Living in Tybee Island, GA

Chatham County

Tybee Island is Savannah's beach -- a small, low-lying barrier island in Chatham County roughly 18 miles from downtown Savannah, and a genuinely distinct relocation-and-second-home market in its own right rather than simply an extension of Savannah's historic-district housing story. Its identity is dominated by tourism and vacation-rental economics far more than by year-round relocation demand: total housing units run roughly 3,227-3,304 across sources, with a disclosed 54.6%-56% vacancy rate driven overwhelmingly by seasonal and short-term-rental use, and over 900 licensed vacation rental units operate on the island today -- up from an estimated 15%-20% of residential-area homes a decade or more ago to 40%-50% now, per one longtime resident's account. As of August 2026, the city was actively rewriting its own 2024 short-term-rental restrictions after a property-owner lawsuit, with a competing proposal on the table that would allow STR saturation up to 60% in the beach/commercial zones and 30% in residential zones further inland -- a real, live, unresolved local fight over the island's housing future, not settled history. A genuine year-round community exists alongside all of this: a small population (a 2026 estimate of roughly 3,170 residents, up modestly from 3,107 at the 2020 Census) with a median household income of $120,479, but one that skews dramatically older than a typical relocation destination -- a median age of 61.5, with an estimated 41% of residents 65 or older. Housing itself runs genuinely expensive: Redfin's June 2026 snapshot cites a $624,660 median sale price (down 1.6% year over year), while the same source's trailing-3-month window cites a notably higher $730K (up 16.7% year over year) -- a real, disclosed discrepancy rather than one settled figure, alongside a real slowdown in sales pace (125 days on market, up from 66 the prior year). As a true barrier island, Tybee Island carries genuine, documented hurricane exposure treated with the same seriousness this dataset gives Savannah's and St. Simons Island's coastal Chatham/Glynn County risk: Hurricane Matthew (2016) pushed the ocean up 12.5 feet on the island with gusts to 94 mph, and Hurricane Irma (2017) produced flooding that the island's own then-mayor described as worse than Matthew's the year before. Flood insurance -- a separate, mandatory policy standard Georgia homeowners insurance excludes -- runs dramatically higher here than in Savannah proper in direct comparison ($2,120 vs. $375 for comparable coastal quotes), though Tybee's Class 5 Community Rating System status does qualify NFIP policyholders for a 25% premium discount. Tourism itself is a real, large local economic force: an estimated 1.7-1.9 million annual visitors generated roughly $215 million in visitor spending in the most recent study found, up 83% from a decade-earlier baseline.

Explore Tybee Island in depth

• Cost of Living & Housing in Tybee Island
• Moving to Tybee Island: Pros, Cons & What to Know

Housing

Taxes

The tradeoffs

Who this fits

Best for: Beach-lifestyle buyers and retirees drawn to a small, quiet, walkable barrier-island beach town close to Savannah, and investors specifically pursuing vacation-rental income given the housing stock's real, documented orientation toward short-term-rental use -- confirm current STR licensing rules directly given the ordinance rewrite in progress.

Maybe not for you if: Buyers specifically seeking a dense, year-round-relocation-driven community with a young, growing full-time population and settled housing-policy rules should weigh this market's real, disclosed dynamics honestly -- Tybee Island's housing stock is dominated by seasonal/vacation use, its resident population skews notably older than a typical relocation market, and its short-term-rental regulations are actively being rewritten as of this record's research date. Anyone wanting to minimize barrier-island hurricane, storm-surge, and flood-insurance cost exposure, or seeking Savannah's larger job market and denser year-round community, should look to the existing Savannah base record (src/lib/data/places/georgia-tier-a-1.js) instead.