Boone, North Carolina.
Typical home $483,803 (+1.0% in a year), asking rent $2,259 . Boone, NC metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,476 (+139%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $4,593 +1%
- $479,210$483,803 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $105,453 +28%
- $378,350$483,803 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.
- Boone$2,539
- North Carolina$1,743
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 14 years.
Typical home values in Boone, NC rose 1.0% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Owning the typical home in Boone runs $954/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $1,111 in Oct 2025.
That is $3,213 a month against $2,259 rent: a $2,539 mortgage payment, plus $156 property tax and $518 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Boone
The owning line is the typical home's monthly payment at that month's rate, plus property tax and insurance & upkeep; the renting line is the typical asking rent; the grey line is the mortgage payment on its own. Same homes, same months, both ways of paying for a roof.
- Owning all in$3,213
- Renting$2,259
- Mortgage only$2,539
Property tax · $156/mo 0.39% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Watauga County, NC
Insurance & upkeep · $518/mo insurance, maintenance and repairs together, from the BLS Consumer Expenditure Survey — the national figure for mortgaged homeowners, scaled to this market's home value. BLS publishes the three bundled and they cannot be split.
Both are priced off the same month's home value, so they rise with the market. Neither is a quote — a specific home's bill depends on its assessment, its age and its insurer.
Living in Boone, Watauga County, North Carolina
Boone is a town of 19,092 people in Watauga County. Half its households earn more than $30,065 a year and half less, against $51,693 across Watauga County; 51% of its people live below the poverty line. 26% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 74% are rented. Unemployment in Watauga County was 3.7% in August 2026, and the county had 2.1% fewer 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. Boone is a young town, with a median age far below what you would find in most places, and a large share of its adults hold a four-year degree. Most homes are rented rather than lived in by their owners, incomes sit well below the county's, and a good many residents live below the poverty line. Typical home values and rents are both high for an area like this, and the daily commute to work is short.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, followed by restaurants, hotels and entertainment, and then shops. Watauga Medical Center is the largest workplace in town, and Walmart and Lowe's of Boone are also among the biggest. Unemployment across Watauga County is unchanged from a year earlier, though the county has fewer jobs than it did the year before.
Things to do. Daniel Boone Native Gardens is a botanical garden in or beside town, and Appalachian Ski Mountain, a ski area, is close by as well, which suits the snowy winters here. A short drive away are Elk Knob State Park, a protected area, and Julian Price Memorial Park. Winters are cold, with snow most years, and summers stay mild and warm.
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- 5,975households
- 57%of adults have a degree
- 51%below the poverty line
- 16 mintypical commute
- 10%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Watauga County had 24,591 jobs in 2025, 2.1% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 41° and lows near 22°; warmest in July, with highs near 79° and lows near 58°. About 26 inches of snow and 59 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Boone Southeast weather station, a mile away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Boone
- Watauga Medical CenterGeneral hospital682FTE
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters294
- Lowe's Companies, INCHomecenter189
- Publix Super MarketsSupermarkets and other grocery stores176
- Harris Teeter Supermarkets, Inc.Supermarkets and other grocery stores146
- Lowes FoodsGrocery stores95
- Carolina Cabin Rentals90
- Food LionGrocery stores88
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 14 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 1,397 people in all. Hospitals come from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023); 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
- Cold wavesVery high
- LandslidesRelatively high
- Ice stormsRelatively high
- Inland floodingRelatively high
- LightningRelatively high
- Strong windRelatively high
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Boone’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 Watauga County and the Boone, NC metro.
Boone home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Boone$483,803
- North Carolina$332,159
- United States$366,157
Levy by levy, and a check of one home’s own bill, the site covers Ohio’s property tax.
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 4 Boone listings, and the typical home goes pending in 43 days — the market is cooling.
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.
- Boone26.71%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Boone43
- United States27
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Boone216
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Boone47
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Boone$466,320
- United States$371,407
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
- Boone96.65%
Zip codes with a Boone address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Boone — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.