Selling Your Home in Brunswick County, NC

This page is general information, not legal, tax, or insurance advice. Fees, forms, and rules change, so please confirm what applies to you with your closing attorney and your tax professional. I am a real estate professional, and my part is pricing, marketing, and getting your house sold.

Buyers compare tax totals from town to town, and the spread is real: 0.472 per $100 in Ocean Isle Beach, 0.542 on Oak Island, 0.652 in Southport, and 0.342 outside any town on the county's 2026 table. Have your flood zone, any elevation certificate, and current flood and wind premiums ready. If the house has been rented by the week, a buyer who plans to keep renting it will want booking history, future reservations that convey, and the rental agreements North Carolina's Vacation Rental Act requires for stays under 90 days. They may also ask who has been filing the occupancy tax: Brunswick County's 1 percent, plus a town tax such as Oak Island's 5 percent.

North Carolina charges an excise tax of $1 for every $500 of the price, paid by the seller, so a $600,000 sale carries $1,200. The Residential Property and Owners' Association Disclosure Statement has to reach the buyer no later than their offer, and it lets you say you make no representations instead of answering; decide that with your attorney. The closing runs through an attorney. The IRS lets you exclude up to $250,000 of gain on your main home, or $500,000 on a joint return, if you owned and lived in it for two of the five years before the sale; a second home or rental follows different rules. Start with what your Brunswick County home is worth, then call me and let's get this sold.