We are excited to announce the release of our 2026 County Profiles for North Carolina and all 100 counties across the state. At the NC Housing Coalition, we believe that every North Carolinian deserves a home in which to live with dignity and opportunity. One of the ways we pursue this is through reliable research that allows us to develop user-friendly tools for others to join us in pushing this mission forward.
Our County Profiles are an accessible tool that anyone–whether you are a practitioner, service provider, policy maker, advocate, or concerned resident–can use in order to communicate the housing need in your county to a range of audiences. Our partners and members have used this resource for years in conversations with local and state elected officials, grant applications, research presentations and projects, local education and engagement efforts, and more.
For the past several years we’ve tracked the following variables to capture a broad picture of housing need:
- Housing Wage: how much a resident needs to earn per hour to afford housing
- Cost Burden: how many residents are spending more than 30% of their income on housing
- Fair Market Rent (FMR) and Annual Income Needed to afford housing at FMR
- Eviction data and Foreclosure data
- Median annual salary of firefighters, childcare providers, and construction workers to represent the average salaries of essential workers in that county
This year we’ve added Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) data to profiles in Helene-impacted counties:
- Number of FEMA Applicant Homes Damaged
- Number of FEMA Applicant Homes Destroyed
A special thank you to the NC Department of Commerce for sharing this FEMA data with us and to the NC Rural Center for their support. This data is the cleanest and most comprehensive data publicly available, but it is still an undercount of the extent of damage and destruction. It only captures households that applied for FEMA assistance. Other factors, including federal government mistrust, stereotypes about federal assistance, lack of information, and bureaucratic failures with the application process contribute to the undercount.
2026 County Profile Data Highlights
Last year, the housing wage for North Carolina was $17.88 an hour, 2.5x the minimum wage, this year the updated housing wage is $22.32 per hour, which is more than 3x the minimum wage and an increase of over four dollars per hour compared to 2025’s state housing wage.
The pattern doesn’t stop here. In many communities across the state, the housing wage – which is the hourly wage needed to afford a 2 bedroom apartment at fair market rent (FMR) IS 2.5-4.5 times higher than the minimum wage.
- There are 16 counties that have a housing wage higher than $30/hr
- There are 38 counties that have a housing wage between $20 and $30/hr
- There are 46 counties that have a housing wage between $17.79 and $20/hr
Here are the counties in North Carolina with housing wages over $30/per hour:
- $33.65 – Franklin, Johnston, Wake
- $32.94 – Currituck
- $32.90 – Chatham, Durham, Orange
- $32.87 – Gates
- $32.42 – Cabarrus, Gaston Mecklenburg, and Union
- $31.90 – New Hanover
- $30.13 – Buncombe, Henderson, Madison
When we look at salaries for occupations many of us rely on–childcare worker, construction worker, firefighters – and we compare it to the annual salary needed to afford a two-bedroom apartment at fair market rent, many of these occupations typically do not earn enough to afford that rent without being cost-burdened (paying more than 30% of their income on housing).
- In 40 counties in North Carolina one of the three occupations earn enough on average to afford a 2BD apartment at fair market rent.
- This leaves 60 counties where these occupations do not earn enough on average to afford a 2BD apartment at fair market rent.
This is one of many variables that contribute to our high levels of cost burden. And when we dig into that data for North Carolina, we consistently find that both homeowners and renters across our state are feeling the pressure. Looking at total cost burden (cost burden of both homeowners and renters) here are some of the things we found:
- Only three counties have a total cost burden rate that is less than 20%
- Thirty-four counties have a total cost burden rate over 30%
The top five highest total cost burden rates and their respective counties are as follows:
- 39% – Hertford County
- 38% – Watauga County
- 37% – Cumberland County
- 35% – Hyde County, New Hanover County, Halifax County,
- 34% – Vance County, Chowan County, Pitt County
- 33% – Orange County, Onslow County, Mecklenburg County, Bertie County
This is a big reason why the Coalition uses the four-pronged approach of Supply, Subsidy, Stability and Systems* when recommending solutions and reforms that address the housing crisis. This data not only shows us the scale of the need, but how comprehensive and intentional any policy solutions and interventions need to be. The data also shows us that this is systemic and widespread, meaning supply alone cannot fix it because wages play a major role in the need as well.
If the fair market rent is out of reach for so many North Carolinians, the average true market rent and home prices are even more out of reach. This is where we can invest in Subsidy, whether through rental assistance or down payment assistance or increased funding for proven and successful resources like the Housing Trust Fund and the Workforce Housing Loan Program (WHLP).
The data shows us that the need for more affordable housing is present in rural and urban areas, and natural disasters place additional pressure on communities that were already dealing with a growing housing need. This means our investments and solutions need to support the stability of North Carolinians in proactive and preventative ways, not just reactively. This might look like property tax relief for long time owners, down payment assistance, rental assistance, investment in legal services and housing counseling, eviction and foreclosure prevention and much more.
Much like roads, utilities, and schools, housing is a part of the infrastructure we depend on each day. It is foundational for economic development, workforce stability, public health, and community resilience. These snapshots are just one of the many examples of housing need in North Carolina. Even well-functioning and growing markets cannot consistently deliver homes affordable to North Carolina’s communities. Our solutions need to be practical and scalable for the variety of needs our state presents, and our systems need to be able to prepare and serve the entire housing continuum. Because every North Carolinian deserves a home in which to live with dignity and opportunity.
*Inspired by the Affordable City by Shane Phillips
What next?
Join us for Housing Day 2026!
Join us on April 29 for NC Housing Day to educate members of the NC General Assembly about the growing housing need in North Carolina and inform them of the critical role the state has to play in addressing and investing in solutions that meet the scale of the need. Registration is open now through April 3, 2026.
Dig into the data!
If you’re interested in seeing profiles from previous years – click here.
If you’re interested in the methodology – click here.
Download the 2026 Data Table here.
If you have questions, would like to connect about your profile and how to use this tool in your work or policy and advocacy goals, or submit a note or correction, feel free to reach out to our Senior Policy Analyst Anna Patterson at apatterson@nchousing.org.
