Type "homes for sale Jackey's Creek Leland" into a search bar this week and you will get two answers that have nothing to do with each other. One is an established neighborhood of brick ranch homes and cul-de-sacs tucked south of the Andrew Jackson Highway near Belville Elementary and Riverwalk Park, where a handful of listings still qualify for USDA financing and several lots carry no HOA at all. The other is a 1,440-acre site between U.S. 17 and N.C. 133, next to Brunswick Forest and Mallory Creek, where a development group called Jackey's Creek Investors LLC is planning up to 6,000 homes, a new elementary school, and a connector road with a roundabout. Same name, same town, two locations far enough apart that confusing them would send a house hunter to the wrong side of Leland entirely.
That mix-up is a small symptom of a bigger problem. Leland's median home price is not one market. It is a blend of at least three different housing tiers stitched together under a single ZIP code, and right now that blend is shifting fast enough that no two sources can agree on what the number even is.
The number that won't sit still
Pull four real estate data sources from this same stretch of 2026 and you get four different Leland medians. Movoto put the May 2026 sold-home median at $409,995, then showed a June 2026 median list price of $402,000. Zillow's home value estimate, updated July 31, 2026, showed $388,757. A separate market tracker using verified MLS data through July 2026 put the median sale price at $414,792. All four numbers describe the same May-through-July window in the same small town.
Some of that spread is just methodology. Zillow's figure is a value index built from estimated property values, not actual closed sales, which is a different measurement than a median sale price. Movoto's two numbers differ because one tracks what sold and the other tracks what's currently listed. But even after you account for the math, a $26,000 gap between the low and high estimate in the same season is wide for a single town of roughly 25,000 people. The real reason is that Leland's housing stock does not behave like one market. It behaves like three, and the median is the average of all of them mashed together.
Same town, three different housing markets
Leland's master-planned communities alone span an enormous range. Brunswick Forest, a 4,500-acre community with its own golf course, fitness centers, and a town center anchored by Lowe's Foods, currently prices homes from the mid-$300s to over $1 million, with homesites starting in the $80s for buyers who want to build. Magnolia Greens, built around a 27-hole golf course and mature landscaping, positions itself as the more affordable golf-community option. Mallory Creek Plantation, known locally as one of the more convenient neighborhoods for grocery runs and quick trips into Wilmington, appeals to first-time buyers and young families looking for newer construction without the master-planned price tag. Across these communities, annual HOA dues alone range from roughly $700 to $7,700, which tells you the amenity packages are not remotely comparable even before you look at square footage.
| Community | General price positioning | What it's built around |
|---|---|---|
| Brunswick Forest | Mid-$300s to $1M+ | Golf, town center, fitness, 4,500 acres |
| Magnolia Greens | More affordable golf community | 27-hole course, established landscaping |
| Mallory Creek Plantation | Entry-level to mid-range | Convenience, family appeal, newer construction |
| Waterford of the Carolinas | Mid-range | Lakes, sidewalks, community pool |
| Compass Pointe | Upper-mid to resort-style | Gated, indoor/outdoor pools, lazy river, wellness center |
A buyer comparing "Leland" to a neighborhood in Wilmington or Hampstead is really comparing an average across this entire table, plus older, non-HOA neighborhoods that don't show up on the glossy community brochures at all. That is the first hidden mechanism behind the confusing median.
The name that means two different addresses
The second mechanism is the Jackey's Creek naming collision, and it matters more than it sounds like it should, because it is about to get more confusing, not less.
The older Jackeys Creek sits off River Road SE, close to Riverwalk Park and Belville Elementary, in an established pocket of Leland with a mix of custom brick homes, some no-HOA sections, and price points that have historically served first-time buyers and long-term owners rather than luxury shoppers.
