Morehead City, NC population, income and ZIP codes

Morehead City town is a mid-size town in North Carolina, with 9,696 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #98 of 777 ranked by population — larger than 87% of them. The median age here is 44.1 years against 39.1 nationally, a slightly older profile than the country as a whole. 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 Morehead City town earn a median of $53,718 a year, 31.6% below the national figure of $78,538 and 12% below 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 17.4% of residents here, above the 12.4% national rate.

The typical owner-occupied home in Morehead City town is valued at $330,900, 9.1% above the national figure and 51% above the $219,800 peer median, while median gross rent runs $1,122 a month, 20.2% below the national figure, or roughly $13,464 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 25.1% of gross pay toward that rent against the federal 30% cost-burden threshold, so renting here is within the standard affordability guideline. The home-price-to-income ratio works out to 6.2×, 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. 47.3% of occupied homes are owner-occupied versus 65% nationally, so the market leans more heavily on renters. Gross rent folds in the utilities a tenant pays separately, so it is closer to the real monthly outlay than a headline rent figure.

Home values sit at 6.2× 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.

No figure on this page is estimated by us; each one comes straight from the published ACS tables for this area. 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.