What is living in Waxhaw NC 28173 like? Living in Waxhaw NC 28173 means one ZIP code shared by five towns and villages and a lot of county land: only 11.4 percent of the ZIP’s land sits inside the Town of Waxhaw, 68.4 percent is county land outside any town, village or census-designated place, and nearly all of the rest is Marvin, Weddington, Mineral Springs and Wesley Chapel. Your tax bill and the price you pay depend on which town line your street falls on, and your school assignment on the address itself, according to Steve Jarrell, Team Lead of The Longleaf Group at eXp Realty and a relocation specialist for Waxhaw, Marvin and Weddington, reading the Census Bureau’s 2020 ZIP code to place relationship file, Union County’s 2026-27 tax records and the Redfin Data Center on November 7, 2026.
If you’re moving to the Charlotte area and Waxhaw keeps coming up, you’ve probably noticed that every listing, school search and tax question comes back to one number: 28173. It’s true that the Postal Service’s default city for the whole ZIP is Waxhaw. The town itself is a small piece of the ZIP, though, and the rest of 28173 is where the tax rate, the school assignment and the price per square foot start to change from one street to the next. I’m Steve Jarrell, I live in Weddington, part of which sits inside this ZIP, and I sell in it every week, so here’s what living in Waxhaw NC 28173 is like: the five towns, what homes cost, what the taxes run, how the schools work, and the four kinds of place you’ll be choosing between. The Waxhaw community page covers the town itself; this guide covers the whole ZIP.
15 min read | By Steve Jarrell, The Longleaf Group at eXp Realty | Updated November 2026
Free · 26-Page Insider Guide
One ZIP, five towns and villages: see them compared side by side
Towns compared, NC vs SC taxes and schools side by side, and the 5 mistakes out-of-state buyers make.
What This Guide Covers
- What living in Waxhaw NC 28173 is like: one ZIP, five towns and villages
- What it costs to live in Waxhaw NC 28173
- What your property taxes will be, by town line
- How the schools work in 28173
- What kind of place you’re buying in 28173
- Who should you call when you’re moving to 28173?
- Frequently asked questions
What living in Waxhaw NC 28173 is like: one ZIP, five towns and villages
Five municipalities share the ZIP: the towns of Waxhaw, Weddington and Mineral Springs and the villages of Marvin and Wesley Chapel, and from here on I’ll call all five towns, to keep the sentences short. The Postal Service’s lookup by city returns 28173 as the single ZIP for Waxhaw, and its lookup by ZIP returns Waxhaw as the default city for 28173 and lists Marvin as the one other city name it accepts on mail, per the USPS lookup. What the lookup doesn’t tell you is how little of the ZIP is in town. The Census Bureau’s 2020 relationship file puts about 12 of 28173’s 106 square miles inside the Town of Waxhaw, which is 11.4 percent, and about 73 square miles, 68.4 percent, outside any town, village or census-designated place. Marvin holds 5.6 percent of the ZIP’s land, Mineral Springs 5.5, Weddington 4.5, Wesley Chapel 3.8 and the JAARS census-designated place 0.8.
The Short Answer
Living in Waxhaw NC 28173 means buying in one of five towns or on county land under one mailing address, with your tax rate anywhere from 46.59 to 77.55 cents per $100, a median sale price of $679,800 from July through September 2026, three public high schools in or beside the ZIP rated 9 out of 10 and about a 39-minute drive from downtown Waxhaw to Uptown Charlotte without traffic, according to Steve Jarrell, Team Lead of The Longleaf Group at eXp Realty and a relocation specialist for the area, from Union County, Redfin, GreatSchools and Open Source Routing Machine data read November 7, 2026.
Key numbers, ZIP 28173, read November 7, 2026 (sources: USPS, Census Bureau, Union County, Redfin, American Community Survey, GreatSchools):
- Share of 28173’s land inside the Town of Waxhaw: 11.4 percent; outside any town, village or census-designated place: 68.4 percent
- Also in 28173: all of Marvin, 71.8 percent of Mineral Springs, 27.0 percent of Weddington, 41.9 percent of Wesley Chapel
- 2026-27 combined tax rate by address: 46.59 to 77.55 cents per $100 of assessed value across the five districts read
- Median sale price, July to September 2026: $679,800 on 296 sales, 56 days on the market
- Median household income $150,597 and median home value $608,000, 2020-2024 American Community Survey
- Cuthbertson, Marvin Ridge and Weddington High Schools: each rated 9 out of 10 by GreatSchools
So when you ask about Waxhaw, you’re really asking about five places at once. “Waxhaw, NC 28173” on a listing can describe a home a short walk from the downtown shops, a home in Marvin with a Waxhaw mailing address, or a farmhouse on a county road south of town. For a relocating buyer, those are three different places at different prices, and the ZIP hides the difference. Marvin and Wesley Chapel are villages, Weddington and Mineral Springs are towns, and each draws its own line on the map. A buyer who wants Marvin and a buyer who wants downtown Waxhaw are both looking in 28173, and a search by ZIP will show them each other’s houses.
