Four Portals, Four Different Holly Ridge Home Prices. None of Them See What's Coming.

Pull up Holly Ridge on four different home-valuation sites this year and you'll get four different stories about which way the market is moving. Zillow's home value index was up 3.3% year over year as of late May 2026. Redfin's median sale price was up 1.5% year over year as of February 2026, while its price-per-square-foot figure for that same month was up nearly 11%. Movoto's median list price was down 6% year over year as of July 2026. Homes.com can't even agree with itself, showing an average sale price up 2% and a median sale price up 7% over the same trailing period.

None of these sources are wrong. They're just all measuring the same narrow slice of the town: homes that are currently for sale or recently closed in established neighborhoods like Summerhouse on Everett Bay, the Neighborhoods of Holly Ridge, and Kings Harbor. What none of them can see, because it hasn't happened yet, is the 2,750-unit annexation the town council approved by a 3-2 vote on February 19, 2026. That single vote is going to matter more to Holly Ridge home values over the next decade than any month-over-month percentage a portal publishes today.

The numbers, side by side

Look at the last two rows. That's one source, disagreeing with itself, on the same page. The gap between "average" and "median" tells you the sales mix is uneven right now, some higher-priced new construction closing alongside older resales, which is exactly what you'd expect in a town whose actual future is still on paper.

What actually got approved on February 19

The vote itself was not close to unanimous, and it was not quiet. Council members Brandon Longo and Joshua Patti voted no. An overflow crowd of nearly 200 residents packed the Holly Ridge Community Center to oppose it. What passed anyway was the annexation of roughly 1,226 acres spanning the Onslow-Pender county line, a reclassification of that land to a Planned Unit Development, a master concept plan, and a development agreement with Holly Ridge Development Group, LLC that includes a 30-year vested rights period. Known as Project Ajax, the plan allows up to 2,750 residential units at full buildout, split roughly 1,950 in the Onslow County portion and 800 in Pender County, plus 64 acres of commercial space.

The project exists to serve a specific need. Ajax sits next to the Camp Davis Industrial Park, a 700-acre logistics and manufacturing zone already home to tenants like Onslow Bay Boatworks and Gulfstream Steel & Supply, with Phase III underway to add another 417 buildable acres. Coastal Carolina Community College has also committed to building a workforce training center on the site. Mayor Pete Parnian was direct about the connection at a June 2026 town hall: the town is building an industrial park that will require workforce housing, and part of the growth is people moving in for those jobs.

None of that housing exists yet. Parnian has said publicly that the earliest homes could be occupied in two to three years from the February vote, meaning late 2027 into 2028 at the soonest.

Why the timeline matters more than this month's price

A buyer looking at Holly Ridge today is not buying into a market that already reflects Ajax. They're buying ahead of one. Every home currently for sale in town, whether in an established community or a new-construction phase already under contract, is competing against zero completed Ajax units, because none exist yet. That's a very different position than buying into a town where a large new-construction wave has already hit resale values, for better or worse.

The scale of what's coming is not small. At a June 2026 town hall, Parnian told residents the town currently covers 14 square miles with a population of about 6,000, and is expected to grow to 30 square miles and 14,000 residents by 2033. That's more than double, on more than double the land area, inside less than a decade.

"Transportation and schools are always a phase or two behind development," Parnian told residents at the town hall, when asked how the town plans to keep pace with growth.

That's an honest answer, and it's the one a buyer should sit with. Infrastructure catching up after rooftops arrive is the normal pattern in fast-growing coastal towns. Whether Holly Ridge manages that gap well or poorly over the next several years will do more to shape long-term values than this quarter's median.

The tax bill in front of you isn't the one that sticks

Here's a piece of friction that shows up at the closing table, not in a market report. Both Onslow and Pender counties conducted property revaluations effective January 1, 2026, and assessed values rose sharply in both. But the North Carolina General Assembly passed Senate Bill 889, a one-year moratorium that requires counties conducting 2026 reappraisals, Onslow and Pender included, to keep billing property owners using the older, pre-reappraisal schedule of values through the 2026-27 fiscal year. The new values don't take effect until 2027, and the window to appeal has been extended through December 31, 2026.

