Ruth, North Carolina.
Typical home $184,679 (-1.9% in a year). Forest City, NC metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$465 (+92%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Down $3,632 -2%
- $188,311$184,679 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $13,381 +8%
- $171,298$184,679 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.
- Ruth$969
- North Carolina$1,743
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 46 years.
Typical home values in Ruth, NC fell 1.9% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Ruth, Rutherford County, North Carolina
Ruth is a town of 347 people in Rutherford County. Unemployment in Rutherford County was 4.1% in August 2026, and the county had 0.9% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Rutherford County work in schools and health care, then manufacturing.
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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Ruth is a very small town in Rutherford County, North Carolina, where homes are typically valued below what many buyers elsewhere would expect to pay. Fewer adults hold a four-year degree than in many places, and most people who commute have a drive of a fairly ordinary length to reach their jobs. Winters are cool and summers are hot, with rain or melted snow falling in good amounts across the year.
Work. Residents work mainly in schools, hospitals and social care, followed by manufacturing, shops and professional and business services. Across Rutherford County, some of the largest workplaces are Rutherford County Schools, Rutherford Hospital and Isothermal Community College. Very few people work from home, and unemployment across the county has eased compared with a year earlier.
Things to do. The Gilbert Town Historic District, an archaeological site, lies in or beside town. A short drive away are the Green River and Catheys Creek, both good for time by the water. A longer drive brings you to Chimney Rock State Park, a protected area known for its rock formations and views.
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- 14%of adults have a degree
- 25 mintypical commute
- 1%work from home
What people in Rutherford County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Rutherford County had 18,151 jobs in 2025, 0.9% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 52° and lows near 27°; warmest in July, with highs near 89° and lows near 67°. About 52 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Forest City West weather station, 5 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Rutherford County
- Rutherford County SchoolsSchool district1,108FTE
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters402
- Rutherford HospitalGeneral hospital390FTE
- Isothermal Community CollegeTwo-year college343
- TEP HoldingsTower, power distribution and communication, construction268
- The Timken Company210
- Town of Forest CityGeneral public administration191
- Parton Lumber CompanySawmills190
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 42 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 4,754 people in all across the county; Ruth has none 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
- Strong windVery high
- Ice stormsRelatively high
- LightningRelatively high
- TornadoesRelatively moderate
- Inland floodingRelatively moderate
- Cold wavesRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Ruth’s census tracts, 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 Rutherford County and the Forest City, NC metro.
Ruth home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Ruth$184,679
- 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.
Zip codes with a Ruth address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Ruth — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.
Zillow publishes no zip-level series with this city on the address.