Lincolnton, North Carolina.
Typical home $295,965 (+1.6% in a year), asking rent $1,376 (+5.6%). Charlotte-Concord-Gastonia, NC-SC metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$914 (+143%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $4,671 +2%
- $291,294$295,965 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $71,099 +32%
- $224,867$295,965 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.
- Lincolnton$1,553
- North Carolina$1,743
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 13 years.
Typical home values in Lincolnton, NC rose 1.6% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Lincolnton, NC rose 5.6% over the past year — faster than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Lincolnton runs $637/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $713 in Jan 2025.
That is $2,013 a month against $1,376 rent: a $1,553 mortgage payment, plus $143 property tax and $317 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Lincolnton
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$2,013
- Renting$1,376
- Mortgage only$1,553
Property tax · $143/mo 0.58% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Lincoln County, NC
Insurance & upkeep · $317/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 Lincolnton, Lincoln County, North Carolina
Lincolnton is a city of 11,091 people in Lincoln County. Half its households earn more than $46,320 a year and half less, against $80,016 across Lincoln County; 23% of its people live below the poverty line. 46% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 54% are rented. Unemployment in Lincoln County was 3.3% in August 2026, and the county had 2.5% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents 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. Lincolnton is a small city in Lincoln County, North Carolina, with a population on the younger side of middle age. Fewer homes here are lived in by their owners than across much of the country, so renting is common. Household incomes run well below the county's, and more residents live below the poverty line than you might expect, while a four-year degree is held by a minority of adults. Winters are cool and summers are hot, with only a little snow and plenty of rain through the year.
Work. Many residents work in manufacturing, in schools, hospitals and social care, in the building trades and in shops. Among the largest workplaces in Lincolnton are Ingles Markets, a supermarket, and Lowe's, a home center, along with a skilled nursing facility, sometimes called Sovereign Carolina Holdings. The county has been adding jobs, and unemployment there is a little lower than it was a year earlier. A typical commute is a fairly short drive, and some people work from home.
Things to do. Several outdoor places lie a longer drive away. Lake Norman is a large reservoir for boating and fishing, and Crowders Mountain State Park is a protected area with hiking. Kings Mountain National Military Park is a historic battlefield site, also a longer drive away.
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- 5,023households
- 24%of adults have a degree
- 23%below the poverty line
- 25 mintypical commute
- 12%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Lincoln County had 28,818 jobs in 2025, 2.5% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 51° and lows near 30°; warmest in July, with highs near 89° and lows near 67°. About 6 inches of snow and 50 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Lincolnton West weather station, 5 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Lincolnton
- Ingles MarketsSupermarkets and other grocery stores172
- Lowe's Companies, INCHomecenter151
- Sovereign Carolina HoldingsSkilled nursing facilities127
- Greens at LincolntonNursing homes98
- Hospice & Palliative Care Lincoln CountyHome health agencies87
- Lincoln County Family YMCAFitness centers86
- Food LionGrocery stores80
- Food LionGrocery stores68
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 16 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 1,185 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
- Ice stormsRelatively high
- LightningRelatively high
- Strong windRelatively high
- Inland floodingRelatively high
- TornadoesRelatively high
- HailRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Lincolnton’s census tracts, 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 Lincoln County and the Charlotte-Concord-Gastonia, NC-SC metro.
Lincolnton home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Lincolnton$295,965
- North Carolina$332,159
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 3 Lincolnton listings — the market is heating up.
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.
- Lincolnton28.85%
- United States26.90%
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Lincolnton145
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Lincolnton37
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Lincolnton$313,276
- United States$371,407
Zip codes with a Lincolnton address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Lincolnton — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.