Sylva, North Carolina.
Typical home $328,320 (-1.3% in a year), asking rent $1,275 . Cullowhee, NC metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,021 (+145%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Down $4,318 -1%
- $332,638$328,320 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $76,521 +30%
- $251,798$328,320 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.
- Sylva$1,723
- 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 Sylva, NC fell 1.3% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Sylva, Jackson County, North Carolina
Sylva is a town of 2,578 people in Jackson County. Half its households earn more than $44,086 a year and half less, against $55,815 across Jackson County; 19% of its people live below the poverty line. Unemployment in Jackson County was 3.5% in August 2026, and the county had 33.1% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Jackson 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Sylva is a small town in western North Carolina and the county seat of Jackson County. Household incomes here run below the county's as a whole, and a good share of residents live below the poverty line. A four-year degree is held by a fair number of adults, and very few work from home. Winters are cold, with freezing nights in January and a little light snow; summers are warm, and rain and melted snow fall steadily through the year.
Work. Most residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, followed by restaurants, hotels and entertainment, and then shops. Harris Regional Hospital and Jackson County Public Schools are among the largest workplaces in town, and Skyland Care Center is another. Unemployment in Jackson County is low and has barely changed from a year ago, and the county has added many more jobs than it had the year before.
Things to do. Scott Creek runs in or beside town, and the larger outdoors sit a longer drive away. Great Smoky Mountains National Park is the best known of them, and Pisgah National Forest is a protected area of woods and trails. Waterfall lovers can head for Dry Falls, also a longer drive from town.
Report a mistake
- 1,028households
- 31%of adults have a degree
- 19%below the poverty line
- 3%work from home
What people in Jackson County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Jackson County had 19,262 jobs in 2025, 33.1% more 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 85° and lows near 63°. About 4 inches of snow and 54 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Cullowhee weather station, 5 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Sylva
- Harris Regional HospitalGeneral hospital547FTE
- Jackson County Public SchoolsSchool district545FTE
- Lowe's Companies, INCHomecenter152
- Skyland Care CenterNursing homes151
- Jackson Paper Manufacturing CompanyPaperboard manufacturing116
- Ingles MarketsSupermarkets and other grocery stores92
- UPSCouriers and express delivery services84
- Food LionGrocery stores79
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 8 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 743 people in all. Hospitals come from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023) and school districts from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24); 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
- Inland floodingVery high
- Strong windRelatively high
- LandslidesRelatively moderate
- Ice stormsRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Sylva’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 Jackson County and the Cullowhee, NC metro.
Sylva home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Sylva$328,320
- North Carolina$332,159
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 6 Sylva 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.
- Sylva17.92%
- United States26.90%
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Sylva138
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Sylva22
Zip codes with a Sylva address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Sylva — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.