Smithfield, North Carolina.
Typical home $289,119 (-0.4% in a year), asking rent $1,640 (+4.5%). Raleigh-Cary, NC metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$850 (+127%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Down $1,306 -0%
- $290,426$289,119 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $50,051 +21%
- $239,069$289,119 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.
- Smithfield$1,518
- North Carolina$1,743
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 18 years.
Typical home values in Smithfield, NC fell 0.4% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Smithfield, NC rose 4.5% over the past year — faster than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Smithfield runs $337/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $502 in Jan 2025.
That is $1,977 a month against $1,640 rent: a $1,518 mortgage payment, plus $150 property tax and $310 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Smithfield
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$1,977
- Renting$1,640
- Mortgage only$1,518
Property tax · $150/mo 0.62% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Johnston County, NC
Insurance & upkeep · $310/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 Smithfield, Johnston County, North Carolina
Smithfield is a town of 11,292 people in Johnston County. Half its households earn more than $43,270 a year and half less, against $83,384 across Johnston County; 27% of its people live below the poverty line. 59% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 41% 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 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. Smithfield is a town in Johnston County, North Carolina, with residents who are older than in many American places. Household incomes in town sit well below the county's, and more people live below the poverty line than is typical. Most homes are lived in by their owners, though a good number of households rent, and a four-year degree is held by a minority of adults. Winters are cool and short, with little snow, summers are hot, and rain falls through the year.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, followed by shops, restaurants and hotels, and manufacturing. Some of the largest workplaces in town are Johnston Health, Walmart and the Department of Social Services. Across Johnston County, jobs grew over the past year, and unemployment was somewhat lower than a year earlier. Most people drive to work, and few work from home.
Things to do. The Ava Gardner Museum, in or beside town, is the closest of the well-known sights and honors the film star who grew up in the area. A longer drive brings you to the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences. Also a longer drive away, Bentonville Battlefield is an archaeological site tied to the Civil War, and Buckhorn Reservoir offers a place by the water.
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- 4,951households
- 27%of adults have a degree
- 27%below the poverty line
- 24 mintypical commute
- 6%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, under a mile away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Smithfield
- Johnston HealthGeneral hospital1,308FTE
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters405
- Department of Social ServicesSocial service centers, multipurpose399
- Government Complex (County Courts, Administration)General services departments, government322
- Lowe's Companies, INCHomecenter156
- Public Health DepartmentPublic health program administration, nonoperating148
- Johnston CountyExecutive offices, federal, state, and local138
- Principle LTCNursing homes120
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 16 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 2,146 people in all. Hospitals come 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
- Winter weatherVery high
- TornadoesRelatively high
- HailRelatively moderate
- Inland floodingrelatively high in parts of SmithfieldRelatively moderate
- Strong windRelatively moderate
- LightningRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Smithfield’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 Johnston County and the Raleigh-Cary, NC metro.
Smithfield home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Smithfield$289,119
- North Carolina$332,159
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 3 Smithfield listings, and the typical home goes pending in 41 days — the market is cooling.
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.
- Smithfield38.64%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Smithfield41
- United States27
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Smithfield125
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Smithfield27
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Smithfield$296,321
- United States$371,553
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 Smithfield address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Smithfield — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.