Bailey, North Carolina.
Typical home $274,495 (+0.8% in a year). Rocky Mount, NC metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$849 (+144%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $2,291 +1%
- $272,203$274,495 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $64,188 +31%
- $210,306$274,495 since Sep 2021
Monthly payment to buy the typical home
Home value × that month's 30-year mortgage rate, 20% down, principal and interest. This is the line households feel: prices and rates compound each other.
- Bailey$1,441
- North Carolina$1,743
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 13 years.
Typical home values in Bailey, NC rose 0.8% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Bailey, Nash County, North Carolina
Bailey is a town of 568 people in Nash County. Unemployment in Nash County was 4.6% in August 2026, and the county had 1.9% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Nash County work in schools and health care, then manufacturing.
Written by AI Claude Sonnet 5.5 wrote this on 23 October 2026 from the figures here, a list of nearby places and what it knows. It can be wrong or out of date.
What it’s like
The place. Bailey is a very small town in Nash County, North Carolina, where people tend to know one another and daily life moves at an unhurried pace. Fewer adults here hold a four-year degree than is typical across the country. Winters are cool and only lightly snowy, with January the coldest month and nights that dip to around freezing, while summers turn hot, with July the warmest month. Rain falls fairly evenly through the year, and snow is occasional and light.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, with manufacturing, shops and the building trades also employing many. Across Nash County, some of the largest workplaces are the Cummins-Rocky Mount Engine Plant, Nash County Public Schools and Nash Hospitals. Commutes are on the longer side, since many people drive some distance to their jobs, and few work from home. Unemployment across the county is lower than it was a year ago, and the county has added jobs over the past year.
Things to do. Buckhorn Reservoir is a short drive away and offers a place to spend time by the water. A longer drive brings you to the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, and the Triangle Metro Zoo is also a longer drive away. Both make a full day out for visitors of any age.
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- 15%of adults have a degree
- 26 mintypical commute
- 7%work from home
What people in Nash County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Nash County had 40,231 jobs in 2025, 1.9% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 52° and lows near 33°; warmest in July, with highs near 90° and lows near 71°. About 2 inches of snow and 50 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Wilson Southwest weather station, 11 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Nash County
- Cummins-Rocky Mount Engine PlantEngines, natural gas, manufacturing1,924
- Nash County Public SchoolsSchool district1,817FTE
- Nash HospitalsGeneral hospital1,602FTE
- Barnhill Contracting CompanyOverpass construction1,012
- EdwardsHeating, ventilation and air-conditioning contractors625
- First Carolina ManagementHotel management services497
- HoneywellAircraft engine and engine parts manufacturing428
- Nash Community CollegeTwo-year college424
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 96 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 12,006 people in all across the county; Bailey has none of its own. School districts come from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24), hospitals from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023) and colleges from IPEDS (NCES, 2023–24); FTE marks full-time equivalent staff. Not listed: many offices and banks, which need not report to OSHA; military bases, whose staff OPM withholds; and, in about half the states, city and county governments.
Natural hazards
- Winter weatherVery high
- TornadoesRelatively high
- DroughtRelatively moderate
- HurricanesRelatively moderate
- HailRelatively moderate
- Heat wavesRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Bailey’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively low. It is meant for planning, not a substitute for a local risk assessment or a flood map: FEMA’s index.
From the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2020 census and its American Community Survey (2020–2024 five-year estimates), and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. A survey, so each figure has a margin of error, and figures it is not sure of are left out. More on Nash County and the Rocky Mount, NC metro.
Bailey home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Bailey$274,495
- North Carolina$332,159
- United States$366,157
When this market ran hot
Each cell is that month's year-on-year home-value growth. Read left to right, top row is the latest year — the 2021–22 band is the boom.
Market heat, inside the city limits
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Bailey17
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Bailey4
Zip codes with a Bailey address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Bailey — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.