Union Mills, North Carolina.
Typical home $224,246 (+1.3% in a year). Forest City, NC metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$647 (+122%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $2,876 +1%
- $221,370$224,246 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $32,828 +17%
- $191,418$224,246 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.
- Union Mills$1,177
- North Carolina$1,743
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 22 years.
Typical home values in Union Mills, NC rose 1.3% over the past year — in step with the nation.
Living in Union Mills, Rutherford County, North Carolina
The Census does not count Union Mills on its own, so the figures here are Rutherford County's. Half the county's households earn more than $51,410 a year and half less; 17% of the county's people live below the poverty line. 74% of the county's homes are lived in by their owners and 26% are rented. Unemployment in Rutherford County was 4.1% in August 2026, and the county had 0.9% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Rutherford County work in schools and health care, then manufacturing.
Written by AI Claude Haiku 5.5 wrote this on 22 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Union Mills is a small community in Rutherford County, in the western part of North Carolina, where the land rises into the foothills. Winters are cold, with January the coldest month, and summers are warm, with July the hottest. Snow is light, but rain is heavy and falls through most of the year. Across Rutherford County, most homes are lived in by their owners, and neighbors tend to know one another.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, or in manufacturing, shops and professional and business services. Jobs in the county grew slightly last year, and unemployment is lower than it was a year before. Most people still drive to a workplace rather than working from home, and the typical trip takes a fair while on local roads.
Things to do. The Catawba River, one of the best known rivers in the area, is a longer drive away and suits a day outdoors by the water. Hickory Nut Falls, a waterfall, is also a longer drive away and is a good choice for a walk among the hills. Chimney Rock State Park, a protected area, is another longer drive away and offers wide views of the surrounding country.
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- 26,642households
- 45.3median age
- 22%of adults have a degree
- 17%below the poverty line
- 26 mintypical commute
- 9%work from home
What people in Rutherford County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Rutherford County had 18,151 jobs in 2025, 0.9% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 49° and lows near 28°; warmest in July, with highs near 85° and lows near 67°. About 7 inches of snow and 57 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Marion weather station, 13 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Rutherford County
- Rutherford County SchoolsSchool district1,108FTE
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters402
- Rutherford HospitalGeneral hospital390FTE
- Isothermal Community CollegeTwo-year college343
- TEP HoldingsTower, power distribution and communication, construction268
- The Timken Company210
- Town of Forest CityGeneral public administration191
- Parton Lumber CompanySawmills190
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 42 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 4,754 people in all. School districts come from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24), hospitals from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023) and colleges from IPEDS (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
- Strong windRelatively high
- Ice stormsRelatively high
- Inland floodingRelatively moderate
- LightningRelatively moderate
- TornadoesRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms across Rutherford County, 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 Rutherford County and the Forest City, NC metro.
Union Mills home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Union Mills$224,246
- North Carolina$332,159
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 6 Union Mills 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.
- Union Mills16.02%
- United States26.90%
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Union Mills20
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
Not enough data to draw this yet.
Zip codes with a Union Mills address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Union Mills — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.