The Real Cost of Owning Property on Tybee Island, Georgia

The Headline Price -- and a Market That Is Cooling in Speed, Not in Price

Redfin's Tybee Island housing-market page reports a median sale price of $730,000 over the trailing three months as of June 2026, up 16.7% from the same period a year earlier -- a genuinely large year-over-year gain. Price per square foot tells the same story: $438, up 10.6% year-over-year. Earlier reporting shows this wasn't a one-quarter blip -- Rocket Homes' March 2025 report already had Tybee's median sold price at $722,500, up 11.2% year-over-year at that point -- so the appreciation trend spans well over a year of reporting, not a single data point.

What's changed is speed, not direction. The same Redfin data shows homes now averaging 125 days on market, nearly double the 66 days a year earlier, and Redfin itself characterizes the current Tybee market as "not very competitive." Read together, that's a market where sellers are still getting meaningfully more money, but buyers are taking longer to commit -- plausibly connected to the insurance, renourishment-funding, and short-term-rental uncertainty covered later on this page, though this research did not find a source that explicitly ties the slower pace to any one of those causes. Treat the longer time-on-market as a real, current fact worth factoring into a purchase timeline, not as evidence the price trend has reversed.

Property Tax: County, City, and School Millage, Combined

Georgia counties, including Chatham, assess property at 40% of fair market value, and a property owner's actual bill layers together several separate millage rates: Chatham County's own general fund (10.518 mills for 2025), a Special Service District rate (6.502 mills for 2025) that applies to unincorporated and some municipal areas, a Chatham Area Transit millage, the City of Tybee Island's own municipal millage, and the Savannah-Chatham County school system's millage. Tybee's own city millage rate has held flat at 3.542 mills across the 2025 and 2026 tax years, per the Chatham County Tax Commissioner's published millage document and the city's own public notices -- Tybee's mayor and council specifically framed the 2026 rate as unchanged from 2025 even as the underlying digest grew.

This research did not compile a single, confirmed combined-millage total specific to Tybee Island parcels (the school-board component in particular wasn't independently verified this session), so rather than construct a from-scratch mills-times-assessed-value number, this page uses the blended effective rate that third-party trackers publish for the county as a whole: SmartAsset's Georgia property tax data puts Chatham County's average effective property tax rate at roughly 1.06% of fair market value, with other trackers citing figures in the 1.06%-1.10% range. Applying that range to Tybee's own $730,000 median sale price gives a realistic first-year property tax estimate of roughly $7,700 to $8,000 per year. For a more modest $450,000 condo purchase, the same rate range works out to roughly $4,770 to $4,950 per year.

One caveat matters specifically for this market: those effective-rate figures are county-wide averages that include Georgia's standard homestead exemption benefit for owner-occupied primary residences. A large share of Tybee purchases are second homes or vacation-rental investment properties rather than primary residences, and non-homestead property does not get that exemption reduction -- so the full, unreduced rate is the more realistic planning number for most buyers here, not a homestead-discounted one. Get an actual parcel-specific estimate from the Chatham County Tax Commissioner's office before budgeting a specific purchase; a seller's current tax bill reflects their own homestead status and purchase-price basis, not necessarily yours.

Flood Insurance: Required in Practice, Not Optional

Standard Georgia homeowners insurance policies exclude flood damage entirely, everywhere in the state -- this is not a Tybee-specific quirk, but it lands differently on a barrier island where flooding is a real, recurring event rather than a remote possibility. Tybee sits substantially within federally mapped Special Flood Hazard Areas, and the City of Tybee Island maintains its own dedicated Flood Information for Homeowners page specifically because this trips up buyers relocating from inland markets. Coverage against flood damage comes only through a separate policy -- typically the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), though private flood-insurance alternatives also exist in some coastal Georgia markets. This page does not state a specific premium dollar figure, because NFIP and private flood premiums vary substantially by a parcel's specific flood-zone designation, elevation certificate, and construction type; get an actual quote for the specific property before budgeting.

Windstorm Coverage: Private and Surplus-Lines Market, No Dedicated Georgia Wind Pool

Georgia's barrier islands -- Tybee, St. Simons, Jekyll, Sea Island, and Cumberland -- sit within Wind Zone 2 as designated by the state Office of the Commissioner of Insurance and Safety Fire, reflecting genuine elevated hurricane and wind exposure along this stretch of coast. Unlike South Carolina, which runs the South Carolina Wind and Hail Underwriting Association, or North Carolina, which runs the NC Insurance Underwriting Association (commonly called the Beach Plan) as insurer-of-last-resort programs specifically for coastal wind and hail risk, this research did not find evidence of an equivalent dedicated state wind pool serving Chatham County or the Georgia coast generally. In practice, that means coastal Georgia homeowners access windstorm coverage through the standard private insurance market, or -- particularly for higher-value oceanfront property -- through surplus lines carriers, at what industry sources describe as elevated premiums relative to inland Georgia. No specific Tybee premium figure is stated here, since none was independently confirmed this session; get an actual quote before relying on any generic coastal-Georgia estimate.

Short-Term Rental Compliance Costs Are a Real, Ongoing Line Item

Any Tybee property operated as a rental for stays under 30 days needs a city-issued Short-Term Rental certificate, valid on a calendar-year basis (January 1 through December 31) and requiring annual renewal, normally due by March 31 -- extended to May 31 for the 2026 renewal cycle. Beyond the certificate fee itself, a June 2024 ordinance made those certificates non-transferable on a change of ownership through sale, death, or marriage, meaning a buyer purchasing a property that currently operates as an STR cannot simply assume the existing certificate carries over -- confirm current transferability rules and any pending 2026 ordinance changes directly with the city before assuming rental income is available from day one of ownership. See the investment-outlook page for the fuller picture of what the 2026 proposed rezoning means for rental-income planning specifically -- a property-owner group's lawsuit challenging the STR ordinance (Tybee Alliance v. City of Tybee Island) was dismissed in the city's favor on August 6, 2026, but the underlying zoning/cap question is still unresolved.

Utilities and General Cost of Living: A Genuine Gap in This Research

This research did not compile specific, current utility rate data (electric, water/sewer, or municipal service fees) for Tybee Island this session, and none is invented here. Coastal Georgia barrier-island properties typically carry higher-than-inland water and sewer infrastructure costs given the marsh-and-sand terrain, and Tybee's municipal government -- not a private well/septic setup -- provides water and sewer service on the island, but a specific current rate schedule wasn't confirmed. Get actual current utility rates directly from the City of Tybee Island's public works or utility billing department before budgeting monthly carrying costs for a specific property.

Putting a Realistic Annual Cost Picture Together

For a purchase near Tybee's current $730,000 median: expect roughly $7,700-$8,000 per year in property tax at the full (non-homestead) rate, a mandatory separate NFIP or private flood policy priced to the specific parcel's flood-zone status, a windstorm policy sourced from the private or surplus-lines market given the absence of a dedicated state wind pool, and -- if rental income is part of the plan -- an annual STR certificate renewal plus the real possibility that the applicable zone cap or transferability rules shift again before closing. None of these figures substitutes for an actual county tax estimate, actual insurance quotes for the specific parcel, and direct confirmation of that property's current STR eligibility with the City of Tybee Island -- but together they give a far more honest starting budget than the purchase price alone.