Marion, North Carolina.
Typical home $238,929 (-2.9% in a year), asking rent $1,317 . Marion, NC metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$659 (+111%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Down $7,226 -3%
- $246,155$238,929 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $26,014 +12%
- $212,915$238,929 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.
- Marion$1,254
- North Carolina$1,743
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 30 years.
Typical home values in Marion, NC fell 2.9% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Marion, McDowell County, North Carolina
Marion is a city of 7,717 people in McDowell County. 51% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 49% are rented. Unemployment in McDowell County was 3.7% in August 2026, and the county had 0.3% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then manufacturing.
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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Marion is a small city in McDowell County, in the foothills of western North Carolina. Residents are somewhat older than the typical American, and incomes run below the county's, with a good share of households living in poverty. Owners and renters are close to evenly split, and fewer adults hold a four-year degree than across much of the country. Winters are cold, with freezing nights in January, some snow each year, and summers that turn warm in July. Rain falls generously through the year.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, with manufacturing, shops and the building trades also employing a good number. Among the largest workplaces in Marion are McDowell County Schools, McDowell Technical Community College and McDowell Hospital. Unemployment across the county is lower than it was a year earlier, and job numbers have edged up slightly. The typical commute is fairly short, and very few people work from home.
Things to do. Lake James is a reservoir a short drive away, and Lake James State Park, also close by, protects part of its shoreline. Lake Tahoma is another lake a short drive from town. Toms Creek Falls, a waterfall, is also a short drive away, and the Catawba River is a longer drive.
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- 2,869households
- 16%of adults have a degree
- 24%below the poverty line
- 22 mintypical commute
- 3%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. McDowell County had 15,394 jobs in 2025, 0.3% more 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 85° and lows near 67°. About 7 inches of snow and 57 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Marion weather station, under a mile away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Marion
- McDowell County SchoolsSchool district853FTE
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters355
- McDowell Technical Community CollegeTwo-year college246
- THE Mcdowell HospitalGeneral hospital207FTE
- Ingles MarketsSupermarkets and other grocery stores204
- Lowe's Companies, INCHomecenter137
- ToolcraftMachine shops114
- Mellott CompanyMachine shops46
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 10 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 1,235 people in all. School districts come from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24), colleges from IPEDS (NCES, 2023–24) and hospitals from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023); 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
- Strong windRelatively moderate
- TornadoesRelatively moderate
- Cold wavesRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Marion’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 McDowell County and the Marion, NC metro.
Marion home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Marion$238,929
- North Carolina$332,159
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 4 Marion 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.
- Marion22.23%
- United States26.90%
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Marion169
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Marion32
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Marion$231,713
- United States$371,407
Zip codes with a Marion address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Marion — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.