The new Jackey's Creek is a different animal in a different part of town. According to reporting from the Wilmington business journal WilmingtonBiz, the site spans more than 1,440 acres between U.S. 17 and N.C. 133, sitting directly next to Brunswick Forest and Mallory Creek. The Town of Leland annexed more than 1,100 of those acres in September 2025, bringing the full project under municipal planning jurisdiction, and the development could eventually hold up to 6,000 residential units along with commercial space for retail, office, and medical uses. Hill Rogers, broker in charge at Cameron Management and a managing member of Jackey's Creek Investors LLC, described the project's positioning bluntly: "We're a byproduct of what's happened with Brunswick Forest and Mallory Creek, and it's great."
The Brunswick County Schools board has already approved a new 750-student elementary school inside the development, and the town is reimbursing developers for a portion of the Brunswick Village Boulevard North Extension Project, which will add a new entrance off U.S. 17 and a roundabout to manage the added traffic.
None of that has anything to do with the older neighborhood carrying the same name. If you are searching listings and see "Jackeys Creek" without checking the exact address, you could be looking at an established brick home a mile from the river or an unbuilt homesite in a development still years from full buildout, and the price, commute, and HOA structure will differ enormously depending on which one you found.
What 6,000 new homes will actually do to the median
Here is where the median problem and the naming problem meet. Once vertical construction begins at the new Jackey's Creek, it will add supply at a scale large enough to move Leland's median in a real way, but not evenly. Early phases in a project this size typically launch with entry-level and mid-range product to build momentum, then shift toward larger, pricier homes as amenities and infrastructure mature. That means the development's effect on Leland's median will look different in year one than in year five, and a buyer reading a "Leland median price" three years from now will be reading a number shaped partly by which phase of Jackey's Creek happened to be selling that quarter.
This is the same dynamic that already makes today's median hard to trust. As reported by an agent-performance tracker using verified MLS data through July 2026, Leland's median days on market has climbed to 81 days, a jump of 46 days compared to a year earlier, while the sale-to-list ratio sits at 98.51 percent and about a third of active listings have needed at least one price reduction. Those numbers describe a market where sellers are still getting close to their asking price, but buyers have more time to shop and compare, which is exactly the environment where understanding what you're actually comparing matters most.
What this means if you're shopping by neighborhood, not by median
If you are treating Leland's median price as a single data point to weigh against Wilmington, Hampstead, or Oak Island, you are comparing an average of very different products. A more useful approach is to identify which tier of Leland you are actually shopping in.
- If you want resort-style amenities and are comfortable with higher HOA dues, Brunswick Forest and Compass Pointe are the relevant comparisons, not the townwide median.
- If you want newer construction at a more attainable price with lighter HOA obligations, Mallory Creek Plantation and Grayson Park are closer benchmarks.
- If you're looking at anything labeled Jackeys Creek or Jackey's Creek, confirm the exact street address and whether the listing sits in the established neighborhood near Riverwalk Park or the new development site off U.S. 17, because the two carry different price histories, different HOA structures, and different timelines for finished amenities.
Reading the address, the HOA disclosure, and the phase of construction will tell you more about what you're actually buying than any citywide median ever will.
FAQ
Is the new Jackey's Creek development the same place as the older Jackeys Creek neighborhood? No. The established neighborhood sits near Belville Elementary and Riverwalk Park off River Road SE. The new 1,440-acre development sits between U.S. 17 and N.C. 133 next to Brunswick Forest and Mallory Creek. They share a name but not a location.
Will 6,000 new homes at Jackey's Creek bring prices down elsewhere in Leland? It's too early to say with certainty. Large master-planned developments typically add supply gradually across multiple phases, and the effect on nearby resale prices depends on how quickly homes come online and what price points each phase targets.
Why do different websites report different median prices for Leland? Because they pull data from different time windows and use different methods. Some report a median of actual closed sales for a specific month, others use value estimates, and Leland's mix of housing types means the number shifts noticeably depending on which properties are included.
If you're trying to figure out which part of Leland actually fits your budget and your plans, that's a conversation worth having with someone who tracks these neighborhoods street by street rather than by citywide average. Anna Sillery can walk you through the current inventory in Brunswick Forest, Mallory Creek, the older Jackeys Creek neighborhood, and everywhere in between, and help you compare what your money actually buys in each one. Schedule a consultation to start the conversation.
