The Real Cost of Living in Long Beach, Mississippi

The Headline Price -- and Why Sources Disagree

Two different data providers give genuinely different pictures of Long Beach home prices right now. Zillow's own citywide figure puts the average home value at $237,256 as of June 30, 2026, up a modest 0.6% year-over-year. Redfin's figure, drawn from actual closed transactions in March 2026, puts the median sale price at $295,000, up 10.9% year-over-year, with a median price per square foot of $154, up 8.5% year-over-year; a separate May 2026 snapshot listed homes for sale at a median asking price of $297,000. Those two numbers -- a $237K average value and a $295-297K median sale/list price -- are not a contradiction so much as two different measurements: Zillow's figure is a smoothed valuation estimate across the entire housing stock, including homes that haven't sold recently, while Redfin's is the actual median of what closed. A market where the sale-price median runs well above the citywide average-value estimate often signals that recent buyers are paying up for a narrower, more desirable slice of the stock (newer or rebuilt post-Katrina construction, for instance) relative to the full range of older housing counted in the valuation-model figure.

The practical takeaway: treat neither figure alone as "the Long Beach number." Pull actual recent closed comps for the specific style, lot, and construction era you want from a local agent, and use the $237K-$297K range above as the honest bracket it actually is, not a single confident midpoint.

Property Tax: Harrison County, City Millage, and the Homestead Exemption

Mississippi property tax runs on an assessed-value system that's meaningfully different from many other states: owner-occupied homestead property is assessed at 10% of its true (market) value, while non-homestead property -- rentals, second homes, commercial -- is assessed at 15%. On top of that, Mississippi's homestead exemption removes the first $7,500 of assessed value from ad valorem tax entirely for any owner who files the (non-automatic, one-time) claim with the county; homeowners 65 or older, or determined 100% disabled, get a deeper break -- full exemption on that same first $7,500 of assessed value, which in practice zeroes out tax on roughly the first $75,000 of a home's market value for those owners. None of this is automatic: a buyer has to actually file the homestead claim with Harrison County after closing to get it.

On the rate itself: SmartAsset's Harrison County-wide calculation puts the blended average effective property tax rate at about 0.62% of market value (against a $235,500 county median home value, for a roughly $1,469/year bill) -- slightly below Mississippi's statewide average of 0.65%. Long Beach specifically, however, is reported by Ownwell's own city-level data to carry the highest effective property tax rate and the highest median tax bill of any city in Harrison County, which is consistent with Long Beach layering its own city millage and its own Long Beach School District millage on top of the county's base rate, the way an independently incorporated city with its own school district typically does. Applying a Long Beach-specific effective rate in the 1%+ range that city-level data implies to the price range on this page: a $237,256 home (Zillow's average) lands in the neighborhood of $2,400-$3,200/year, and a $295,000 home (Redfin's recent median) in the neighborhood of $3,000-$4,000/year -- a meaningfully wider and higher range than the countywide $1,469 figure alone would suggest. This research could not pull the exact current-year city + school + county millage breakdown line-by-line this session, because both the Harrison County Tax Assessor's own site and the City of Long Beach's own site were blocked by this session's network egress policy, so these are effective-rate-based estimates, not a mills-times-assessment calculation off a specific parcel. Get an actual current tax card from the Harrison County Tax Assessor for any specific address before budgeting a number.

State Income Tax: A Flat, Falling Rate -- and Retirement Income Is Fully Exempt

For the 2025 tax year, Mississippi exempts the first $10,000 of taxable income and applies a flat 4.4% rate to everything above that -- and the state is on a legislated multi-year step-down under HB 1, signed into law in 2025, that continues cutting the rate through roughly 2030. Sources disagree on the exact rate for 2026 specifically (some cite 4.4% continuing into 2026, others cite a drop to 4%), which this page states honestly rather than picking one -- confirm the current-year rate with the Mississippi Department of Revenue or a preparer directly. What's clear and well-documented across every source: Mississippi fully exempts qualified retirement income from state tax, with no age or income limit -- Social Security benefits, public and private pension income, IRA and 401(k)/403(b)/457(b) distributions, annuity income, and military retirement pay are all untaxed. That's a genuinely different structure from most states and a real, quantifiable factor for anyone relocating to Long Beach after retirement, though income from ongoing employment (including work income earned by seniors) remains taxable under the regular rate.

