Oak City, NC population, income and ZIP codes

Oak City town is a very small community in North Carolina, with 472 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #596 of 777 ranked by population — larger than 23% of them. The median age here is 50 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 Oak City town earn a median of $60,739 a year, 22.7% below the national figure of $78,538 and within a couple of points of 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 3.6% of residents here, less than half the 12.4% national rate.

The typical owner-occupied home in Oak City town is valued at $87,400, 71.2% below the national figure and 60% below the $219,800 peer median, while median gross rent runs $950 a month, 32.4% below the national figure, or roughly $11,400 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 18.8% 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 1.4×, against roughly 3.9× nationally, so purchase prices are unusually low against local pay, the pattern in places where supply is plentiful and wage growth has been flat. 42.9% of occupied homes are owner-occupied versus 65% nationally, a renter-majority market, so rent figures matter more here than the home-value line. Gross rent folds in the utilities a tenant pays separately, so it is closer to the real monthly outlay than a headline rent figure.

A median age of 50 puts Oak City town 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. With 472 residents, a handful of survey responses moves every median on this page. Compare Oak City town against its county rather than against national figures.

Every value on this page is published directly by the Census for this area — nothing is modelled or interpolated. 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.