising faster than assumed. The chart tracks the running cost of each.
Who lives in Folly Beach
Folly Beach runs older than the country, and households here run smaller than average.
Residents by age
Racial and ethnic makeup has its own map. See the race and diversity map for Folly Beach.
Who works in Folly Beach, and how
Work in Folly Beach centers on professional & technical and health care & social. Unemployment is low, and jobs are growing.
Largest industries
How people get to work
- Drive or carpool 59%
- Work from home 29%
- Transit, walk, or bike 12%
Life in Folly Beach
Folly Beach has more restaurants and bars per resident than 96% of towns. The coast is about 1 minutes away. That concentrates in some parts of Folly Beach and thins out in others, which the map shows.
What the weather is like in Folly Beach, month by month
Folly Beach sees roughly 105 pleasant days a year. July highs average about 90 degrees. January highs sit near 60, with lows near 42. The comfortable stretch runs February through May, October, and November.
Show the monthly temperatures
| Month | Avg high | Avg | Avg low |
|---|---|---|---|
| January | 60° | 50° | 42° |
| April | 76° | 66° | 58° |
| July | 90° | 82° | 76° |
| October | 79° | 69° | 62° |
Flying in and out of Folly Beach
Charleston AFB/International sits about 17 miles away. It is a medium hub and boarded 3.2 million passengers in 2025, with 95 nonstop destinations.
The best schools in and around Folly Beach
Schools across Folly Beach average an A, better than 96% of towns.
Top elementary schools
- Montessori Community SchoolA · 70% proficient
- Mt. Zion ElementaryD+ · 21% proficient
Top middle schools
- Camp Road MiddleB+ · 52% proficient
- Haut Gap MiddleB− · 40% proficient
Top high schools
- James Island Charter HighA · 78% proficient
- St. Johns HighC+ · 40% proficient
Grades come from K-12 test scores, with scores projected for schools missing data. See every Folly Beach school and its grade on SchoolGrade.
Folly Beach measure by measure
Cards are ordered by how much each measure matters to you, so the ones you weighted highest come first. Expand to see every measure. Percentages compare Folly Beach against the other 50,332 towns.
Common questions about living in Folly Beach
Is Folly Beach a good place to live?
Using BestNeighborhood's default rankings, Folly Beach ranks 8,932nd of 50,333 towns. It scores highest on health care access, high incomes, and an educated workforce, and lowest on an overheated housing market and disaster risk. How good it is for you depends on which of those you weight most, which the map lets you set.
Is Folly Beach expensive to live in?
The median home is worth $993,046. The overall cost of living runs about 16% above the national average. Set against a $156,065 median income, cost of living beats 96% of towns.
Is Folly Beach safe?
Folly Beach is safer than 3% of towns. Safety varies a lot by neighborhood. Crime costs an estimated $1,009 per resident a year.
Compare Folly Beach with other towns
Sources and methodology
Every measure on this page is scored for each neighborhood, then rolled up to Folly Beach. Scores are absolute rather than ranked, which means a 60 in Folly Beach represents the same real quantity as a 60 anywhere else, and the ranking is a weighted average of those absolutes. The map colors come from a national scale calibrated against a population weighted random sample of 5,000 neighborhoods. That absolute scoring is what no other places-to-live ranking does: it puts a single neighborhood, a town, a metro, and a state on one scale, so the same 40 measures answer both which metro to move to and which street inside it to buy on. Read the full methodology.
Folly Beach detail on BestNeighborhood maps:
- Walk Grade for Folly Beach: walkability, transit, and biking, measured on the real street network rather than by straight line distance.
- Noise in Folly Beach: road, rail, and aviation sound modeling calibrated against federal ground truth measurements.
- Conservative vs liberal map of Folly Beach: precinct level election results apportioned to neighborhoods.
- Mobile and cell coverage in Folly Beach: carrier by carrier coverage behind the cell score.
Folly Beach detail on related sites:
- CrimeGrade: neighborhood crime rates behind the crime safety score.
- ISPreports.org: provider by provider internet availability and advertised speeds.
- CoverageWatch: the car insurance premiums behind the cheap car insurance score.
Federal and public data:
- U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey: income, home value, rent, vacancy, commute time and mode, educational attainment, home age, age structure, household type, industry, and race.
- NOAA Global Surface Summary of the Day: the daily station record behind the monthly temperatures and the pleasant-day count.
- FAA Passenger Boarding Data: airport size and annual passenger counts.
- Freddie Mac Primary Mortgage Market Survey: the 30-year fixed rate used in the cost-to-buy estimate.
- FBI Crime Data Explorer: reported offenses behind the tangible crime cost estimate.
- U.S. EPA Air Quality System: five year average air quality index.
- FEMA National Risk Index: expected annual loss from natural hazards.
- CDC PLACES: disease burden, preventable risk, and barriers to care.
- National Center for Education Statistics: school enrollment and assessment inputs behind the school grade.
- FCC National Broadband Map: internet and wireless availability.
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics: employment and job growth behind the local economy score.
- Religious activity uses a proprietary religious signal measurement.
Your priorities
Move a slider to say how much a measure matters. Zero turns it off.