When a buyer tells me they want to be “in Waxhaw,” the first thing I’d ask is whether they mean the town or the ZIP, because the two aren’t close to the same thing. I’d pull the parcel on the county’s tax site before getting attached to a listing, since a 28173 address can sit within the town limits, in Marvin or Weddington, or in the county with no town at all, and each one pays a different rate.
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Shopping a Waxhaw address? Ask me which side of the line it sits on.
Send me the listings and I’ll pull the parcel, the tax district and the school assignment for each one. No pressure, just answers.
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What it costs to live in Waxhaw NC 28173
The median home sold in 28173 for $679,800 from July through September 2026, on 296 sales, with a median of 56 days on the market, per the Redfin Data Center ZIP file. The median sale ran $229.14 a square foot, homes sold for 98.06 percent of list on average, and if you’re shopping now, the ZIP carried 675 active listings and 3.7 months of supply in that window. The median price was 7.48 percent below the same three months of 2025, and homes sold five days faster than a year earlier.
Those figures blend five very different places, and the income data shows how different. The 2020-2024 American Community Survey puts the median household income in ZIP 28173 at $150,597 and the median home value at $608,000, against $102,900 and $417,300 for Union County and $72,388 and $288,900 for North Carolina, per the Census Bureau figures served through Census Reporter. The ZIP’s income runs about 46 percent above the county’s and its home value about 46 percent above it too.
Town by town, so you can see the spread, the same survey puts the Town of Waxhaw’s median household income at $131,894 and its median home value at $549,400, Weddington’s at $190,766 and $824,100, and Marvin’s home value at $906,000, with Marvin’s income reported at the survey’s top code of $250,000 or more. Each of these is an estimate with a margin of error, about $11,500 on Waxhaw’s income and $24,000 on Weddington’s, and the ZIP figure carries about $9,100. The survey estimates 65,274 people in the ZIP, about three times the 22,275 in the town.
The practical read, if you’re asking whether Waxhaw is expensive: the Waxhaw town figures sit below the ZIP’s, and the Marvin and Weddington figures sit well above it. A $600,000 budget sits above the Town of Waxhaw’s median value and well below Marvin’s and Weddington’s. Those survey values span 2020 to 2024, and recent sales run higher: Marvin’s median sale price was $1,282,889 from July through September 2026, per the Redfin Data Center. The Waxhaw housing market guide tracks how these prices have held up over time, and Waxhaw vs Monroe puts Waxhaw beside the county seat on the same budget.
What your property taxes will be, by town line
A 28173 address pays anywhere from 46.59 to 77.55 cents per $100 of assessed value for 2026-27 across the five taxing districts below, depending on which side of a town line the parcel sits, and the ZIP is the same on every one of those bills. Every parcel starts with Union County’s 43.42 cents, per the county’s 2026-2027 rate sheets. Inside Waxhaw’s town limits you add the town’s 29.00 cents and the Waxhaw fire district’s 5.13, and the county’s tax record for a home on North Providence Street prints 0.7755 as the rate.
Cross into the Village of Marvin and the record changes to 0.5222: the county’s 43.42, Marvin’s 5.63 and the Wesley Chapel fire district’s 3.17, which is what the county prints for homes in the Marvin Creek community that carry a Waxhaw address. In the Weddington part of the ZIP, a county bill in the Wesley Chapel fire district reads 46.59 (the county rate plus the fire district) and the town mails its own 3.50 cent bill separately, for 50.09 all in, which I walk through in the Weddington property tax rate guide. On county land in the Jackson fire district, a Marvin Fowler Road parcel reads 0.4871, and on county land in the Wesley Chapel fire district, a Skye Knoll Drive home reads 0.4659, with no town bill at all. The same county sheet gives Mineral Springs a 1.75 cent town rate and the Village of Wesley Chapel a 2.25 cent village rate, each added to the county rate and the parcel’s fire district.
