Saluda, North Carolina.
Typical home $357,076 (-1.5% in a year). Asheville, NC metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,113 (+146%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Down $5,416 -1%
- $362,492$357,076 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $75,947 +27%
- $281,129$357,076 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.
- Saluda$1,874
- North Carolina$1,743
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 14 years.
Typical home values in Saluda, NC fell 1.5% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Saluda, Polk County, North Carolina
Saluda is a city of 631 people in Polk County. Half its households earn more than $52,137 a year and half less, against $67,758 across Polk County. 84% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 16% are rented. Unemployment in Polk County was 3.1% in August 2026, and the county had 2.9% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Polk County work in schools and health care, then professional services.
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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Saluda is a very small city, home to far fewer people than most places that carry the name, and its residents are older than in most of the country. Almost everyone owns the home they live in, and incomes in town run below the county's as a whole. A good share of adults hold a four-year degree. Winters are cold, with only a little snow, and summers are warm; rain and melted snow fall fairly generously through the year.
Work. People who live here work mainly in schools, hospitals and social care, with others in professional and business services, shops and the building trades. Across Polk County, the largest workplaces include Polk County Schools, Tryon Equestrian Properties and AdventHealth Polk. Unemployment across the county is lower than a year earlier, and the county has added jobs over the past year. A typical commute is a fairly long one.
Things to do. Pearson's Falls, a waterfall, lies in or beside town. A short drive away is the Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site, a protected area. Farther afield, a longer drive brings you to Pisgah National Forest, another protected area, and to Bridal Veil Falls, a waterfall.
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- 301households
- 54%of adults have a degree
- 28 mintypical commute
What people in Polk County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Polk County had 5,598 jobs in 2025, 2.9% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 50° and lows near 32°; warmest in July, with highs near 86° and lows near 69°. About 5 inches of snow and 64 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Tryon weather station, 6 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Polk County
- Polk County SchoolsSchool district359FTE
- Tryon Equestrian PropertiesHorse show promoters with facilities313
- ACTS Retirement-Life Communities - Tryon EstatesContinuing care retirement communities268
- AdventHealth Polk256
- St Lukes HospitalCritical access hospital198FTE
- White Oak Manor Tryon623110 nursing care facilities140
- Food LionGrocery stores72
- Saber HealthcareNursing homes69
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 12 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 1,316 people in all across the county; Saluda has one of its own. School districts come from the Common Core of Data (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
- LandslidesRelatively high
- Ice stormsRelatively high
- LightningRelatively high
- Strong windRelatively high
- Cold wavesRelatively moderate
- TornadoesRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Saluda’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 Polk County and the Asheville, NC metro.
Saluda home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Saluda$357,076
- North Carolina$332,159
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 6 Saluda listings — the market is heating up.
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.
- Saluda16.41%
- United States26.90%
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Saluda43
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Saluda8
Zip codes with a Saluda address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Saluda — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.