Carrboro, North Carolina.
Typical home $412,896 (-3.5% in a year), asking rent $1,564 (+2.9%). Durham-Chapel Hill, NC metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,186 (+121%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Down $14,963 -3%
- $427,859$412,896 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $79,337 +24%
- $333,559$412,896 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.
- Carrboro$2,167
- North Carolina$1,743
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 16 years.
Typical home values in Carrboro, NC fell 3.5% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Carrboro, NC rose 2.9% over the past year — in step with the nation.
Owning the typical home in Carrboro runs $1,357/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $1,604 in Jan 2025.
That is $2,921 a month against $1,564 rent: a $2,167 mortgage payment, plus $312 property tax and $442 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Carrboro
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$2,921
- Renting$1,564
- Mortgage only$2,167
Property tax · $312/mo 0.91% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Orange County, NC
Insurance & upkeep · $442/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 Carrboro, Orange County, North Carolina
Carrboro is a town of 21,295 people in Orange County. Half its households earn more than $85,743 a year and half less, against $90,089 across Orange County; 12% of its people live below the poverty line. 44% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 56% are rented. Unemployment in Orange County was 3.5% in August 2026, and the county had 1.4% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then professional services.
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. Carrboro is a town beside Chapel Hill, in Orange County, with a young population by national standards. Far more adults here hold a four-year degree than in most places, and more households rent than own their homes. Incomes run a little below the county's, and winters are cool, with only a dusting of snow, while summers get hot and rain falls fairly evenly through the year.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, and in professional and business services, with shops, restaurants and hotels close behind. Among the largest workplaces in Carrboro are Fleet Feet Sports Development Company, J Street and Fleet Feet. A fair number of people work from home, and the typical commute is a short one.
Things to do. In or beside town, the Ackland Art Museum and Playmakers Theatre offer art and live performance, and the Chapel Hill Museum is close by as well. A short drive away, the North Carolina Botanical Garden has walking paths and native plantings. For a day out on the water, Jordan Lake is a longer drive away.
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- 9,474households
- 70%of adults have a degree
- 12%below the poverty line
- 23 mintypical commute
- 27%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Orange County had 79,536 jobs in 2025, 1.4% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 51° and lows near 29°; warmest in July, with highs near 90° and lows near 69°. About 3 inches of snow and 49 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Chapel Hill West weather station, a mile away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Carrboro
- Fleet Feet Sports Development CompanyFootwear, specialty sports, stores1,146
- J StreetAthletic equipment and supply stores1,021
- Fleet FeetAthletic equipment and supply stores122
- Harris Teeter Supermarkets, Inc.Supermarkets and other grocery stores82
- CarrboroMail and parcel delivery69
- Fitch Lumber Company48
- The StratfordAssisted-living facilities with on-site nursing facilities41
- AT&TWired telecommunications carriers38
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 10 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 2,632 people in all. 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 weatherrelatively high in parts of CarrboroRelatively moderate
- Lightningrelatively high in parts of CarrboroRelatively moderate
- Inland floodingrelatively high in parts of CarrboroRelatively moderate
- TornadoesRelatively moderate
- Strong windRelatively 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 Carrboro’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 Orange County and the Durham-Chapel Hill, NC metro.
Carrboro home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Carrboro$412,896
- 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 3 Carrboro listings — the market is roughly in balance.
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.
- Carrboro28.85%
- United States26.90%
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Carrboro34
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Carrboro14
Zip codes with a Carrboro address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Carrboro — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.