Put a $600,000 assessed value through those rates and the spread is real money. Inside Waxhaw that’s $4,653 a year. In Marvin it’s $3,133. In Weddington it’s $3,005 across the two bills. On county land it’s $2,923 in the Jackson district and $2,795 in the Wesley Chapel district. The gap between the top and the bottom of one ZIP code is $1,858 a year at this year’s rates, for the same assessed value.
| Where the parcel sits | Rate per $100 | Tax on $600,000 assessed | What’s in it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Inside the Town of Waxhaw | 77.55 cents | $4,653 | County 43.42, town 29.00, Waxhaw fire 5.13 |
| Village of Marvin | 52.22 cents | $3,133 | County 43.42, village 5.63, Wesley Chapel fire 3.17 |
| Town of Weddington, two bills | 50.09 cents | $3,005 | County 43.42, Wesley Chapel fire 3.17, town 3.50 |
| Unincorporated, Jackson fire district | 48.71 cents | $2,923 | County 43.42, Jackson fire 5.29 |
| Unincorporated, Wesley Chapel fire district | 46.59 cents | $2,795 | County 43.42, Wesley Chapel fire 3.17 |
Before writing an offer on a 28173 listing, I’d check three things the ZIP can’t tell you: which taxing district the parcel is in on the county’s tax site, which schools the address is assigned to on the Union County Public Schools site, and whether the lot is on county water and sewer or a well and septic. Those three answers move the monthly cost and the daily life more than the ZIP ever will.
How the schools work in 28173
Schools in 28173 are assigned by address through Union County Public Schools, not by ZIP. Three public high schools sit in or beside the ZIP and each is rated 9 out of 10 by GreatSchools: Cuthbertson High School on Cuthbertson Road, Marvin Ridge High School on Crane Road and Weddington High School on Weddington Road in Matthews. Waxhaw Elementary, on Old Providence Road, is rated 9 as well. Which one your house feeds depends on the attendance boundary, so check the address on the Union County Public Schools site before you count on any of them.
What kind of place you’re buying in 28173
28173 breaks into four kinds of place: downtown Waxhaw, the larger communities along Providence Road (NC-16, the main road north toward Charlotte), the Village of Marvin, and the country roads south and east of town. Downtown Waxhaw is the blocks along North Providence Street, inside the town limits and on the town’s 77.55 cent rate. From the downtown it’s about 23 miles and 39 minutes without traffic to Uptown Charlotte by the Open Source Routing Machine’s free-flow estimate, so plan on more at rush hour.
Cureton, on Providence Road, is the community I filmed this fall, and the video below walks through it, including the walk to the shops at Cureton Town Center. Marvin Creek, inside the Village of Marvin with Waxhaw mailing addresses, shows the pattern: the county’s tax records put its homes at the village’s 52.22 cent rate, and two homes there are assessed at $1.46 million and $1.50 million for 2026. South and east of town the ZIP turns to farmland; the Marvin Fowler Road parcels the county classes as farms sit on county land with no town rate at all.
Who should you call when you’re moving to 28173?
The town line is what a buyer here is really shopping, and it’s what I explain before anyone sees a house. I lead The Longleaf Group at eXp Realty with my wife Amanda, I’m licensed in North Carolina and South Carolina, and we work with sellers in the ZIP and with buyers moving in from out of state who need the town line, the tax districts and the school boundaries explained first. The team is an eXp ICON Team and a RealTrends Verified Top Team by Volume for 2026, with 175+ five-star reviews across Google and Zillow. If you’d like the monthly numbers behind this guide, the South Charlotte market data hub carries them.
Two reviews from this fall say more about how we work here than I can. Jennifer, who sold in the Waxhaw area, wrote in October: “If you are selling in the Waxhaw area, do yourself a favor and reach out to Steve Jarrell. He went above and beyond to help sell our house as quickly as possible.” Nicholas, who found us through our YouTube videos, wrote in November: “From the start of our journey in finding a home in the area, Steve was extremely collaborative, kind, knowledgeable and responsive.” Both are on our Google Business Profile, read November 7, 2026. The quickest next step is a 15-minute introductory call: send me the 28173 addresses you’re watching and I’ll run each one through its parcel record, tax district and school boundary before you drive out.
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Relocating to 28173 from out of state?