Sales Tax and Everyday Costs

Mississippi's general state sales tax rate is 7%. Under the same 2025 HB 1 legislation that cut the income tax, the state sales tax rate on groceries specifically was cut from 7% to 5%, effective July 1, 2025 -- "groceries" here means food and drink eligible for purchase with SNAP/food-stamp benefits; prepared food, restaurant meals, and other non-SNAP-eligible items remain taxed at the full 7% rate. The same legislation also raised the state gasoline excise tax in steps -- from 18 cents/gallon to 21 cents effective July 2025, 24 cents effective July 2026, and a further increase to 27 cents scheduled for July 2027 -- a real, if modest, added cost for anyone commuting along the Highway 90 / I-10 corridor between Long Beach and Gulfport or Biloxi. This research did not find Long Beach-specific water, sewer, or electricity-rate data; the city is served by standard regional utility providers along the Mississippi Gulf Coast, and a specific property's utility costs should be confirmed with the seller or the relevant provider directly rather than assumed from a statewide average.

Insurance: The Mississippi Wind Pool, Flood Coverage, and a New Mitigation Grant

Harrison County is one of six coastal Mississippi counties (along with George, Hancock, Jackson, Pearl River, and Stone) served by the Mississippi Windstorm Underwriting Association, commonly called the "wind pool" -- a not-for-profit created by the state legislature in 1987 that acts as the insurer of last resort for windstorm and hail coverage when a coastal property can't find it in the standard private market. That's a real structural fact worth knowing before shopping insurance here: wind coverage on many coastal Long Beach properties may run through this state pool rather than a standard homeowners carrier, and MWUA is raising rates 16% effective January 1, 2026 -- a confirmed, current cost increase, not a projection. Flood coverage is a separate purchase entirely: a standard Mississippi homeowners policy excludes flood damage, and coverage comes only through the National Flood Insurance Program or a private flood policy. Mississippi's statewide average NFIP premium has been reported around $538/year, but that's a state average across every flood zone in Mississippi, not a Long Beach-specific quote -- this research could not pull Long Beach's own current FEMA flood-zone maps this session because the city's official site was blocked by network egress, so get an address-specific flood-zone determination and an actual quote from a licensed Mississippi agent before budgeting a number for any specific parcel.

One genuinely useful, current data point on the mitigation side: Mississippi's Strengthen Mississippi Homes program, funded by the insurance industry at roughly $16 million a year, relaunched July 1, 2026, offering grants of up to $15,000 per home -- not loans, no repayment required -- toward retrofitting a home's roof to the IBHS FORTIFIED standard for wind resistance, and the program now covers the whole state rather than only the coastal counties it originally targeted. For a Long Beach buyer weighing an older, pre-Katrina-era roof against wind-pool premiums, that program is worth investigating directly with the Mississippi Insurance Department before assuming the full retrofit cost falls on the owner alone.

HOA and Association Costs

Long Beach is overwhelmingly older, legacy single-family housing stock along and near Highway 90 and the Mississippi Sound, rather than a market built around planned-community or condo product with mandatory HOAs. This research did not identify any dominant, city-wide HOA structure in Long Beach, though newer subdivisions built or rebuilt since Katrina may carry their own covenants and dues. Any specific listing describing an association, covenant, or shared-maintenance agreement should have its actual current dues and governing documents confirmed directly through the listing agent or a title search, rather than assumed either way from this general pattern.

Putting the Real Number Together

For a representative $237,000-$295,000 Long Beach purchase -- the honest bracket the Zillow-vs-Redfin figures above actually describe -- a realistic annual recurring-cost floor looks roughly like: $2,400-$4,000 in property tax at Long Beach's own city-level effective rate (materially higher than the $1,469 Harrison County-wide average, given the city's added school and municipal millage), reduced meaningfully for an owner-occupant who files the Mississippi homestead exemption; a homeowners policy that may route wind/hail coverage through the MWUA wind pool given the current 16%-increase rate environment, plus a separate NFIP or private flood policy sized to the specific parcel's flood zone; Mississippi's flat, currently-mid-4%-range state income tax on non-retirement income (zero on qualified retirement income); and 7% state sales tax (5% on groceries) on everyday spending. None of these figures substitutes for an actual Harrison County tax card, actual insurance quotes, and an actual comparative market analysis for a specific property -- but together they give a materially more honest starting budget than a bare purchase-price headline alone.