From realtor.com:
To find the most affordable beach towns for homebuyers in 2023, we started by using a federal listing of beaches and their locations. We aggregated Realtor.com listing data for every home put on the market in the past year located within a one-mile radius of each beach. We then selected the most affordable beach towns by price per square foot. Only locations with at least 50 properties within a mile of the water in the past year were included.
We limited our list to just one beach town per state to ensure geographical diversity. And although we did favor places on the ocean, we also included a few bayside locales.
Despite what you may have assumed, in some places, a home by the beach can cost about the same as an average U.S. home—or less. So let’s dive in.