Richlands, North Carolina.
Typical home $274,753 (+4.3% in a year), asking rent $1,663 (+5.0%). Jacksonville, NC metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$854 (+145%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $11,315 +4%
- $263,437$274,753 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $84,489 +44%
- $190,264$274,753 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.
- Richlands$1,442
- North Carolina$1,743
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 9 years.
Typical home values in Richlands, NC rose 4.3% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Richlands, NC rose 5.0% over the past year — faster than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Richlands runs $219/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $313 in Jan 2025.
That is $1,882 a month against $1,663 rent: a $1,442 mortgage payment, plus $145 property tax and $294 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Richlands
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$1,882
- Renting$1,663
- Mortgage only$1,442
Property tax · $145/mo 0.64% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Onslow County, NC
Insurance & upkeep · $294/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 Richlands, Onslow County, North Carolina
Richlands is a town of 2,287 people in Onslow County. Unemployment in Onslow County was 3.9% in August 2026, and the county had 0.4% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Onslow County work in schools and health care, then shops.
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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Richlands is a small town in Onslow County in eastern North Carolina. A good share of adults have a four-year degree, and fewer residents live below the poverty line than you might expect. Winters are milder than across much of the country, with January afternoons cool and nights close to freezing, while summers run hot. Rain and melted snow add up to a good deal over the year.
Work. Residents most often work in schools, hospitals and social care, followed by shops, then restaurants, hotels and entertainment, and professional and business services. Across Onslow County, some of the largest workplaces are Onslow County Schools, Onslow Memorial Hospital and Coastal Carolina Community College. Unemployment across the county has eased a little since a year earlier, though the county had slightly fewer jobs last year than the year before.
Things to do. For time outdoors, Onslow Beach is a beach and Hammocks Beach State Park is a protected area, both a longer drive away. The Northeast Cape Fear River, also a longer drive away, is one of the nearby rivers. For a rainy day, the Museum of the Marine is a museum a longer drive away.
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- 38%of adults have a degree
- 11%below the poverty line
What people in Onslow County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Onslow County had 53,881 jobs in 2025, 0.4% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 54° and lows near 32°; warmest in July, with highs near 90° and lows near 68°. About 55 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Richlands weather station, 2 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Onslow County
- Onslow County SchoolsSchool district3,501FTE
- Onslow Memorial Hospital MainGeneral medical and surgical hospitals1,172
- Onslow Memorial HospitalGeneral hospital883FTE
- Coastal Carolina Community CollegeTwo-year college599
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters361
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters335
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters301
- Brynn Marr HospitalPsychiatric hospital183FTE
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 88 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 7,860 people in all across the county; Richlands has two of its own. School districts come from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24), hospitals 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
- Winter weatherVery high
- LightningRelatively high
- Strong windRelatively high
- TornadoesRelatively high
- Ice stormsRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Richlands’ 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 Onslow County and the Jacksonville, NC metro.
Richlands home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Richlands$274,753
- North Carolina$332,159
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 4 Richlands listings, and the typical home goes pending in 18 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.
- Richlands25.50%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Richlands18
- United States27
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Richlands93
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Richlands33
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Richlands$277,301
- 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 Richlands address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Richlands — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.