Boone, NC population, income and ZIP codes

Boone town is a mid-size town in North Carolina, with 19,534 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #50 of 777 ranked by population — larger than 93% of them. The median age here is 21.5 years against 39.1 nationally, a distinctly younger profile, typical of places with students, military posts or a fast-growing family population. Places under 65,000 residents only appear in the five-year release, never the one-year file, so these values pool sixty months of responses and lag the current year by design.

Households in Boone town earn a median of $28,633 a year, 63.5% below the national figure of $78,538 and 53% below the $61,228 median for the 459 North Carolina cities we cover. Household income here is measured before tax and pooled across everyone at the address, which is why it reads higher than typical individual earnings in the same area. Poverty reaches 52.1% of residents here, well above the 12.4% national rate, which is the single clearest signal in this dataset that median income here is carried by a narrow band of households.

The typical owner-occupied home in Boone town is valued at $373,600, 23.1% above the national figure and 70% above the $219,800 peer median, while median gross rent runs $1,080 a month, 23.2% below the national figure, or roughly $12,960 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 45.3% of gross pay toward that rent against the federal 30% cost-burden threshold, so renting here is severely stretched — a median-income renter clears the cost-burden line by a wide margin before utilities beyond the gross-rent definition. The home-price-to-income ratio works out to 13×, against roughly 3.9× nationally, so buying is out of reach on local earnings alone and the ownership market leans on outside income, equity or dual high earners. 23.7% of occupied homes are owner-occupied versus 65% nationally, a renter-majority market, so rent figures matter more here than the home-value line. Rent is reported gross — contract rent plus tenant-paid utilities — which is why it runs above the advertised price on a listing for the same unit.

Home values sit at 13× median household income, far past the 3.9× national mark, so ownership costs here are set by something other than local wages — second homes, retirees with equity, or commuters earning elsewhere. A median age of 21.5 means a large student or early-career population; income medians in places like this understate household resources, since many residents are supported from outside the address.

All values below were released by the Census for this exact geography, with no gap-filling on our side. Small-area estimates still carry wider margins of error than state or national figures, so check the linked ACS tables before relying on them for lending, appraisal or legal work.