Roaring River, North Carolina.
Typical home $207,737 (+9.1% in a year). North Wilkesboro, NC metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$636 (+140%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $17,361 +9%
- $190,376$207,737 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $50,925 +32%
- $156,811$207,737 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.
- Roaring River$1,090
- 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 Roaring River, NC rose 9.1% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Roaring River, Wilkes County, North Carolina
The Census does not count Roaring River on its own, so the figures here are Wilkes County's. Half the county's households earn more than $51,721 a year and half less; 17% of the county's people live below the poverty line. 74% of the county's homes are lived in by their owners and 26% are rented. Unemployment in Wilkes County was 3.7% in August 2026, and the county had 0.2% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Wilkes County work in schools and health care, then manufacturing.
Written by AI Claude Haiku 5.5 wrote this on 22 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Roaring River is a town in Wilkes County, North Carolina, and across the county most homes are lived in by their owners. Winters are cold, with January the coldest month, while summers are warm, snow is light, and rain and melted snow add up over the year. The typical resident is in middle age, and a share of households live below the poverty line.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, manufacturing, shops, or restaurants, hotels and entertainment. Across Wilkes County, unemployment has eased over the past year, while the number of jobs has edged down slightly. Relatively few people work from home.
Things to do. North Wilkesboro Speedway, a race track a short drive away, is one of the closest places to visit. Moravian Falls, a waterfall a longer drive away, and Stone Mountain State Park, a protected area also a longer drive away, lie further afield. The Roaring River itself runs in or beside town.
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- 27,107households
- 45.7median age
- 17%of adults have a degree
- 17%below the poverty line
- 26 mintypical commute
- 9%work from home
What people in Wilkes County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Wilkes County had 18,897 jobs in 2025, 0.2% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 49° and lows near 23°; warmest in July, with highs near 87° and lows near 65°. About 3 inches of snow and 49 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Elkin weather station, 8 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Wilkes County
- Wilkes County SchoolsSchool district1,218FTE
- Tyson FarmsPoultry processing1,159
- Wilkes Community CollegeTwo-year college693
- Wrmc Hospital OperatingGeneral hospital539FTE
- Tyson PoultryPoultry processing324
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters307
- EcmdHome centers, building materials279
- Jeld-WenWood window and door manufacturing196
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 48 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 5,649 people in all. School districts come from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24), colleges 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
- Ice stormsRelatively high
- Inland floodingRelatively moderate
- Strong windRelatively moderate
- Cold wavesRelatively moderate
- TornadoesRelatively moderate
- LightningRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms across Wilkes County, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively moderate. 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 Wilkes County and the North Wilkesboro, NC metro.
Roaring River home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Roaring River$207,737
- North Carolina$332,159
- United States$366,157
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
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
Not enough data to draw this yet.
Zip codes with a Roaring River address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Roaring River — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.