Raleigh, North Carolina.
Typical home $424,663 (-1.7% in a year), asking rent $1,572 (+1.3%). Raleigh-Cary, NC metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,156 (+108%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Down $7,427 -2%
- $432,090$424,663 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $55,495 +15%
- $369,167$424,663 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.
- Raleigh$2,229
- North Carolina$1,743
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 25 years.
Typical home values in Raleigh, NC fell 1.7% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Raleigh, NC rose 1.3% over the past year — slower than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Raleigh runs $1,362/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $1,593 in May 2024.
That is $2,934 a month against $1,572 rent: a $2,229 mortgage payment, plus $250 property tax and $455 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Raleigh
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$2,934
- Renting$1,572
- Mortgage only$2,229
Property tax · $250/mo 0.71% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Wake County, NC
Insurance & upkeep · $455/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 Raleigh, Wake County, North Carolina
Raleigh is a city of 467,665 people in Wake County. Half its households earn more than $85,395 a year and half less, against $105,768 across Wake County; 12% of its people live below the poverty line. 51% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 49% are rented. Unemployment in Raleigh was 3.2% in August 2026, and Wake County had 1.9% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in professional services, 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. Raleigh is the capital of North Carolina and the seat of Wake County, and it is a city of a good size. Residents tend to be young, and more adults hold a four-year degree than not. Homes are about evenly split between owners and renters, and household incomes run below the county's overall. Winters are mild and cool, with only a dusting of snow in most years, and summers are hot, with a fair amount of rain through the year.
Work. Many residents work in professional and business services, in schools, hospitals and social care, in shops, and in banks, insurance and property. Among the largest workplaces in Raleigh are North Carolina State University at Raleigh, WakeMed Raleigh Campus and REX Hospital. Unemployment has eased a little over the past year, and a good number of people work from home.
Things to do. A short drive away, the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences is a good place for a rainy afternoon, and William B. Umstead State Park offers protected woodland for walking. Pullen Park, also a short drive away, is a city park for an easy outing. For a day on the water, Falls Lake is a reservoir a longer drive away.
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- 203,443households
- 54%of adults have a degree
- 12%below the poverty line
- 23 mintypical commute
- 26%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Wake County had 665,775 jobs in 2025, 1.9% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 52° and lows near 32°; warmest in July, with highs near 91° and lows near 70°. About 4 inches of snow and 49 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Raleigh State Univ weather station, 4 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Raleigh
- North Carolina State University at RaleighUniversity or college10,022
- Wakemed Raleigh CampusGeneral hospital7,838FTE
- REX HospitalGeneral hospital3,987FTE
- Duke Raleigh HospitalGeneral hospital2,059FTE
- Southern Industrial ConstructorsIndustrial equipment and machinery repair and maintenance services1,674
- City of RaleighParks, nature1,501
- Fred Smith Company- Central DivisionAsphalt paving1,034
- Advance Auto PartsAutomotive parts1,021
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 465 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 71,997 people in all. Colleges come 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
- HailRelatively moderate
- Heat wavesRelatively moderate
- Inland floodingrelatively high in parts of RaleighRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Raleigh’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 Wake County and the Raleigh-Cary, NC metro.
Raleigh home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Raleigh$424,663
- 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 Raleigh listings, and the typical home goes pending in 30 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.
- Raleigh34.55%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Raleigh30
- United States27
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Raleigh2,223
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Raleigh594
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Raleigh$431,399
- United States$371,407
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
- Raleigh98.35%
Zip codes with a Raleigh address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Raleigh — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.
Zip codes in Raleigh
| 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 27610 | Raleigh | 81,419 | $1,890 | $309,065 |
| 27616 | Raleigh | 63,520 | $1,658 | $348,330 |
| 27603 | Raleigh | 53,972 | $1,694 | $406,431 |
| 27615 | Raleigh | 46,019 | $1,501 | $533,263 |
| 27606 | Raleigh | 45,444 | $1,478 | $430,708 |
| 27613 | Raleigh | 45,235 | $1,373 | $580,326 |
| 27604 | Raleigh | 44,514 | $1,576 | $335,946 |
| 27612 | Raleigh | 41,952 | $1,478 | $563,928 |
| 27609 | Raleigh | 35,573 | $1,381 | $546,103 |
| 27614 | Raleigh | 34,226 | $1,556 | $670,503 |
| 27607 | Raleigh | 28,438 | $1,594 | $708,181 |
| 27617 | Raleigh | 20,237 | $1,538 | $429,930 |
| 27608 | Raleigh | 12,604 | $2,009 | $1,036,437 |
| 27601 | Raleigh | 9,905 | $1,706 | $493,622 |
| 27605 | Raleigh | 6,286 | $1,816 | $390,666 |