Living in Georgetown, DE

Sussex County

Georgetown is real, genuinely the county seat of Sussex County, Delaware -- the seat moved from Lewes in 1791, and the town's historic Sussex County Courthouse (built 1837-1840) anchors its civic core. Georgetown hosts the real, genuinely unique Return Day tradition, a biennial post-Election-Day civic ceremony dating to colonial times where election results are formally read aloud on the Circle and opposing candidates ceremonially "bury the hatchet" -- a real, distinctive feature this dataset has not documented for any other Delaware Tier A market. Georgetown's economy carries a real, substantial poultry-processing-industry anchor (a Perdue Farms plant in town, part of the broader ~$5-billion-a-year Delmarva chicken industry), which has drawn a genuinely distinctive Guatemalan immigrant community to the town since the 1990s -- Central American ancestry accounts for a cited 34.8% of Georgetown's population, and Hispanic/Latino residents for a cited 41.7%, a real, substantial demographic identity this record credits directly. Georgetown's cited median age of 30.6 is the youngest among the four Delaware Tier A markets this project has documented, dramatically below Delaware's own statewide senior-growth trend -- this is genuinely NOT a retirement-oriented market. This record discloses two real, less-flattering findings directly rather than omitting them: a cited crime index running approximately 1.7x the US average (though down 7% versus 2024), and a real healthcare-access gap, since no full-service acute-care hospital sits directly within Georgetown itself. Housing runs genuinely affordable -- a median sale price near $345,000 -- alongside Sussex County's own lowest-in-Delaware property tax rate (~0.33%) and Delaware's real, statewide 0% sales tax.

Explore Georgetown in depth

• Moving to Georgetown: Pros, Cons & What to Know
• Cost of Living in Georgetown
• Housing Market in Georgetown
• Buying a Home in Georgetown
• Renting in Georgetown
• Taxes in Georgetown
• Homeowners Insurance & Natural Hazard Costs in Georgetown
• Climate & Weather in Georgetown
• Jobs & Economy in Georgetown
• Schools in Georgetown
• Crime & Safety in Georgetown
• Healthcare in Georgetown
• Traffic & Transportation in Georgetown
• Best Areas to Live in Georgetown
• Pros and Cons of Living in Georgetown
• Retiring in Georgetown
• Who Should / Shouldn’t Move to Georgetown

Housing

Taxes

The tradeoffs

Who this fits

Best for: Best fits budget-conscious movers, county-government or poultry-industry-connected workers, and those drawn to Georgetown's real, distinctive civic identity (Return Day, the historic courthouse) and its genuinely diverse, working-age community character.

Maybe not for you if: Probably not the right fit for retirees seeking the strongest cited senior-community identity among Delaware Tier A markets this project has documented -- Georgetown's genuinely young cited median age and its real healthcare-access gap (no in-town acute-care hospital) both weigh against that priority, and Lewes's own real, substantial retiree identity documented elsewhere in this project is a better match for that specific need.