Newton, North Carolina.
Typical home $257,367 (+1.4% in a year), asking rent $1,348 . Hickory-Lenoir-Morganton, NC metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$795 (+143%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $3,580 +1%
- $253,787$257,367 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $63,448 +33%
- $193,919$257,367 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.
- Newton$1,351
- North Carolina$1,743
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 12 years.
Typical home values in Newton, NC rose 1.4% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Newton, Catawba County, North Carolina
Newton is a city of 13,148 people in Catawba County. Half its households earn more than $62,015 a year and half less, against $67,864 across Catawba County; 12% of its people live below the poverty line. 73% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 27% are rented. Unemployment in Catawba County was 3.5% in August 2026, and the county had about as many jobs in 2025 as 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Newton is a small city in Catawba County, in the western Piedmont of North Carolina. Most homes are lived in by their owners, and household incomes run a little below the county's. Winters are cool and summers are warm, with rain spread through the year and little snow to speak of.
Work. Residents work mostly in manufacturing, in schools, hospitals and social care, and in shops, restaurants and hotels. Among the largest workplaces in Newton are Catawba County Schools, Bassett Upholstery and EveryAge. Few people work from home, and the typical commute is a moderate one.
Things to do. Hickory Motor Speedway, a race track, and the Hickory Museum of Art are both a short drive away. Farther afield, Lake Norman, a large reservoir, makes a day out on the water or along the shore. Lake Norman State Park sits on that same shoreline, also a longer drive away.
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- 5,286households
- 21%of adults have a degree
- 12%below the poverty line
- 22 mintypical commute
- 6%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Catawba County had 89,369 jobs in 2025, about as many as the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 50° and lows near 31°; warmest in July, with highs near 89° and lows near 69°. About 47 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Catawba Southwest weather station, 6 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Newton
- Catawba County SchoolsSchool district1,882FTE
- Bassett UpholsteryFurniture dimension stock, hardwood, unfinished, manufacturing510
- EveryAgeContinuing care retirement communities391
- Newton Conover City SchoolsSchool district370FTE
- Flowers Baking Company of NewtonBakery products, fresh, made in commercial bakeries340
- Peoples BankBanks, federal reserve280
- Corning Optical Communications (COC) : NewtonFiber optic cable manufacturing275
- Lee Industries Plant 3Upholstered furniture, household-type, custom, manufacturing262
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 24 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 3,114 people in all. School districts come from the Common Core of Data (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
- Ice stormsRelatively high
- LightningRelatively high
- TornadoesRelatively high
- Strong windRelatively moderate
- Inland floodingRelatively 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 Newton’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 Catawba County and the Hickory-Lenoir-Morganton, NC metro.
Newton home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Newton$257,367
- 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 3 Newton listings — 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.
- Newton28.80%
- United States26.90%
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Newton107
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Newton25
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Newton$260,631
- United States$371,407
Zip codes with a Newton address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Newton — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.