Morehead City, North Carolina.
Typical home $413,025 (+1.4% in a year), asking rent $1,858 (+4.2%). Morehead City, NC metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,222 (+129%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $5,817 +1%
- $407,207$413,025 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $92,440 +29%
- $320,584$413,025 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.
- Morehead City$2,168
- North Carolina$1,743
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 14 years.
Typical home values in Morehead City, NC rose 1.4% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Morehead City, NC rose 4.2% over the past year — faster than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Morehead City runs $899/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $1,055 in Nov 2024.
That is $2,757 a month against $1,858 rent: a $2,168 mortgage payment, plus $147 property tax and $442 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Morehead City
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$2,757
- Renting$1,858
- Mortgage only$2,168
Property tax · $147/mo 0.43% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Carteret County, NC
Insurance & upkeep · $442/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 Morehead City, Carteret County, North Carolina
Morehead City is a town of 9,556 people in Carteret County. Half its households earn more than $56,233 a year and half less, against $72,322 across Carteret County; 18% of its people live below the poverty line. 47% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 53% are rented. Unemployment in Carteret County was 3.1% in August 2026, and the county had 2.4% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then finance and property.
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. Morehead City is a coastal North Carolina town where residents are older than in many places, and more people rent their homes than own them. Incomes run below Carteret County's as a whole, and a good number of households live below the poverty line, even though typical home values and rents are high. Winters are mild, with almost no snow, summers are hot, and the year brings a fair amount of rain.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, with banks, insurance and property, restaurants and hotels, and professional and business services also employing a good share. Among the town's largest workplaces are Carteret County General Hospital, Carteret Community College and Walmart. Commutes are short, and unemployment across Carteret County has eased a little over the past year as the number of jobs has grown.
Things to do. Fort Macon State Park, a protected area, and Bogue Banks, a beach, are both a short drive away. The North Carolina Maritime Museum is also close by, and Cape Lookout National Seashore, a protected stretch of coast, is a longer drive.
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- 5,169households
- 36%of adults have a degree
- 18%below the poverty line
- 18 mintypical commute
- 12%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Carteret County had 25,622 jobs in 2025, 2.4% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 55° and lows near 36°; warmest in July, with highs near 86° and lows near 74°. About 61 inches of rain a year, and little or no snow.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Morehead City Wnw weather station, under a mile away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Morehead City
- Carteret County General Hospital COMGeneral hospital957FTE
- Carteret Community CollegeTwo-year college508
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters348
- Bally Refrigerated BoxesCoolers, refrigeration, manufacturing247
- Morehead CityCity and town managers' offices237
- Lowe's Companies, INCHomecenter162
- Harris Teeter Supermarkets, Inc.Supermarkets and other grocery stores101
- Lowes FoodsGrocery stores82
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 13 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 2,819 people in all. Hospitals come from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023) and colleges from IPEDS (NCES, 2023–24); 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
- HurricanesVery high
- Coastal floodingRelatively high
- Winter weatherRelatively high
- Ice stormsRelatively moderate
- Lightningrelatively high in parts of Morehead CityRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Morehead City’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively high. 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 Carteret County and the Morehead City, NC metro.
Morehead City home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Morehead City$413,025
- 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 4 Morehead City listings, and the typical home goes pending in 21 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.
- Morehead City27.00%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Morehead City21
- United States24
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Morehead City105
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Morehead City27
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Morehead City$421,826
- 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 Morehead City address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Morehead City — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.