Living in Pinehurst, NC

Moore County

Pinehurst is a genuine, world-famous golf and retirement destination, not a generic small town that happens to have a golf course -- and both halves of that identity are real and quantifiable. Pinehurst No. 2, a Donald Ross design, has hosted the U.S. Open men's championship three times (1999, 2005, 2014) and again in 2024, and in 2020 the USGA named Pinehurst Resort its first-ever U.S. Open "Anchor Site," committing the championship to return in 2029, 2035, 2041, and 2047 -- 2029 will be an unprecedented back-to-back men's and women's U.S. Open at the same course. In May 2024 the USGA opened a second headquarters here, the seven-acre Golf House Pinehurst campus, which now also houses the relocated World Golf Hall of Fame (founded in Pinehurst in 1974, brought home after 26 years in Florida). That golf identity is the county's economic engine, not a marketing add-on: Moore County hosts 40 golf courses within a 15-mile radius drawing more than 1 million rounds of visitor play a year, generated roughly $860 million in 2024 visitor spending (ranking 10th in North Carolina for tourism spending despite ranking only 27th by population), and supports nearly 6,300 jobs county-wide -- with Pinehurst Resort itself standing as Moore County's 2nd-largest private employer. That draw translates into a real, disclosed demographic skew: Pinehurst's median age is 60.6 (more than double the U.S. median), median household income runs a well-above-average $109,802, and housing carries a genuine, disclosed golf-course-community price premium -- a Redfin-cited median sale price of $595,000, well above the roughly $400K+ national median cited elsewhere in this dataset, though other trackers put the figure anywhere from $525,000 to $612,000 depending on measurement type and month. On the cost side, that housing premium is offset by genuinely low property taxes (a combined village-plus-county rate around $0.5525 per $100, among the lowest in the region) and homeowners insurance that runs below both the U.S. median and well below the North Carolina state average. FirstHealth Moore Regional Hospital, a 402-bed acute-care hospital in Pinehurst itself, serves as the referral center for a 15-county region -- though it does not carry a formal ACS-verified trauma center designation, and the most severely injured patients are transferred to a Level I trauma center elsewhere in the state (see healthcare). Geographically, Pinehurst sits well inland in the Sandhills, roughly 90-100 miles from the Atlantic coast with no direct interstate access -- not a hurricane-landfall town like Wilmington, but genuinely closer to storm impact than a Piedmont city: Hurricane Florence (2018) dumped upward of 15 inches of rain on parts of Moore County, left roughly half the county without power, and rendered several major roads impassable, a real, documented, intermediate hazard profile disclosed in full on the insurance-hazard-costs topic.

Explore Pinehurst in depth

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

Housing

Taxes

The tradeoffs

Who this fits

Best for: Retirees and golf-focused buyers specifically drawn to a real, world-famous golf destination with genuine U.S. Open pedigree and USGA institutional presence, luxury and second-home buyers comfortable with the golf-course-community price premium, and anyone prioritizing a small-town, walkable village character with above-average safety and low property taxes.

Maybe not for you if: Buyers who want a deep, diversified local job market outside of golf/tourism/healthcare, easy interstate access, or a younger, family-oriented demographic profile should weigh those factors carefully -- Pinehurst's median age (60.6) and its housing premium reflect a genuinely retirement- and leisure-oriented market, not a broad-based relocation destination for every buyer type. Anyone highly risk-averse about even intermediate inland hurricane-remnant flood/wind exposure should review the insurance-hazard-costs topic closely before committing.