Sparta, North Carolina.
Typical home $244,897 (-0.4% in a year).
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$756 (+143%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Down $1,034 -0%
- $245,931$244,897 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $57,911 +31%
- $186,986$244,897 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.
- Sparta$1,285
- North Carolina$1,743
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 13 years.
Typical home values in Sparta, NC fell 0.4% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Sparta, Alleghany County, North Carolina
Sparta is a town of 1,834 people in Alleghany County. Half its households earn more than $42,454 a year and half less, against $47,172 across Alleghany County; 22% of its people live below the poverty line. Unemployment in Alleghany County was 3.5% in August 2026, and the county had 0.9% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Alleghany 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Sparta is a small mountain town in Alleghany County, North Carolina, where people tend to know one another. Household incomes in town run below the county's, and a good share of residents live below the poverty line. Winters are cold, with highs in the low part of the scale for most of the country and a fair amount of snow, while summers are warm and the year brings plenty of rain and melted snow.
Work. Most residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, with manufacturing, shops and professional and business services also employing many. Some of the largest workplaces in Sparta are Alleghany County Schools, Alleghany Memorial Hospital and Napco, which makes folding boxes from paperboard. Jobs across the county slipped slightly last year, and unemployment in the county is a little lower than it was a year earlier. Commutes are short.
Things to do. Stone Mountain State Park, a protected area, is a short drive away and the closest of the well-known outdoor places. A longer drive brings you to the New River, one of the best known rivers in the region, and to Grayson Highlands State Park, another protected area. Cascade Falls, a waterfall, is also a longer drive away.
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- 957households
- 21%of adults have a degree
- 22%below the poverty line
- 15 mintypical commute
What people in Alleghany County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Alleghany County had 3,404 jobs in 2025, 0.9% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 44° and lows near 22°; warmest in July, with highs near 84° and lows near 62°. About 19 inches of snow and 57 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Sparta Ssw weather station, 4 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Sparta
- Bottomley Evergreens & FarmsVegetable and potato farming, vegetable dominant crops, field, bedding plants and seed production625
- Alleghany County SchoolsSchool district227FTE
- Lotus Village Center for Nursing and RehabilitationSkilled nursing facilities130
- NapcoFolding boxes made from purchased paperboard90
- Alleghany Memorial HospitalCritical access hospital81FTE
- Food LionGrocery stores74
- SpartaMail and parcel delivery27
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 5 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 946 people in all. 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
- Cold wavesVery high
- Ice stormsRelatively high
- LightningRelatively high
- Inland floodingRelatively high
- Strong windRelatively high
- LandslidesRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Sparta’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively high. 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 Alleghany County.
Sparta home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Sparta$244,897
- North Carolina$332,159
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 5 Sparta listings — 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.
- Sparta21.55%
- United States26.90%
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Sparta66
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Sparta13
Zip codes with a Sparta address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Sparta — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.