Monroe, North Carolina.
Typical home $352,279 (-0.6% in a year), asking rent $1,896 (+2.4%). Charlotte-Concord-Gastonia, NC-SC metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,075 (+139%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Down $2,264 -1%
- $354,543$352,279 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $71,885 +26%
- $280,394$352,279 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.
- Monroe$1,849
- North Carolina$1,743
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 15 years.
Typical home values in Monroe, NC fell 0.6% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Monroe, NC rose 2.4% over the past year — slower than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Monroe runs $499/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $705 in Oct 2023.
That is $2,395 a month against $1,896 rent: a $1,849 mortgage payment, plus $169 property tax and $377 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Monroe
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$2,395
- Renting$1,896
- Mortgage only$1,849
Property tax · $169/mo 0.57% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Union County, NC
Insurance & upkeep · $377/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 Monroe, Union County, North Carolina
Monroe is a city of 34,562 people in Union County. Half its households earn more than $72,540 a year and half less, against $102,900 across Union County; 13% of its people live below the poverty line. 62% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 38% are rented. Unemployment in Monroe was 4.0% in August 2026, and Union County had 5.2% more 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. Monroe is a city and the seat of Union County, North Carolina. Its residents tend to be younger than the typical American, and incomes here are well below the county's as a whole. Most homes are lived in by their owners, though renters make up a real part of the town. Winters are mild and rarely snowy, summers are hot, and rain falls steadily through the year.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, followed by the building trades, shops and manufacturing. Among the largest workplaces in Monroe are Union County Public Schools, Atrium Health Union and Tyson Farms. A typical commute is a little longer than a short drive across town, and few people work from home.
Things to do. For a day out, Carowinds is an amusement park a longer drive away, and Charlotte Motor Speedway is a race track also a longer drive away. Closer to home, creeks such as Bearskin Creek and Beaverdam Creek are a short drive away.
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- 12,620households
- 24%of adults have a degree
- 13%below the poverty line
- 30 mintypical commute
- 8%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Union County had 78,177 jobs in 2025, 5.2% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 53° and lows near 30°; warmest in July, with highs near 91° and lows near 69°. About 2 inches of snow and 48 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Monroe Southeast weather station, 3 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Monroe
- Union County Public SchoolsSchool district4,880FTE
- Brookdale Union ParkAssisted-living facilities without on-site nursing care facilities2,558
- County of UnionLegislative bodies1,707
- Tyson FarmsPoultry processing1,479
- Atrium Health UnionGeneral hospital1,371FTE
- Assa Abloy Entrance Systems USDoors, metal, manufacturing1,196
- Allegheny TechnologiesSmelting and refining of nonferrous metals, secondary1,047
- 3M Company443
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 63 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 15,401 people in all. School districts come from the Common Core of Data (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
- TornadoesRelatively high
- Strong windrelatively high in parts of MonroeRelatively moderate
- Lightningrelatively high in parts of MonroeRelatively moderate
- Inland floodingrelatively high in parts of MonroeRelatively moderate
- Winter weatherRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Monroe’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 Union County and the Charlotte-Concord-Gastonia, NC-SC metro.
Monroe home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Monroe$352,279
- North Carolina$332,159
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 3 Monroe listings, and the typical home goes pending in 43 days — 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.
- Monroe32.81%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Monroe43
- United States27
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Monroe293
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Monroe66
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Monroe$367,224
- United States$371,407
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
Not enough data to draw this yet.
Zip codes with a Monroe address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Monroe — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.
Zip codes in Monroe
| 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 28110 | Monroe | 56,971 | $1,979 | $367,683 |
| 28112 | Monroe | 28,461 | $1,803 | $350,908 |