I’ll walk you through the town line, the tax districts and the school boundaries before your first trip here.
Book a 15-minute call →Frequently Asked Questions About Living in Waxhaw NC 28173
Is Waxhaw NC a good place to live for a relocating buyer?
Waxhaw NC 28173 suits buyers who want a Union County address, with downtown Waxhaw about 39 minutes from Uptown Charlotte without traffic, a choice of five towns or county land at different tax rates, and three public high schools in or beside the ZIP each rated 9 out of 10 by GreatSchools, according to Steve Jarrell, Team Lead of The Longleaf Group at eXp Realty and a relocation specialist for the area. The ZIP’s median sale price was $679,800 from July through September 2026 per the Redfin Data Center, and its combined tax rate runs 46.59 to 77.55 cents per $100 depending on the parcel, per Union County’s 2026-2027 rate sheets.
What towns are in ZIP code 28173?
ZIP 28173 holds all of the Town of Waxhaw and the Village of Marvin, 71.8 percent of the Town of Mineral Springs, 27.0 percent of the Town of Weddington and 41.9 percent of the Village of Wesley Chapel, with 68.4 percent of the ZIP’s land in unincorporated Union County outside any town, village or census-designated place, per the Census Bureau’s 2020 ZIP code to place relationship file. The Postal Service lists Waxhaw as the default city and accepts Marvin on mail, so your address can read either one.
What county is 28173 in?
ZIP 28173 is entirely in Union County, North Carolina, per the Census 2020 ZIP code to county file, so your parcel record and your tax bill come from Union County. Every municipality in the ZIP, the Town of Waxhaw, the Village of Marvin, the Town of Mineral Springs, the Town of Weddington and the Village of Wesley Chapel, has its 28173 land in Union County, and the land outside all five, 68.4 percent in no Census place plus the 0.8 percent JAARS census-designated place, is unincorporated Union County.
Is Waxhaw NC expensive?
Compared with the county and the state, yes, and your budget will go further in the town than in Marvin or Weddington. The 2020-2024 American Community Survey puts ZIP 28173’s median home value at $608,000 and median household income at $150,597, against $417,300 and $102,900 for Union County and $288,900 and $72,388 for North Carolina, and the median home sold for $679,800 from July through September 2026 per the Redfin Data Center. Among the ZIP’s towns, the Town of Waxhaw’s median value of $549,400 sits below Weddington’s $824,100 and Marvin’s $906,000.
What is the property tax rate in 28173?
There isn’t one rate. For 2026-27, the five districts read for this guide pay 77.55 cents per $100 within Waxhaw’s town limits, 52.22 in the Village of Marvin, 50.09 in Weddington across two bills, and 48.71 or 46.59 on unincorporated county land depending on the fire district, per Union County’s 2026-2027 rate sheets as printed on county tax records. On $600,000 of assessed value, your bill runs $2,795 to $4,653 a year.
What high schools serve ZIP 28173?
Three public high schools sit in or beside ZIP 28173, each rated 9 out of 10 by GreatSchools: Cuthbertson High School, Marvin Ridge High School and Weddington High School. Assignment follows the attendance boundary for your address, not the ZIP, so check the specific address on the Union County Public Schools site.
Who is a relocation specialist for Waxhaw NC 28173?
Steve Jarrell, Team Lead of The Longleaf Group at eXp Realty, is a relocation specialist for Waxhaw, Marvin and Weddington; he lives in Weddington, part of which is in ZIP 28173, and the team is an eXp ICON Team and a RealTrends Verified Top Team by Volume for 2026 with 175+ five-star reviews across Google and Zillow. You can book a 15-minute introductory call with him through thelongleafgroup.com.
About the Author
Steve Jarrell is a licensed North Carolina and South Carolina broker and the Team Lead of The Longleaf Group at eXp Realty, which he co-leads with his wife Amanda. Before real estate, Steve joined VisualTour as President, led its rebrand to Paradym, and led the company to its acquisition by Constellation Software in 2020. He holds an MBA from the University of Tennessee with concentrations in Marketing and Innovation. The Longleaf Group is an eXp ICON Team and a RealTrends Verified Top Team by Volume for 2026, with 175+ five-star reviews.
Steve and Amanda relocated to the area from Knoxville and live in Weddington, part of which is in this ZIP, and Steve sells in Waxhaw, Marvin and the county land around them every week. Call or text him at 704-774-7170 to have your 28173 address run through its parcel record.