Catawba, North Carolina.
Typical home $319,725 (+3.0% in a year). Hickory-Lenoir-Morganton, NC metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$987 (+143%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $9,265 +3%
- $310,460$319,725 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $78,955 +33%
- $240,770$319,725 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.
- Catawba$1,678
- North Carolina$1,743
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 12 years.
Typical home values in Catawba, NC rose 3.0% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Catawba, Catawba County, North Carolina
Catawba is a town of 702 people in Catawba County. Unemployment in Catawba County was 3.5% in August 2026, and the county had about as many jobs in 2025 as the year before. The most people in Catawba County work in manufacturing, then schools and health care.
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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Catawba is a very small town, home to far fewer people than most places with a town government. Homes here are worth more than the typical home elsewhere in the county, and household incomes in the county as a whole sit around the middle of what's seen across the state. Few adults here hold a four-year degree, and winters are cold while summers run hot, with a good deal of rain and melted snow through the year.
Work. People who live in Catawba work mostly in manufacturing, in schools, hospitals and social care, in shops, and in restaurants and hotels. Across Catawba County, some of the biggest workplaces are Catawba County Schools, Catawba Valley Medical Center and Corning Optical Communications. The typical commute is a fairly long one, and very few people work from home. Unemployment across the county has eased a little over the past year, and the number of jobs has stayed about level.
Things to do. Lake Norman State Park is a protected area a short drive away, a natural choice for a walk or a day by the water. Farther afield, Lake Norman itself is a large reservoir, and Fort Dobbs is a fort that draws those interested in the region's early history. Each of these is a longer drive away.
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- 11%of adults have a degree
- 30 mintypical commute
- 5%work from home
What people in Catawba County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Catawba County had 89,369 jobs in 2025, about as many as the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 50° and lows near 31°; warmest in July, with highs near 89° and lows near 69°. About 47 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Catawba Southwest weather station, 6 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Catawba County
- Catawba County SchoolsSchool district1,882FTE
- Catawba Valley Medical CenterGeneral hospital1,533FTE
- TargetDiscount department stores1,332
- Frye Regional Medical CenterGeneral hospital1,029FTE
- Corning Optical CommunicationsFiber optic cable made from purchased fiber optic strand1,016
- Advancepierre FoodsFrozen specialty food manufacturing891
- Catawba Valley Community CollegeTwo-year college880
- GKN AutomotiveDifferential and rear axle assemblies, automotive, truck, and bus, manufacturing857
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 241 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 37,222 people in all across the county; Catawba 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
- Ice stormsRelatively high
- LightningRelatively high
- TornadoesRelatively high
- Strong windRelatively moderate
- HailRelatively moderate
- Inland floodingRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Catawba’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 Catawba County and the Hickory-Lenoir-Morganton, NC metro.
Catawba home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Catawba$319,725
- North Carolina$332,159
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 4 Catawba 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.
- Catawba22.23%
- United States26.90%
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Catawba45
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Catawba9
Zip codes with a Catawba address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Catawba — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.