Durham, North Carolina.
Typical home $384,724 (-3.7% in a year), asking rent $1,626 (+3.2%). Durham-Chapel Hill, NC metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,073 (+113%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Down $14,768 -4%
- $399,492$384,724 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $53,344 +16%
- $331,380$384,724 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.
- Durham$2,019
- North Carolina$1,743
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 23 years.
Typical home values in Durham, NC fell 3.7% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Durham, NC rose 3.2% over the past year — faster than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Durham runs $1,060/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $1,330 in Oct 2023.
That is $2,686 a month against $1,626 rent: a $2,019 mortgage payment, plus $255 property tax and $412 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Durham
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$2,686
- Renting$1,626
- Mortgage only$2,019
Property tax · $255/mo 0.79% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Durham County, NC
Insurance & upkeep · $412/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 Durham, Durham County, North Carolina
Durham is a city of 283,506 people in Durham County. Half its households earn more than $81,619 a year and half less, against $82,316 across Durham County; 12% of its people live below the poverty line. 52% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 48% are rented. Unemployment in Durham was 3.3% in August 2026, and Durham County had 1.2% fewer 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. Durham is a large city with a young population, and a good share of adults hold a four-year degree. Household incomes sit a little below the county's, and slightly more homes are lived in by their owners than rented. Winters are cool and summers are hot, with rain spread across the year and a little snow now and then.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, with others in professional and business services, in restaurants and hotels, and in manufacturing. Among the largest workplaces in town are Duke University Hospital, GSK/ViiV and Durham Public Schools. Unemployment has eased a little over the past year, though the county has fewer jobs than it did the year before. Commutes are fairly short, and a good number of people work from home.
Things to do. In or beside town, Sarah P. Duke Gardens is a botanical garden and the Nasher Museum of Art is an art museum. A short drive away, the North Carolina Botanical Garden offers more garden walks, and Eno River State Park is a protected area along the Eno River. Falls Lake, a reservoir, is a longer drive away.
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- 126,550households
- 57%of adults have a degree
- 12%below the poverty line
- 22 mintypical commute
- 23%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Durham County had 233,836 jobs in 2025, 1.2% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 49° and lows near 28°; warmest in July, with highs near 87° and lows near 69°. About 49 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Durham weather station, 6 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Durham
- Duke University HospitalGeneral hospital10,326FTE
- GSK/ViiVDrugs merchant wholesalers5,529
- Durham Public SchoolsSchool district4,880FTE
- BCBSNC TelecommutersHealth insurance carriers, direct4,804
- Veterans Health AdministrationFederal government · Department of Veterans Affairs3,445
- City of DurhamPolice departments2,726
- Wolfspeed - DurhamDiodes, solid-state, manufacturing2,014
- Duke Regional HospitalGeneral hospital1,936FTE
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 233 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 57,337 people in all. Hospitals come from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023), school districts 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
- HailRelatively moderate
- Heat wavesRelatively moderate
- Tornadoesrelatively high in parts of DurhamRelatively moderate
- LightningRelatively moderate
- Strong windRelatively moderate
- Inland floodingrelatively high in parts of DurhamRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Durham’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 Durham County and the Durham-Chapel Hill, NC metro.
Durham home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Durham$384,724
- 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 Durham listings, and the typical home goes pending in 30 days — 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.
- Durham35.00%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Durham30
- United States27
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Durham1,177
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Durham315
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Durham$392,211
- United States$371,407
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
- Durham98.33%
Zip codes with a Durham address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Durham — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.
Zip codes in Durham
| Zip activate to sort by Zip | Place activate to sort by Place | Population sorted descending, activate to sort ascending | Rent activate to sort by Rent | Home value activate to sort by Home value |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 27703 | Durham | 63,458 | $1,805 | $376,573 |
| 27713 | Durham | 59,197 | $1,544 | $409,919 |
| 27707 | Durham | 51,274 | $1,458 | $398,492 |
| 27705 | Durham | 49,923 | $1,536 | $458,743 |
| 27704 | Durham | 40,102 | $1,741 | $301,355 |
| 27701 | Durham | 24,793 | $1,671 | $411,478 |
| 27712 | Durham | 24,299 | $2,262 | $414,902 |