A profile of the 4,138 homes inside The Landings, built from the county's property records (1999–2025), three decennial Censuses (2000, 2010, 2020), the American Community Survey, and IRS tax statistics for ZIP 31411.
Two communities are forming inside one gate. The original owners from the 1980s and 1990s have aged in place: residents 75 and older grew from 893 in 2000 to 2,284 in 2020, and a third of owner households are now headed by someone 75+. At the same time a younger, higher-earning wave arrived after 2015: residents under 45 nearly doubled, and the share of households earning $200k or more rose from about one in five to one in three.
The 2020–2021 turnover wave reset ownership. One home in eight changed hands in 2020 alone, and 1,486 of today's owners (36%) arrived in 2020 or later, paying prices that doubled between 2019 and 2024. Those buyers sit beside 978 households (24%) who have owned for more than 20 years.
It is less of a second-home community than it used to be. Absentee ownership fell from 15% of homes in 1999 to 11% today, and seasonal-use vacancies peaked in 2010. Ownership through trusts is rising fast (16% of homes), which matters for how the community communicates with and counts its members.
Between 2000 and 2020 the island added 2,400 people. Almost all of the growth was at the two ends of the age range.
The 45–64 group, which was 38% of residents in 2000, is now 22%. The 75-and-over group went from 13% to 25%. Among owner households, the share headed by someone 65+ rose from 51% to 63%, and the share headed by someone 75+ nearly doubled, from 18% to 33%. Householders under 45 were 8% of owners in 2000 and 12% in 2020: still small, but the first increase in two decades, and residents under 18 grew from 774 to 1,356.
Household structure follows: 83% of households were married couples in 2000, 72% in 2020; people living alone went from 14% to 21% of households, and households of one person aged 65+ grew from 300 to 736. The ACS puts the median age at 66.4, up from 63.1 in the 2006–2010 survey.
Decennial counts are for the whole Skidaway Island census place, which includes about 320 homes outside the gates; within the gates the 2020 block counts give 63% of owner households headed by someone 65+ and 33% by someone 75+.
Turnover ran near 8% a year through the late 2010s, jumped to 13% in 2020, and has settled below 7%. Sales volume is back to 2015 levels while prices stayed at the new plateau.
Today's ownership splits into clear cohorts. 1,171 households (28%) have owned for five years or less; 1,094 (26%) for six to ten; 895 (22%) for 11 to 20; and 978 (24%) for more than 20 years, including 185 who were already here in 1999.
The price step is the other half of the story. The median sale was $425,000 in 2019, $566,940 in 2021, and $835,000 in 2024. Recent buyers therefore carry a very different cost basis, and mortgage, than the long-tenured households next door, which bears on how any dues or assessment change lands.
Four homes in five are a homesteaded primary residence. The out-of-town owner share has fallen by a third since 1999, and one home in six is now held in a trust.
In 1999 about 15% of homes had an owner whose mail went somewhere else, and 12% were owned from out of state. The second-home share climbed again into the financial crisis, then declined steadily after 2014 as the island filled with full-time residents; it is 11% and 8% today. The Census tells the same story from the other side: homes held for seasonal use peaked at 251 in 2010 and were 159 in 2020.
Median household income has grown 37% since the 2006–2010 survey, but almost all of the gain sits with households headed by someone under 65. Tax data show the same shift: four in ten returns now report $200k or more.
Households headed by someone 65 or older report a median income of $114,495; those headed by someone 45–64, $205,000; and 25–44, $179,167. Since the older group is two thirds of households, the overall median ($136,156) understates what the newer, working-age households bring. In 1999 the median household income was $96,395, which is about $181,512 in 2024 dollars: in real terms the typical household is less well off than the original owners were at the same age, because the typical household is now retired.
The IRS data cover every return filed from the ZIP code, so they are not a sample. Mean income per return went from $193,004 in 2015 to $272,100 in 2023; the share of returns above $200k from 27% to 39%; and the share of all income earned by those returns from 67% to 80%. The composition shifted toward business ownership: partnership and S-corporation income rose from 10% to 18% of income, while pensions and IRA withdrawals fell from 11% to 7%. Wages stayed near a third throughout, and the share of returns with a primary filer aged 60+ slipped from 68% to 64%.
