Elizabeth City, NC
Elizabeth City merits investigation by yield-focused buyers who can tolerate weak employment and hurricane wind exposure; buyers seeking strong labor-market support or low climate risk should avoid it.
Why this market scores where it does
Written from the figures on this page and then checked against them: every number below had to appear in the source record or recompute from two that did, or the text was rewritten.
Elizabeth City merits investigation by yield-focused buyers who can tolerate weak employment and hurricane wind exposure; buyers seeking strong labor-market support or low climate risk should avoid it. The median home value is $274,779, median asking rent is $1,597, and gross yield is 6.98%.
Rent growth of 3.48% exceeds price growth of 2.61%, an opportunity for current income. Net migration was positive by 122 households, but employment fell 1.67%, so incoming households do not remove demand risk. Rent consumes 28.79% of median income, limiting room for aggressive increases.
Buyers may have negotiating leverage: listings take 57 days and 16.1% record price drops. Yet supply is not plainly constrained, with 7.54 permits per thousand residents. Underwriting should test actual achievable rent, vacancy resilience, insurance terms, and wind-loss exposure before treating the headline yield as durable.
Frequently Asked Investor Questions
Does the market offer enough gross income relative to the typical purchase price?
Are migration and employment pointing in the same direction?
How much negotiating evidence is visible in the housing market?
Investor Quick Takeaways
Computed from the current Zillow rent and home-value medians.
Zillow ZORI rent growth trend over trailing 12 months.
Originated investment purchase share (CFPB HMDA).
Annualized loss ratio evaluated for flood & hurricane risk.
Test the market, then test the deal
Keep Elizabeth City as the starting point or move into a more specific property and rent check.
The current market in eight signals
Fast-moving Redfin conditions sit beside the slower fundamentals so a buyer can separate today's negotiating climate from the long-run investment case.
What each component measures
Weights are published, not hidden, and the arithmetic is shown. Five components, each measured as a national percentile across all tracked metros.
| Signal | Score | Weight | Points |
|---|---|---|---|
| Job growth | 13 | 30% | 3.90 |
| Rent trend | 53 | 25% | 13.25 |
| Affordability | 26 | 15% | 3.90 |
| Supply pressure | 29 | 15% | 4.35 |
| Climate risk | 26 | 15% | 3.90 |
| Published score | 29 | ||
Employment fell 1.67% year over year -> tenant demand and rent collections lack support from current job growth, even though tax filings show 122 more households moving in than out.
Median asking rent rose 3.48% to $1,597, versus a $1,216 fair-market rent for a two-bedroom unit -> the rent signal supports income potential, but buyers should verify that the target property's size and condition justify market asking levels.
A $274,779 median value equals 4.13 times median household income, while rent absorbs 28.79% of income -> purchase affordability is strained relative to local earnings, and tenants may have limited capacity for further increases.
There were 308 permits, equal to 7.54 per thousand residents, while for-sale inventory stood at 3.1 months -> new construction and available listings should be examined by submarket rather than assuming scarcity will protect occupancy or pricing.
The hurricane wind loss ratio is 0.1881% of building value annually -> insurance pricing, deductibles, exclusions, and property-level mitigation can materially change the net return.
What this market costs and what it earns
Every derived ratio below recomputes from the same source record used by the article and score.
What is being built, and for whom
Permits are the 12-to-24 month early warning. The total matters less than the mix: apartments compete with a rental the day they open.
Demand, and the competition for it
Tax filings say how many households moved and what they earn; mortgage disclosures say how many local purchases went to someone who will not live there. Moves between counties inside this metro are netted out of both flow figures.
What would make this a bad buy
Generated from the same figures with the instruction to argue against the score, and published unedited. A page that only agrees with itself is an advertisement.
Three ways the case breaks
- Employment contracted 1.67% year over year, which may weaken tenant demand, payment reliability, or turnover economics despite positive net migration.
- Rent already equals 28.79% of median household income, leaving less evidence-based room to raise rents without testing local tenant budgets and competing listings.
- Hurricane wind exposure carries a 0.1881% annual building-value loss ratio, and the record does not publish insurance premiums, deductibles, exclusions, or property-specific mitigation costs.
