Selma, North Carolina.
Typical home $271,589 (+0.5% in a year), asking rent $1,598 . Raleigh-Cary, NC metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$821 (+136%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $1,259 +0%
- $270,331$271,589 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $43,853 +19%
- $227,737$271,589 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.
- Selma$1,426
- North Carolina$1,743
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 20 years.
Typical home values in Selma, NC rose 0.5% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Selma, Johnston County, North Carolina
Selma is a town of 6,317 people in Johnston County. 43% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 57% are rented. Unemployment in Johnston County was 3.1% in August 2026, and the county had 7.5% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in shops, 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Selma is a small town in Johnston County, North Carolina, where residents are younger than in many American towns. More households rent their homes than own them, and a four-year degree is less common among adults here than across the country. Winters are mild and rarely bring snow, summers run hot, and rain falls steadily through the year.
Work. Many residents work in shops, in schools, hospitals and social care, in manufacturing and in the building trades. Eagle Transport, Browe Construction Company and Food Lion are among the largest workplaces in Selma. Commutes are long, and few people work from home.
Things to do. The Ava Gardner Museum is a short drive away. Farther afield, the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences is a museum a longer drive away, and Bentonville Battlefield is an archaeological site, also a longer drive away. Buckhorn Reservoir, a reservoir, is another longer drive for a day by the water.
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- 3,040households
- 14%of adults have a degree
- 25%below the poverty line
- 32 mintypical commute
- 8%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Johnston County had 65,551 jobs in 2025, 7.5% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 54° and lows near 31°; warmest in July, with highs near 92° and lows near 71°. About 1 inches of snow and 49 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Smithfield weather station, 3 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Selma
- Eagle TransportGeneral freight trucking, local138
- Browe Construction CompanyPavement, highway, road, street, bridge or airport runway, construction102
- Food LionGrocery stores70
- NsewFarm supplies merchant wholesalers68
- Quality Oil CoPipeline transportation of crude oil28
- Tractor Supply Company StoreGeneral merchandise stores23
- SelmaMail and parcel delivery22
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 7 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 451 people in all. 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
- Winter weatherVery high
- TornadoesRelatively high
- DroughtRelatively moderate
- HailRelatively moderate
- HurricanesRelatively moderate
- LightningRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Selma’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 Johnston County and the Raleigh-Cary, NC metro.
Selma home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Selma$271,589
- North Carolina$332,159
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 3 Selma listings — 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.
- Selma31.72%
- United States26.90%
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Selma62
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Selma17
Zip codes with a Selma address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Selma — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.