Adjusted gross income understates the resources of a retirement community: Roth withdrawals, municipal-bond interest and unrealized gains do not appear, and the $200k+ bracket is open-ended. All dollar figures on this page are nominal unless stated.
The community grew from 3,328 homes in 1999 to 4,138 today. Its total assessed market value is $3.83 billion, and a quarter of that value is shielded from the tax roll by the Stephens-Day freeze.
2,870 of the 4,138 homes (69%) were built in the 1980s and 1990s; 210 have been built since 2010. The median assessed value is $854,000, with 1,416 homes (34%) above $1 million.
Chatham County's Stephens-Day exemption freezes a homesteaded home's taxable value at its value the year before the homestead was granted. Across the 3,288 homesteaded homes, 26% of market value is outside the tax base. The shield is largest for households that bought in 2015–2019, before the run-up, and smallest for those who bought in the last five years at current prices, so two neighbors in identical houses can face very different county tax bills.
The assessor's valuation neighborhoods differ by a factor of three in value, by half in the share of residents over 65, and by a quarter in how many owners are recent.
Codes on the map match the table below.
| Assessor neighborhood | Homes | Median value | Median year built | Homestead | Absentee | In trust | Median yrs owned | Bought ≤5 yrs | HH 65+ | HH 75+ | HH under 55 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wiley Bottom / Hemingway19234 | 1,206 | $644k | 1982 | 81% | 8% | 13% | 10 | 27% | 58% | 27% | 24% |
| Delegal / Yam Gandy19237 | 889 | $924k | 1988 | 84% | 7% | 16% | 10 | 25% | 63% | 32% | 23% |
| Log Landing / Hasleiters19239 | 415 | $1,010k | 1995 | 84% | 7% | 24% | 9 | 31% | 66% | 37% | 22% |
| Sundew / Islanders19241 | 290 | $1,291k | 1998 | 81% | 9% | 26% | 8 | 28% | 75% | 48% | 11% |
| Village Green / Willeford19233 | 248 | $568k | 1982 | 69% | 13% | 12% | 9 | 29% | 61% | 35% | 22% |
| Tidewater / Little Comfort19232 | 226 | $1,438k | 1994 | 84% | 6% | 12% | 12 | 20% | 66% | 36% | 24% |
| Southerland / Hobcaw19236 | 210 | $765k | 1989 | 75% | 15% | 16% | 7 | 35% | 64% | 35% | 17% |
| Sparnel / Cabbage19238 | 187 | $776k | 1995 | 73% | 17% | 23% | 7 | 38% | 60% | 35% | 25% |
| Franklin Creek / Hawksbeard19235 | 169 | $732k | 1990 | 80% | 4% | 10% | 10 | 27% | 53% | 18% | 32% |
| Mainsail / Amberly19245 | 145 | $1,060k | 1996 | 77% | 12% | 21% | 8 | 32% | 72% | 30% | 11% |
| Dame Kathryn19225 | 64 | $383k | 1977 | 28% | 31% | 9% | 8 | 39% | 76% | 43% | 8% |
| Franklin Creek Village06088 | 39 | $536k | 1985 | 59% | 20% | 23% | 7 | 44% | 48% | 18% | 24% |
| Oak Shadow / Sea Eagle19240 | 29 | $799k | 1999 | 69% | 17% | 31% | 9 | 28% | 84% | 50% | 8% |
| Harbor View / Sound View16252 | 21 | $630k | 1981 | 71% | 19% | 14% | 9 | 43% | 61% | 33% | 18% |
Neighborhoods are the county assessor's valuation areas (code shown), named here by their most common streets. Age columns are 2020 Census block counts of owner-occupied households allocated to neighborhoods by parcel; blocks average about 60 homes, so treat single-neighborhood age figures as approximate.