Swannanoa, North Carolina.
Typical home $349,009 (-5.0% in a year), asking rent $1,917 . Asheville, NC metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$948 (+107%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Down $18,362 -5%
- $367,371$349,009 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $48,901 +16%
- $300,108$349,009 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.
- Swannanoa$1,832
- North Carolina$1,743
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 23 years.
Typical home values in Swannanoa, NC fell 5.0% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Swannanoa, Buncombe County, North Carolina
Swannanoa, in Buncombe County, had 5,021 people in the 2020 census. Half its households earn more than $69,760 a year and half less, against $74,436 across Buncombe County; 17% of its people live below the poverty line. 79% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 21% are rented. Unemployment in Buncombe County was 3.2% in August 2026, and the county had 1.3% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Buncombe County work in schools and health care, then restaurants and hotels.
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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Swannanoa is a small community in Buncombe County, with a median age a little younger than many places that older homeowners might compare it to. Most homes are lived in by their owners, and household incomes run somewhat below the county's, with a sizable part of residents living below the poverty line. Winters are cold, with January the coldest month and highs and lows that stay near or below freezing overnight, while July is the warmest month, with warm but not extreme highs.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, followed by restaurants, hotels and entertainment, professional and business services, and shops. Across Buncombe County, some of the largest workplaces are Buncombe County Schools, Mission Hospital and the Veterans Health Administration. The typical commute is fairly short, and a good number of people work from home.
Things to do. The outdoors is close by. Broad River and Catawba River are both a short drive away, as is Glassmine Falls, a waterfall, and the Folk Art Center, a museum. For a longer outing, Pisgah National Forest, a protected area, is a longer drive away.
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- 1,834households
- 27%of adults have a degree
- 17%below the poverty line
- 19 mintypical commute
- 14%work from home
What people in Buncombe County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Buncombe County had 134,686 jobs in 2025, 1.3% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 48° and lows near 26°; warmest in July, with highs near 84° and lows near 62°.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Black Mountain West weather station, 2 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Buncombe County
- Buncombe County SchoolsSchool district3,445FTE
- Mission HospitalGeneral hospital3,371FTE
- Veterans Health AdministrationFederal government · Department of Veterans Affairs2,409
- County of BuncombeCommunity social service program administration1,665
- Biltmore Workforce ManagementHistorical sites1,388
- MB HaynesConstruction management, commercial and institutional building1,223
- Ingles MarketsGeneral warehousing and storage1,175
- EatonPanelboards, electric power distribution, manufacturing1,081
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 255 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 40,545 people in all across the county; Swannanoa has two of its own. School districts come from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24), hospitals from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023) and federal offices from OPM's federal workforce data (2026); 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
- LightningVery high
- Cold wavesVery high
- LandslidesRelatively high
- Strong windRelatively high
- Inland floodingRelatively high
- Ice stormsRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Swannanoa’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 Buncombe County and the Asheville, NC metro.
Swannanoa home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Swannanoa$349,009
- North Carolina$332,159
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 4 Swannanoa 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.
- Swannanoa23.80%
- United States26.90%
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Swannanoa44
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Swannanoa11
Zip codes with a Swannanoa address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Swannanoa — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.