Living in Jacksonville, NC

Onslow County

Jacksonville exists, fundamentally, because of Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune -- the largest Marine Corps base on the East Coast and, together with the co-located MCAS New River, one of the largest concentrations of Marines and Sailors in the world. Camp Lejeune alone supports a population of roughly 137,526 (Marines, Sailors, retirees, families, and civilian employees combined), including nearly 39,000 active-duty personnel, across roughly 156,000 acres; MCAS New River adds about 7,000 more military personnel and 1,000 civilian employees. Combined with MCAS Cherry Point (a separate installation in neighboring Craven County), the three bases are cited with a $6.12 billion combined economic impact. That military anchor shapes nearly everything distinctive about Jacksonville as a relocation market: a genuinely young median age (23.4 years, among the youngest of any Tier A market in this dataset), a real, disclosed gender-ratio skew (about 163 males per 100 females) reflecting the base's active-duty population, real PCS-driven housing and rental churn, and a real, current rental market where a median 3-bedroom runs roughly $1,500/month against 2026 BAH rates ranging from about $1,578/month (E1-E4 with dependents) to $2,586/month (O7+ with dependents) -- a market genuinely accustomed to military timelines and Marine Corps culture, where most Marine families live off base. Housing is affordable by national standards: a $245,000 median sale price as of May 2026, about 37% below the national median, in a less competitive market where homes average just one offer and take about 42 days to sell. North Carolina's flat 3.99% state income tax and its full state exemption on military retirement pay for 20+-year retirees add a real, if not Jacksonville-specific, financial advantage for the area's substantial retiree population. Geographically, Jacksonville sits inland of the immediate Atlantic beachfront -- genuinely coastal, but not a direct-beachfront market like Wilmington -- and carries real, documented hurricane exposure distinct from both that direct-coastal profile and an inland Piedmont city's tornado/ice-storm risk: Hurricane Florence made landfall near Wrightsville Beach in September 2018 and caused $125 million in Onslow County school-district damage alone, an 86-mph wind gust at Jacksonville's own airport, and up to 34 inches of rainfall over five days just north of nearby Swansboro, producing chest-deep flooding that required water rescues. A second, separate, and well-documented piece of real history belongs here too: between 1953 and 1987, three of Camp Lejeune's eight on-base water systems were contaminated, exposing more than a million people who lived or worked on base during that window to elevated cancer and disease risk; the Camp Lejeune Justice Act of 2022 (part of the PACT Act) opened the door to new federal claims, and a Department of Justice/Navy settlement program has since paid $100,000-$550,000 per qualifying claim. This is disclosed here as real, factual, relevant history for a family considering the area -- particularly anyone connected to base life during that specific historical window -- not as a claim about today's water supply. Onslow Memorial Hospital (162 beds, the only civilian hospital in the city and county) and the Naval Hospital at Camp Lejeune together anchor local healthcare, and crime runs above state and national averages by two independent sources, a real, disclosed factor rather than a minor caveat.

Explore Jacksonville in depth

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

Housing

Taxes

The tradeoffs

Who this fits

Best for: Military families and retirees connected to Camp Lejeune or MCAS New River specifically (the market itself is genuinely built around and experienced with military relocation), and affordability-focused first-time buyers who want a real, deep job base at a well-below-national-median home price.

Maybe not for you if: Anyone highly hurricane- or flood-risk-averse, or for whom above-national-average crime would be a genuine dealbreaker rather than something to research at the specific-neighborhood and address level, should weigh insurance-hazard-costs and crime-safety carefully before committing. Anyone with a direct personal or family connection to Camp Lejeune during the 1953-1987 water-contamination period should review the VA's and Camp Lejeune Justice Act resources directly rather than relying on this overview alone. Movers seeking a large, economically diversified civilian job market beyond the defense/military-services sector should also weigh that Jacksonville's economy concentrates heavily around Camp Lejeune and MCAS New River specifically.