Beaufort, North Carolina.
Typical home $421,958 (+3.4% in a year), asking rent $1,800 . Morehead City, NC metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,297 (+141%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $13,905 +3%
- $408,053$421,958 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $101,136 +32%
- $320,821$421,958 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.
- Beaufort$2,215
- 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 Beaufort, NC rose 3.4% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Beaufort, Carteret County, North Carolina
Beaufort is a town of 4,464 people in Carteret County. 53% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 47% are rented. Unemployment in Carteret County was 3.1% in August 2026, and the county had 2.4% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then restaurants and hotels.
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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Beaufort is a small coastal town on the North Carolina shore, and its residents are older than in most places. Fewer homes are lived in by their owners than across much of the country, and typical home values run high. Winters are mild and cool rather than harsh, summers are hot, and the year brings plenty of rain.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, followed by restaurants, hotels and entertainment, shops, and professional and business services. Among the largest workplaces in Beaufort are Carteret County Public Schools, Food Lion and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. A good number of people work from home, and across Carteret County unemployment has edged down over the past year.
Things to do. In or beside town, the North Carolina Maritime Museum and the Queen Anne's Revenge archaeological site speak to the area's seafaring past, and Fort Macon State Park is a protected area close by. A longer drive brings you to Cape Lookout National Seashore, a protected stretch of coast.
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- 2,553households
- 40%of adults have a degree
- 11%below the poverty line
- 22%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Carteret County had 25,622 jobs in 2025, 2.4% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 55° and lows near 38°; warmest in July, with highs near 87° and lows near 74°. About 56 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Beaufort Michael J Smith Field weather station, under a mile away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Beaufort
- Carteret County Public SchoolsSchool district1,059FTE
- Food LionGrocery stores61
- National Oceanic and Atmospheric AdministrationFederal government · Department of Commerce53
- Thomas Simpson Construction CoExcavating, earthmoving, or land clearing contractors32
- Tiller SchoolSchool district30FTE
- East Hardwood CompanyBuilding materials supply dealers28
- BeaufortMail and parcel delivery23
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 4 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 144 people in all. School districts come from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24) and federal offices from OPM's federal workforce data (2026); 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
- HurricanesVery high
- Coastal floodingRelatively high
- Winter weatherRelatively high
- Ice stormsRelatively moderate
- Lightningrelatively high in parts of BeaufortRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Beaufort’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively high. 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 Carteret County and the Morehead City, NC metro.
Beaufort home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Beaufort$421,958
- North Carolina$332,159
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 5 Beaufort listings, and the typical home goes pending in 41 days — the market is heating up.
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
Share of listings with a price cut
The early-warning dial: sellers cut when buyers stop reaching. Rising cuts cool a market months before prices notice.
- Beaufort21.38%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Beaufort41
- United States24
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Beaufort94
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Beaufort24
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Beaufort$456,443
- United States$371,407
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
- Beaufort96.43%
Zip codes with a Beaufort address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Beaufort — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.