Move from the metro average to local evidence
County pages carry tax, migration, listing and hazard records. City pages appear only where direct city price, rent and Census evidence pass the publication gate.
No city in this metro has passed the current city evidence gate.
Metros that behave like Elizabeth City
Nearest neighbours on price level, income, yield and job growth — not on geography. Every market page gets a different peer set, which is the point.
| Metro | Score | Price | Rent | Yield | Job Growth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Elizabeth City, NC (Target) | 29 | $275k | $1,597 | 7.0% | ▼ 1.7% |
| Fort Leonard Wood, MO | 57 | $232k | $1,180 | 6.1% | ▼ 1.4% |
| Lake City, FL | 23 | $275k | $1,546 | 6.8% | ▼ 1.1% |
| Springfield, OH | 48 | $206k | $1,213 | 7.1% | ▼ 1.7% |
| Freeport, IL | 67 | $162k | $893 | 6.6% | ▼ 2.1% |
Where every figure came from
“Checked nightly” means every source is re-pulled and re-verified each night. It does not mean every source moves nightly — the release column tells you how fresh each number can possibly be.
| Dataset Source | Method | Release Period | Pulled Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| Census ACS 5-year — household income | direct | ACS 2024 5-year | 2026-07-26 |
| Census ACS 5-year — population | direct | ACS 2024 5-year | 2026-07-26 |
| BLS CES — payroll employment | direct | CES SM current | 2026-07-26 |
| BLS LAUS — resident employment | direct | LAUS current | 2026-07-26 |
| BLS QCEW — county employment and wages | direct | annual county employment and wages 2025 vs 2024 | 2026-07-31 |
| OMB/BLS delineation — metro geography | direct | OMB July 2023 delineation | 2026-07-30 |
| Census Building Permits Survey — permitted units | direct | BPS through 2026 | 2026-07-26 |
| Census ACS 5-year — city population, households and housing | direct | ACS 2024 5-year | 2026-07-29 |
| Census ACS 5-year — county housing value, tenure and stock | direct | ACS 2024 5-year | 2026-07-30 |
| Census ACS 5-year — cities and communities | direct | ACS 2024 5-year | 2026-07-30 |
| FEMA National Risk Index — hazard loss ratios | modelled | NRI counties (FEMA ArcGIS) | 2026-07-26 |
| FHFA House Price Index — annual county appreciation | direct | annual county HPI 2025 | 2026-07-28 |
| HMDA / CFPB — purchases by occupancy type | direct | HMDA 2024 purchase originations | 2026-07-26 |
| HUD Fair Market Rents — Section 8 standard | direct | FY2026 FMR | 2026-07-26 |
| HUD USPS crosswalk and Small Area FMRs — ZIP rent fallback | direct | ZIP-CBSA 2025Q4 + SAFMR FY2026 | 2026-07-26 |
| IRS SOI — county migration and mover income | direct | SOI migration 2022-2023 | 2026-07-26 |
| Freddie Mac PMMS — mortgage rates | direct | week of 2026-07-23 | 2026-07-27 |
| Census ACS 5-year — effective property tax | direct | ACS 2024 5-year | 2026-07-27 |
| Realtor.com Economic Research — county listing inventory | direct | county inventory 2026-06 | 2026-07-28 |
| Redfin Data Center — inventory, days on market, and price cuts | direct | metro tracker through 2026-05-01 | 2026-07-26 |
| Zillow ZHVI and ZORI — county values and rents | direct | county ZHVI/ZORI 2026-06 | 2026-07-26 |
| Zillow ZHVI — metro home values | direct | Metro_zhvi_uc_sfrcondo_tier_0.33_0.67_sm_sa_month.csv | 2026-07-26 |
| Zillow ZHVI — city home values | direct | zillow_zhvi_city.csv | 2026-07-29 |
| Zillow ZORI — metro market rents | direct | Metro_zori_uc_sfrcondomfr_sm_sa_month.csv | 2026-07-26 |
| Zillow ZORI — city market rents | direct | zillow_zori_city.csv | 2026-07-29 |
| Zillow ZORI — ZIP market rents | direct | ZORI ZIP 2026-06 | 2026-07-26 |