Living in Beaufort, SC

Beaufort County

Beaufort combines two genuinely real, distinct identities that few other US small cities share: a nationally-recognized historic antebellum downtown -- the entire downtown is a National Trust-designated historic district, centered on the walkable, 304-acre original town core along Henry C. Chambers Waterfront Park -- and large-scale, currently-active military significance. Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island, Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort, and Naval Hospital Beaufort together are cited as injecting $2.4 billion annually into the local economy and employing nearly 20,000 people; Parris Island alone trains roughly 20,000 recruits a year and is the entry-level training site for 50% of male and 100% of female Marine Corps recruits nationwide -- a real, singular institutional role. Forbes has separately, explicitly named Beaufort one of its top national retirement destinations, citing home prices and cost of living both below the national average alongside South Carolina's real Social-Security-exempt, no-estate-tax treatment; Travel + Leisure separately ranked it the #2 best beach destination to retire nationally. World Population Review's 2026 estimate puts the city at 15,974 residents, up a real, substantial 16.42% since the 2020 Census -- genuinely fast growth for a small historic city. Housing-price sourcing showed a real, wide spread this pass: Zillow's average home value cited $416,734, Redfin's Beaufort-city-proper figure cited $504,000 last month (up a likely small-sample-driven 21.5% YoY), Redfin's broader Beaufort COUNTY figure (which includes Bluffton and Hilton Head) cited $608,000, and a separately-dated Forbes citation put the median at just $253,000 -- disclosed as a real, unreconciled spread rather than one settled figure. Crime data carries a genuinely confusing internal tension worth stating plainly: city-proper figures cite a D- grade and just the 11th safety percentile, while the same broad source separately notes 100% of its own analyzed neighborhoods earn an A or B grade and cites a C city-wide grade elsewhere -- and Beaufort COUNTY's own broader crime rate reads meaningfully more favorable than the city-proper figure. Beaufort's real, historical hazard benchmark is the 1893 Sea Islands Hurricane -- one of the deadliest hurricanes in US history, killing more than 2,000 people with a storm surge cited at 12-16 feet depending on source -- and Beaufort County has evacuated four times in recent years (2016-2019) under its real, current single-zone evacuation structure. Beaufort Memorial Hospital, a 201-bed nonprofit hospital founded in 1944, provides real, comprehensive in-town care including cardiovascular, cancer, and women's services.

Explore Beaufort in depth

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

Housing

Taxes

The tradeoffs

Who this fits

Best for: Retirees and military families/retirees drawn to Beaufort's real, dual historic-downtown and military-installation identity, its explicit Forbes/Travel + Leisure retirement-destination recognition, and a real, comprehensive in-town hospital -- who can weigh the area's genuine historical hurricane exposure and its real, disclosed crime-data confusion directly rather than assuming either the most flattering or least flattering single crime figure applies.

Maybe not for you if: Buyers who need reliable in-town commercial-airport access, or who want an unambiguous, internally consistent crime-safety picture, should weigh Beaufort's real 45+ minute drive to the nearest commercial airport and its genuinely conflicting crime-grade sourcing directly -- see traffic-transportation and crime-safety for the fuller, disclosed picture rather than relying on any single flattering or unflattering figure.