Leicester, North Carolina.
Typical home $419,675 (-2.8% in a year). Asheville, NC metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,194 (+118%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Down $12,270 -3%
- $431,945$419,675 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $73,044 +21%
- $346,631$419,675 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.
- Leicester$2,203
- North Carolina$1,743
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 18 years.
Typical home values in Leicester, NC fell 2.8% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Leicester, Buncombe County, North Carolina
Leicester is a township of 21,335 people in Buncombe County. Half its households earn more than $67,909 a year and half less, against $74,436 across Buncombe County; 11% of its people live below the poverty line. 75% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 25% are rented. Unemployment in Buncombe County was 3.2% in August 2026, and the county had 1.3% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then construction.
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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Leicester is a township in Buncombe County, western North Carolina, and most of its homes are lived in by their owners. Incomes run a little below the county's, and the typical home is worth more than many might expect for a place of this size. Winters are cold, with some snow, and summers are warm, with a fair amount of rain across the year.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, in the building trades, in shops, and in restaurants, hotels and entertainment. Across Buncombe County, some of the largest workplaces are Buncombe County Schools, Mission Hospital and the Veterans Health Administration. Many people drive a fair way to work, and some work from home.
Things to do. The Asheville Art Museum and the Botanical Gardens at Asheville are both a short drive away. For time outdoors, Pisgah National Forest, a protected area of woods and trails, is a longer drive, as is the North Carolina Arboretum, a botanical garden.
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- 7,412households
- 34%of adults have a degree
- 11%below the poverty line
- 26 mintypical commute
- 11%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Buncombe County had 134,686 jobs in 2025, 1.3% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 48° and lows near 25°; warmest in July, with highs near 83° and lows near 62°. About 10 inches of snow and 45 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Candler West weather station, 7 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Buncombe County
- Buncombe County SchoolsSchool district3,445FTE
- Mission HospitalGeneral hospital3,371FTE
- Veterans Health AdministrationFederal government · Department of Veterans Affairs2,409
- County of BuncombeCommunity social service program administration1,665
- Biltmore Workforce ManagementHistorical sites1,388
- MB HaynesConstruction management, commercial and institutional building1,223
- Ingles MarketsGeneral warehousing and storage1,175
- EatonPanelboards, electric power distribution, manufacturing1,081
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 255 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 40,545 people in all across the county; Leicester has two of its own. School districts come from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24), hospitals from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023) 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
- LightningVery high
- LandslidesRelatively high
- Cold wavesRelatively high
- Ice stormsRelatively high
- Strong windRelatively high
- Inland floodingRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms across Buncombe County, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively moderate. 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 Buncombe County and the Asheville, NC metro.
Leicester home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Leicester$419,675
- North Carolina$332,159
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 3 Leicester listings — 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.
- Leicester32.38%
- United States26.90%
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Leicester84
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Leicester14
Zip codes with a Leicester address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Leicester — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.