Lake Junaluska, NC population, income and ZIP codes

Lake Junaluska CDP is a small town in North Carolina, with 2,903 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #263 of 777 ranked by population — larger than 66% of them. The median age here is 53.2 years against 39.1 nationally, a markedly older profile that usually tracks retirees staying put and younger households leaving for work. At this population the ACS sample is small, so the margin of error around every dollar figure below is wide — treat the numbers as a band, not a point, and expect them to move between annual releases without the place itself changing.

Households in Lake Junaluska CDP earn a median of $82,115 a year, 4.6% above the national figure of $78,538 and 34% above the $61,228 median for the 459 North Carolina cities we cover. The median is the midpoint household, not an average, so a handful of very high earners cannot drag it upward the way they distort a mean. Poverty reaches 7.2% of residents here, below the 12.4% national rate.

The typical owner-occupied home in Lake Junaluska CDP is valued at $329,600, 8.6% above the national figure and 50% above the $219,800 peer median, while median gross rent runs $1,135 a month, 19.3% below the national figure, or roughly $13,620 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 16.6% of gross pay toward that rent against the federal 30% cost-burden threshold, so renting here is cheap relative to what people here earn. The home-price-to-income ratio works out to 4×, against roughly 3.9× nationally, so buying is harder here than in the average US market. 76% of occupied homes are owner-occupied versus 65% nationally, so the market leans toward owners. The rent line includes utilities paid by the tenant, a definition worth remembering when comparing it against a landlord's quoted rate.

A median age of 53.2 puts Lake Junaluska CDP well into retirement-weighted territory, which pulls median household income down even where household wealth is high, because retirement draws are counted differently from wages.

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.