Willow Spring, North Carolina.
Typical home $400,646 (-0.6% in a year), asking rent $1,998 . Raleigh-Cary, NC metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,139 (+118%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Down $2,281 -1%
- $402,926$400,646 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $64,040 +19%
- $336,606$400,646 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.
- Willow Spring$2,103
- North Carolina$1,743
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 20 years.
Typical home values in Willow Spring, NC fell 0.6% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Willow Spring, Wake County, North Carolina
The Census does not count Willow Spring on its own, so the figures here are Wake County's. Half the county's households earn more than $105,768 a year and half less; 8% of the county's people live below the poverty line. 64% of the county's homes are lived in by their owners and 36% are rented. Unemployment in Wake County was 3.1% in August 2026, and the county had 1.9% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Wake County work in professional services, then schools and health care.
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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Willow Spring is a town in Wake County, North Carolina, where most homes are lived in by their owners rather than rented. Typical home values run high for the state, and a larger share of the county's adults than most places hold a four-year degree. Winters are cold, summers are hot, and rain and melted snow fall steadily through the year.
Work. Across Wake County, more residents work in professional and business services than in any other field listed, followed by schools, hospitals and social care, retail, and manufacturing. Jobs grew over the past year, and unemployment is lower than it was a year earlier. Many residents make the trip to work by car, and a sizable share work from home.
Things to do. Sunset Lake is a reservoir a short drive away, a quiet spot for a walk by the water. Neills Creek, a river also a short drive away, offers another easy outing. For a longer trip, the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences is one of the best known museums in the state, a longer drive away.
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- 460,175households
- 37.3median age
- 57%of adults have a degree
- 8%below the poverty line
- 25 mintypical commute
- 29%work from home
What people in Wake County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Wake County had 665,775 jobs in 2025, 1.9% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 52° and lows near 28°; warmest in July, with highs near 88° and lows near 67°. About 51 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Garner weather station, 8 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Wake County
- Wake County SchoolsSchool district19,736FTE
- North Carolina State University at RaleighUniversity or college10,022
- Wakemed Raleigh CampusGeneral hospital7,838FTE
- AmazonGeneral warehousing and storage4,595
- REX HospitalGeneral hospital3,987FTE
- Wake Technical Community CollegeTwo-year college2,389
- Duke Raleigh HospitalGeneral hospital2,059FTE
- Department of Health and Human ServicesReferral services for personal and social problems1,707
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 1,038 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 147,288 people in all. School districts come from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24), colleges from IPEDS (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
- HailRelatively high
- Inland floodingRelatively high
- Heat wavesRelatively high
- TornadoesRelatively high
- LightningRelatively high
- Ice stormsRelatively high
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms across Wake County, 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 Wake County and the Raleigh-Cary, NC metro.
Willow Spring home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Willow Spring$400,646
- North Carolina$332,159
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 3 Willow Spring 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.
- Willow Spring34.66%
- United States26.90%
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Willow Spring63
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Willow Spring21
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Willow Spring$397,148
- United States$371,407
Zip codes with a Willow Spring address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Willow Spring — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.