Best PlacesKure Beach, NC Best Neighborhoods
2026–2027 edition · Data updated July 2026
Every neighborhood in and around Kure 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.
Kure Beach ranks 13,870th 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 Kure 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.
Kure Beach's strengths and weaknesses
Where Kure Beach ranks high
- Healthcare accessBetter than 99% of towns
- Educational attainmentBetter than 95% of towns
- Voter turnoutBetter than 94% of towns
- Cell coverageBetter than 94% of towns
- School gradeA, better than 93% of towns
Where Kure Beach ranks low
- Housing crash safetyBetter than only 1% of towns
- Disaster safetyBetter than only 1% of towns
- Low vacancyBetter than only 10% of towns
- Heat safetyBetter than only 17% of towns
- Crime safetyBetter than only 25% of towns
What it costs to buy a home in Kure Beach
A household needs to earn about $188,000 a year to comfortably buy the median Kure Beach home, at 20% down and today's 30-year rate. That runs well above the area's median income of $117,430, 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 Kure Beach's effective rate of 0.58%, 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 Kure Beach
Kure 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 Kure Beach.
Who works in Kure Beach, and how
Work in Kure Beach centers on professional & technical and retail trade. Unemployment is low, and jobs are growing.
Largest industries
How people get to work
- Drive or carpool 51%
- Work from home 35%
- Transit, walk, or bike 14%
Life in Kure Beach
The coast is about 0 minutes away. Distance to the water changes a lot across Kure Beach, which the map shows.
What the weather is like in Kure Beach, month by month
Kure Beach sees roughly 78 pleasant days a year. July highs average about 89 degrees. January highs sit near 57, with lows near 39. The comfortable stretch runs March through May, October, and November.
Show the monthly temperatures
| Month | Avg high | Avg | Avg low |
|---|---|---|---|
| January | 57° | 47° | 39° |
| April | 73° | 64° | 56° |
| July | 89° | 82° | 76° |
| October | 77° | 68° | 60° |
Flying in and out of Kure Beach
The nearest airport, Wilmington International, is about 18 miles away and is a small airport. The nearest major hub is Raleigh-Durham International, about 139 miles away.
The best schools in and around Kure Beach
Schools across Kure Beach average an A, better than 93% of towns.
Top elementary schools
- Dr John Codington ElemA+ · 73% proficient
- Carolina Beach ElementaryA · 63% proficient
- Southport ElementaryA− · 62% proficient
Top middle schools
- Charles P Murray MiddleA · 67% proficient
- South Brunswick MiddleA− · 54% proficient
Top high schools
- Brunswick County Early CollegeA+ · 98% proficient
- Wilmington Early College HighA+ · 93% proficient
- Eugene Ashley HighA− · 61% proficient
Grades come from K-12 test scores, with scores projected for schools missing data. See every Kure Beach school and its grade on SchoolGrade.
Kure 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 Kure Beach against the other 50,332 towns.
Common questions about living in Kure Beach
Is Kure Beach a good place to live?
Using BestNeighborhood's default rankings, Kure Beach ranks 13,870th of 50,333 towns. It scores highest on health care access, an educated workforce, and civic engagement, 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 Kure Beach expensive to live in?
The median home is worth $741,013. The overall cost of living runs about 3% above the national average. Set against a $117,430 median income, cost of living beats 91% of towns.
Is Kure Beach safe?
Kure Beach is safer than 25% of towns. Safety varies a lot by neighborhood. Crime costs an estimated $442 per resident a year.
Compare Kure Beach with other towns
Sources and methodology
Every measure on this page is scored for each neighborhood, then rolled up to Kure Beach. Scores are absolute rather than ranked, which means a 60 in Kure 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.
Kure Beach detail on BestNeighborhood maps:
- Walk Grade for Kure Beach: walkability, transit, and biking, measured on the real street network rather than by straight line distance.
- Noise in Kure Beach: road, rail, and aviation sound modeling calibrated against federal ground truth measurements.
- Conservative vs liberal map of Kure Beach: precinct level election results apportioned to neighborhoods.
- Mobile and cell coverage in Kure Beach: carrier by carrier coverage behind the cell score.
Kure 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.