Practically, that means the property tax figure on a home you buy in Holly Ridge this year is not the number you'll be paying in 2027. It's a placeholder built on the last reappraisal cycle. Ask the Onslow County Tax Office or the Pender County Tax Department directly which schedule of values applies to a specific parcel before assuming the tax line on a listing sheet is durable. It won't be, regardless of which side of the county line the home sits on.

The county line is more than a map feature

Speaking of that line, it creates a real wrinkle for anyone buying near it. At the same June town hall, a resident raised a concrete example: the new Scotts Hill hospital, a Pender County facility, was about to open nearby, but she lives on the Onslow County side. Her understanding was that her EMS provider is supposed to route her to Onslow County facilities as a matter of jurisdiction, though officials noted a supervisor's discretion could send a patient elsewhere depending on the emergency.

That kind of ambiguity is worth resolving before you buy, not after. If a property sits close to the Onslow-Pender line, which is exactly where Project Ajax itself straddles, don't assume school assignment or EMS response follows the mailing address. Confirm both with the relevant county offices.

The town is building capacity ahead of the rooftops

To its credit, Holly Ridge isn't waiting until Ajax delivers to start building the infrastructure it will need. The town has entered a joint venture with the Onslow Water and Sewer Authority to fund a new elevated water storage tank, sized at 750,000 gallons or larger, along with upsizing the water main between Dixon Road and Old Folkstone Road to improve fire flow and water pressure. The development agreement also dedicates two acres for a future public safety or emergency response building and sets aside land for a possible new school, as Onslow County Schools works separately on a new Southern Elementary campus whose location hasn't been finalized. As of an August 17, 2026 town announcement, officials are also considering a dedicated Emergency Operations Center to coordinate response during hurricanes and severe weather.

That's a town trying to get ahead of its own growth curve rather than reacting to it after the fact. It's a reasonable signal, but it's still a plan, not a finished product, and plans slip.

What this means if you're comparing Holly Ridge on price alone

If you're cross-shopping Holly Ridge against Hampstead or Surf City using median price as your yardstick, you're comparing towns at different points in their own stories. Holly Ridge's median today reflects a market of existing, mostly built-out subdivisions. It does not reflect what happens to resale competition, school capacity, or road congestion once 2,750 approved units start landing, however many years that actually takes. The portals will eventually catch up and start reporting on Ajax inventory as it closes. Right now, they can't, because it doesn't exist.

The better question isn't "what's the median." It's where a specific parcel sits relative to the Ajax footprint, which county's tax and school lines actually apply to it, and how comfortable you are buying into a town whose population the mayor himself expects to more than double before 2033.

FAQ

When will the first Project Ajax homes actually be built? Mayor Parnian has said the earliest homes could be occupied two to three years after the February 2026 approval, putting the realistic window at late 2027 into 2028, assuming permitting and construction stay on schedule.

Does the state's property tax moratorium mean my tax bill is locked in if I buy now? No. It means your 2026-27 tax bill uses the county's prior schedule of values rather than the new 2026 reappraisal. Onslow and Pender counties both move to the new values in 2027, so the number on a current listing sheet is a placeholder, not a forecast.

Does it matter whether a Holly Ridge home is technically in Onslow or Pender County? Yes, particularly near the county line where Project Ajax itself sits. School assignment and EMS response can follow the county boundary rather than the town limits, so it's worth confirming both directly with the relevant county office rather than assuming based on the address.

Holly Ridge's next decade is going to be shaped by a vote that already happened and a buildout that hasn't started. If you're weighing whether to buy ahead of that curve, on the Onslow side, the Pender side, or somewhere else along the Cape Fear coast entirely, Ronel Austin can walk through what a specific parcel actually sits inside of before you make an offer. Let's Connect.